by Sarah Gerard
“What do your parents do?” his father asks me.
“My father is an entrepreneur,” I say. “My mother is a bartender.”
“An entrepreneur,” says his mother, smiling at his father.
“What do you do?” I say.
“I generate ad content for political campaigns,” he says.
“That’s something else you need to think about,” says his mother. “Advertising for your movie. Who’s going to pay for that?”
“Can you stop?” says Aaron.
“What? What did I say?” She looks at me.
“I hate to say it, but she’s right,” says his father.
“Can you guys stop?”
“You should be using this time to look for a job,” says his mother.
“I know it’s hard for you to understand this, but this is me looking for a job.”
“Really? It’s going to pay your rent when you finally move out?”
“It’s looking for a job in the long term.”
“Oh, because it seems to me like you’re thinking very short-term.”
Aaron stands from the table and leaves abruptly. We watch the empty door frame as he stomps down the hallway and up the stairs, and slams his bedroom door several times. His mother looks at his father with a self-satisfied smile, shaking her head in disbelief. “How do you like that?” she says to me.
I find Aaron in his childhood bed, hiding beneath a pillow.
“They’re so fucking mean,” he sobs. From downstairs we hear the sounds of his parents doing the dishes. Aaron’s bedroom has an instrument corner containing a mandolin, a guitar, and an accordion.
“I have to get out of here,” he says.
“We’ll get you out of here,” I say, cradling him.
Thirteen
With Aaron’s last paycheck from the Greta Gerwig film, he takes me out to celebrate at Minetta Tavern. It’s a Greenwich Village relic with red leather booths and chessboard tile, with caricatures of dead actors adorning the walls. We order two glasses of Bordeaux and steak frites, with a plate of bread doused in butter. I don’t consider many things sacred, but in the ensuing weeks since leaving Seth, I have come to feel that my relationship with Aaron is sacred. We’re standing at a pivotal intersection in both of our lives. It feels preordained that the stakes are low for both of us: neither of us has bad credit, college loans, or children to worry about, and that leaves this period of our lives free as a space of mutation and transformation. Ours may well become a legendary artistic collaboration. Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe. Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid.
I envision myself becoming a softer, more introverted, more introspective, deeper, and more prolific person as Aaron’s creative and romantic partner. I’ve wanted to be sensitive to Seth’s feelings, so have deactivated my Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts. I’ve told Aaron that in general I don’t like having my picture taken, and I ask him not to post about us. Privately, I don’t want to rub my new happiness in Seth’s face. I want to insulate Aaron from the judgment and interference of people who think they know things about me. My past mistakes should not reflect poorly on him. Aaron has done nothing wrong.
My phone rings and I wouldn’t normally answer it at the table, but it seems Odessa is in crisis. This is the third day in a row she’s called me, and people in our age group don’t call. My work schedule, lack of privacy since moving into Leonard’s, and poor reception on the subway have made it difficult for Odessa and me to talk, so I’ve kept our conversations brief. She asks me how I’m doing, and I say I’m processing, resting, and practicing self-care. She asks me how I’m spending my free time. This seems invasive, but I tell her I’m cocooning.
“Reading,” I say. “Working on True Love.”
“The script with Aaron?”
“Did I tell you about that?”
“You sent me his song.”
“Right.”
“What’s going on with you two?”
“We’ve decided to approach the thriller writer about executive-producing.”
“That’s not what I asked you.”
“I’m sorry, what are you asking?”
Aaron touches my shoulder, and I look up to see our waiter depositing two steaks on the table, pooling in blood. A man with a Polaroid camera exits the back room and begins circulating throughout the restaurant, taking people’s pictures. Two tables down from us, a Midwestern father hands him a bill and his flashbulb discharges. He sets the photo facedown on the tablecloth.
“Don’t treat me like a moron,” says Odessa.
“We’re looking at apartments together,” I say. “It makes sense financially.”
“Are you ready for that?”
“Are you okay?” says Aaron.
“Can I call you later?” I say.
“I need to tell you something,” she says.
“What?”
“I’m pregnant.”
