attraction, that may not include, for example, long discussions about my marriage, without letting that relationship spiral out of control. Yes, I can! I’m too conscious of my motivations to embark on an affair. In my life, one thing never just leads to another. But a friendship? A friendship I could do. A friendship might even be easy.
About two miles from my parents’ house, just off I-43, there is a place called Jupiter’s Palace of Cheese. In a sea of strip malls, it stands bravely alone and unchanging, set back from the road, protected by the moat of its oversized parking lot. When I was growing up, we would drive past Jupiter’s Palace, sometimes as often as two or three times a week—on the way to the grocery store or to Heather’s violin lesson or to the ice cream parlor nearby. It’s still a regular part of my geography: every time I visit my parents or go to the dentist or do an errand in their part of town, I see it. But I’ve never been inside. As a child, on every car ride, I would stop bickering with Heather as we’d approach Jupiter’s Palace of Cheese, and I’d watch its spires and colorful flags loom closer, tiny in the distance and growing larger, until we’d zoom past, and I’d crane my neck as the turrets and minarets receded in the distance. Jupiter’s Palace of Cheese! I pictured a fairy tale world full of dazzling, dairy-rich interplanetary surprises: a fabulous fortress of cheese, soft mozzarella stars gently twinkling in the sky and—naturally—a green cheese moon shining. I imagined a Brie princess trapped in one of the towers, while all sorts of complicated magical passageways paved with dangerous Swiss, or maybe more solid Gouda, led to her prison. And a cheddar king ruled over his fantastic galactic domain with a string-cheese scepter. I was a strange girl with an active internal life and many imaginary friends with whom I conversed under my breath and exchanged complicated jokes.
We never stopped at Jupiter’s Palace of Cheese. We could have, easily; my parents would have been happy to indulge me in this, as they did in every other way. But as a child, it never occurred to me to ask. It was as if I knew, on some level, that Jupiter’s Palace wasn’t real, and not just the universe of otherworldly cheese, but the part I could see, with my own eyes. How could anything so wonderful be true? And then, as I got older, I developed a nostalgia for it, even though it continued to exist, even as we continued to drive past it on our journeys. I realized that Jupiter’s Palace of Cheese would probably turn out to be a tacky little store, a flimsy prefab hut full of displays of cheese molds in the shape of castles and, well, I couldn’t bring myself to conjure what other fantasy-killing products would be plied there. Martian Muenster? An assortment of cosmic jams and jellies? These days, I pass by it with a pleasant longing: I both want to, and never want to, step inside. Jupiter’s Palace of Cheese has become for me the one fantasy I can harbor boldly because it will never bludgeon me with its lumpy reality. Jupiter’s Palace of Cheese is all the things that will never disappoint me, all the things I will never do.
But what if I do, someday, venture inside? Who knows what will greet me? It may turn out to be everything I dreamed of. That’s the thing. The shiny mystery of it.
David Keller walks through the door and unwraps his long scarf from his neck. He’s tall. His longish dark hair flops just a little bit in his eyes. He looks like someone I’ve known forever. I close my eyes for a second. My hands are in my lap. I slip my wedding ring into my pocket, and then I wave.
“Hi!” he says, before he’s even made it all the way over to me, and a wide smile colonizes his face. Something inside me gives way—like a mudslide, like when you are very happy, or about to throw up.
“Hi!” I say back. I feel goofy, overcome. He stands near me, pulls out a chair and drapes his
About two miles from my parents’ house, just off I-43, there is a place called Jupiter’s Palace of Cheese. In a sea of strip malls, it stands bravely alone and unchanging, set back from the road, protected by the moat of its oversized parking lot. When I was growing up, we would drive past Jupiter’s Palace, sometimes as often as two or three times a week—on the way to the grocery store or to Heather’s violin lesson or to the ice cream parlor nearby. It’s still a regular part of my geography: every time I visit my parents or go to the dentist or do an errand in their part of town, I see it. But I’ve never been inside. As a child, on every car ride, I would stop bickering with Heather as we’d approach Jupiter’s Palace of Cheese, and I’d watch its spires and colorful flags loom closer, tiny in the distance and growing larger, until we’d zoom past, and I’d crane my neck as the turrets and minarets receded in the distance. Jupiter’s Palace of Cheese! I pictured a fairy tale world full of dazzling, dairy-rich interplanetary surprises: a fabulous fortress of cheese, soft mozzarella stars gently twinkling in the sky and—naturally—a green cheese moon shining. I imagined a Brie princess trapped in one of the towers, while all sorts of complicated magical passageways paved with dangerous Swiss, or maybe more solid Gouda, led to her prison. And a cheddar king ruled over his fantastic galactic domain with a string-cheese scepter. I was a strange girl with an active internal life and many imaginary friends with whom I conversed under my breath and exchanged complicated jokes.
We never stopped at Jupiter’s Palace of Cheese. We could have, easily; my parents would have been happy to indulge me in this, as they did in every other way. But as a child, it never occurred to me to ask. It was as if I knew, on some level, that Jupiter’s Palace wasn’t real, and not just the universe of otherworldly cheese, but the part I could see, with my own eyes. How could anything so wonderful be true? And then, as I got older, I developed a nostalgia for it, even though it continued to exist, even as we continued to drive past it on our journeys. I realized that Jupiter’s Palace of Cheese would probably turn out to be a tacky little store, a flimsy prefab hut full of displays of cheese molds in the shape of castles and, well, I couldn’t bring myself to conjure what other fantasy-killing products would be plied there. Martian Muenster? An assortment of cosmic jams and jellies? These days, I pass by it with a pleasant longing: I both want to, and never want to, step inside. Jupiter’s Palace of Cheese has become for me the one fantasy I can harbor boldly because it will never bludgeon me with its lumpy reality. Jupiter’s Palace of Cheese is all the things that will never disappoint me, all the things I will never do.
But what if I do, someday, venture inside? Who knows what will greet me? It may turn out to be everything I dreamed of. That’s the thing. The shiny mystery of it.
David Keller walks through the door and unwraps his long scarf from his neck. He’s tall. His longish dark hair flops just a little bit in his eyes. He looks like someone I’ve known forever. I close my eyes for a second. My hands are in my lap. I slip my wedding ring into my pocket, and then I wave.
“Hi!” he says, before he’s even made it all the way over to me, and a wide smile colonizes his face. Something inside me gives way—like a mudslide, like when you are very happy, or about to throw up.
“Hi!” I say back. I feel goofy, overcome. He stands near me, pulls out a chair and drapes his
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