The photographer reaches us and Aaron hands him a bill. The flash ignites and he sets the photo before me, emerging from the developer. My face is obscured by my phone’s reflection.
ODESSA COMES TO New York the next week under the pretense of visiting her ex-stepfather, to tell him the news in person. She keeps in touch with Dennis because he sometimes gives her money, though her mother was only married to him for a year shortly after Odessa gave birth to Maxima. I have always wondered whether he and Odessa were sleeping together. I assume she’s slept with most people. When she arrives at his Riverside Drive apartment, she calls me and says, “Dennis is drunk and on pills. We can’t stay here.” Her voice is muffled, like she’s whispering in a closet. It’s one in the morning, and I wonder for more than a moment whether this was her plan all along. Being drunk and on pills is not usually a deal-breaker for her. But what choice do I have now but to tell her to come to Leonard’s? If Max weren’t in the picture, I wouldn’t, but I can’t put a child out on the street. I’ve always felt protective of Max. I’m not a monster. I’m convinced that Odessa is psychic. She knew what poor timing this would be for me.
“I have to deal with this,” I tell Aaron. I leave him in the daybed and sneak through the door into Leonard’s room. His breathing is long and shallow. It had become necessary for me at a certain point to explain Aaron’s presence to him. We’d overslept one morning and exited the closet-bedroom together. Leonard was in the kitchen. “This is Aaron,” I said, standing there in my oversize T-shirt, with no pants on. “He’s a friend. He lives on Staten Island, but he’s working on a movie shooting nearby. They went late on set and he has to be back this morning. I hope that’s okay.”
I kneel at Leonard’s bedside now and appeal to him, not as a friend but as a sworn guardian of security. “My sister is pregnant,” I say. “Her baby’s father is a violent felon.” So he won’t be concerned that Ian will come here, I add, “He’s in Florida. She ran away from him and she thought she could stay with me. If she and my niece could just sleep in the living room for two nights, it would really help them out. Please.”
ODESSA TAKES THE daybed, Max takes the sofa, and Aaron and I share a blanket on the floor. I call out of work the next morning saying I have a family emergency. I pass my duties on to an ambitious young bookseller with aspirations for a raise that will never come because she is female and too polite to ask for anything that isn’t offered. This counts as one of my sick days, and I don’t get paid if I’m not on the clock. I mention this fact to Odessa as I hang up the phone. I feel like the timing of her calamity is something she’s doing to me personally. We sit on the fire escape and she lights a joint, explaining that it helps with her morning sickness. Leonard lives in the Hasidic neighborhood of Borough Park. All the windows have cages on them, large enough for infants to play inside, suspended above the sidewalks.
“I know you think I fucked up,” she says, passing it to me. The sun cuts into my eyes. Leonard has left for work, and Aaron for his parents’ house, and Max is still sleeping. Odessa has missed three periods an
d, looking at her, I foretell that she’s about to ask me whether she should have an abortion.
“What would you do if you were me?”
I’m distraught. “Do what you think is best,” I say. She’ll do what she wants. Most likely she’ll have Ian’s baby. Odessa has always been afraid to rise to her true potential. I’ll never forget when she told me what Mission had said to her: “Nina is right, Odessa. You could have gone so much further in life if you hadn’t had a baby.” I denied ever saying it. We were at a house party when she confronted me, and Max was eleven, waiting outside in the car. I felt like Mission had been paraphrasing and taking me out of context. I agreed with the sentiment. I just wouldn’t have said it like that to her face.
“When did this start with Aaron?”
I stare at her blankly.
“Did you do it in Seth’s bed?”
“Nope, never there.”
“How do you think he would feel?”
“You know, I never really thought about that, Odessa. That’s a really good question. You should ask him.”
“Aaron is obviously in love with you.”
“I’m in love with him.”
“Are you, though?”
“Yes. Actually, we’re getting married,” I say, and I hope that this gives me power. I hope it justifies what is otherwise unjustifiable because love has no explanation and cannot be moralized. If I’m in a trance, I am not in control of myself; if I’m gesturing toward a higher purpose, sacrificing my self-respect for the greater good, then all is forgiven and understood. I see that Odessa views my condition as analogous to hers. I see that she wants to have Ian’s baby and that, as with me, there is no rational reason.
“When did you decide this?”
“Just this week.”
“Does Aaron know about Seth?”
“Shut up,” I say.
She shuts up.
“Shut the fuck up,” I say, “for once.”
“God, Nina.” She watches a Hasidic child exit the back door of his row house into a walled-in courtyard. “Are we going to spend any alone time with you while we’re here, or is it all going to be with Aaron?”
“I didn’t ask you to be here.”
“Did it ever occur to you that I’m not only here for you?”
“Did it ever occur to you that I can’t help you right now?”
WE TAKE OUR place in the Marriages/Deaths line at the Brooklyn courthouse. I wear a cream cotton dress I’ve had since high school, when I stole it from the Charlotte Russe in Tyrone Mall. It has tiny black flowers around the neckline, and it ties in the back with a big bow. Aaron is wearing dirty white Vans with black jeans and his father’s collared shirt, with no tie. Max is scrolling on Instagram, and it’s unclear whether they understand or Odessa has explained to them or they care about the gravity of what is happening. A large African family gathers behind us, dressed in sequins, and Odessa openly stares at them.
In my purse I’m carrying the wax-sealed bottle containing the vows I wrote with Aaron last night on the daybed, while Odessa, Max, and Leonard were watching Blade Runner in the living room. We sealed it with Crayolas and a Bic lighter, and after the ceremony, we’ll leave Odessa and Max at the courthouse steps and walk to the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge to toss our promises into the East River, entrusting them to the infinite flow.
I vow to support you.
I vow to respect you.
I vow to protect you.
I vow to listen.
I vow never to lie to you.
On the metal chairs where we wait, Odessa tells me that Jared is now monogamous with Sofia. I can’t imagine what conversation needed to happen for him to agree to it. I think back to that night on his couch when he laid his head in my lap. I thought then maybe it would happen between us. I’m anxious I’m being deceptive even in harboring this memory. There’s a feeling that surrounds this state of mind that I didn’t create and can’t control, an overwhelming hunger driving me in search of blood, an emotion that dilates, that I might see more clearly through obscurity. “They fucked in the back of Claudette’s car on the shoulder of I-4,” says Odessa. “Then Sofia read his texts and found out he was fucking like seven other women. He texted Claudette saying, ‘There’s an email coming for you and you’re not gonna like it.’ The email was telling her not to interfere in his relationship anymore, and not to contact him again. Claudette thinks Sofia made him send it.”
“Jared isn’t monogamous,” I say.
“He says he is,” says Odessa. “And Claudette is asexual now.”
They call our number, and the four of us approach the Plexiglas window. I learn while filling out our marriage application that Aaron is a Leo. An inexplicable change occurs on the courthouse’s cheap plastic dais when I look into his face and know that he is forevermore my husband. I am younger and older than I’ve ever been. I am sinking into a new dimension of joint selfhood. I make myself a clean and perfect creature, the most perfect, selfless creature.
Fourteen
I ask my parents to Skype with me, saying that I need to tell them something important. I give them no further information. My gut tells me that my mother will make time for drama. In my text I apologize that it’s hard for her, with her schedule. I explain that I know she’s been in the area lately, helping Nana move into a new nursing home.
It’s the first time I’ve seen either of my parents’ faces in months, and the first time in years that I’ve seen them in the same room. The sight of them side by side is jarring. For a second I feel like I’m twelve. They’ve convened at my father’s house, sitting at the island counter. Aaron is next to me on the daybed at Leonard’s. My parents examine him.
I show them my ring, which we bought for twenty-five dollars at a prop store near Port Authority bus station. I’d wanted a ring that belonged to a dead woman. I’d wanted it to have a patina. The old woman who sold it to me had worked out of the third floor of the warehouse building since the seventies. She’d filled it with antiques and cobwebbed furniture that she rented out to theaters.
I followed her through the dusty pathways to a carved chiffonier with glass doors from which she extracted a thin gold band with no diamond. It was engraved with June 9, 1915. Exactly one hundred years prior to that moment. It wasn’t possible to see this as anything other than a sign from the universe. Aaron’s ring was cheap, from Chinatown. A simple, unbroken silver.
I thought telling the story would add levity to the reality that we could not afford proper rings, that I could not get married like a regular person.
“We wanted privacy,” I tell my parents, almost adding that it isn’t personal.
We sit in silence until my mother says, “It makes me wonder what else you haven’t told us.”
“I’ve barely talked to you in months,” says my father. “You never answer the phone.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is,” says my mother. “Who is this person? Excuse me,” she says to Aaron.
“My friend Aaron.”
“Your friend?”
“The one I wrote True Love with.”
“You wrote what?”
“The movie.”
She thinks about this. She leans in to whisper something to my father. He shakes his head at the Formica counter. “You didn’t tell us about that.”
“Yes, I did.”
Aaron reaches for my hand. It’s embarrassing to touch him in front of my parents. I pull away.
“Did you know it was my birthday yesterday?” says my mother.
“I’m sorry.”
I’m not good at remembering birthdays. I’m not good at remembering people. I’m not good at keeping in touch with people on the phone. I’m not good at carrying on an enthusiastic conversation. I’m not good at ignoring what else is happening in a room. I’m not good at being vulnerable in the presence of third parties. I’m not comfortable with the silence between speech.
“I feel like you don’t even care.”
/> “We’re not mad at you, Nina,” says my father. “We just wish we could have been there.”
“I look forward to meeting you both,” says Aaron.
I EMAIL THEM all the following week from his parents’ house. We’ve gone there to retrieve my boxes. We’ve convinced a landlord to invest in us as newlyweds, and tomorrow we plan to celebrate together in a café in our new neighborhood of Kensington, Brooklyn. We enjoy Kensington for its comically Anglophile name, especially considering the majority of our neighbors are South Asian. We are part of the southward creep of gentrification. We have a locally famous hummus restaurant around the corner on a main street of brunch cafés, coffee shops, and a food co-op.
Mom and Dad, you’ve expressed that you’re in shock because you don’t know Aaron that well, I say, writing on my phone in his parents’ guest bathroom. They recently remodeled it in lavender. This is understandable. We mentioned that we went to school together. Aaron roomed with a good friend of mine. We had other mutual friends, but weren’t close until years later, when we became pen pals. This was around the time of Numina. In fact, Aaron has a story in the issue I edited—feel free to revisit the copy I sent you. The story is quite good, if incomplete, but that was sort of the idea. Dad, Aaron has worked on commercials. You have this in common. You’re both extremely convincing. Mom, Aaron’s mom is a teacher, 2nd grade next year. You’ll be happy to learn that his family votes Democrat. Aaron is a year and a half younger than I am. That said, he’s a man, not a boy. He treats me like an adult with a mind of my own. This is much appreciated. He gives me plenty of space. He’s smart. He’s funny. He’s also handsome, isn’t he? He’s nice to me and everyone else, and has friends of his own. Everyone who meets him likes him immediately. I’m sure he’s happy to answer any questions you may have. Aaron, do you have any questions for my parents? Reply-all. Love, Nina.
I leave the bathroom and look for Aaron. I told him I did not want to spend the night here after the way his mother reacted to our elopement, but the dessert portion of the dinner ended hours ago. When we told her we were married over the phone, she screamed at us for almost an hour. Sitting next to me in his car, Aaron held her up between us on speaker so that we could jointly pacify her. She demanded to know why smart people would do something so stupid. “You need a job to find an apartment to live like married people. Or did you think you would still live with us?” she said. I apologized and begged her not to be angry. I told her I liked and respected her. We later learned she’d discovered earlier that day that Aaron’s younger brother, who still lives at home, had tattooed a paragraph of blended, unattributed platitudes by dead white men on his calf. She saw it when he walked to the bathroom that morning in his briefs. Hearing how distraught she was, Aaron rushed in to save her, allowing her to shift the focus of her hysterics to his own betrayal, receiving the blows of her anger, and responding with remorse and reassurance. Of course he still loves her; we both do. Let him prove that he won’t disappoint her. She ended up cosigning our lease. She paid Aaron’s half of the rent and deposit.
