In the Stars

by Stacia Deutsch

  As the sun peeks out from behind the moon, I think about my mom. With the passing years, her memory has faded. I know I look like her, but I wish I could recall the way she walked or how she laughed; did she snort? Or cover her mouth when she giggled? Was it from her chest or a rumble from her stomach? I struggle to remember the cadence of her voice. I wish I could remember all the little details better. I wish she could hold me close. I wish she was here.

  “Mom?” I say softly, my words rising on the whisper of wind. “I need you.”

  “We both do.” My father’s voice rides on a breeze blowing behind my back. I turn to look at him. He’s coming through the rooftop door. “We both do,” he says again, then comes toward me, arms outstretched. “There was something about the way you looked tonight when you left the apartment, I thought you might like some company.”

  It wasn’t my dad who I hoped would be on the roof tonight, but he’s right. I do want company and he’s offering.

  I can’t speak, because I start to cry. Without a word, my father pulls me into a bear hug, so warm and comfortable and tight that I cry even harder.

  “I’ve missed so many opportunities,” he says. “Now you’re headed off to college and I wish I could get those moments back.”

  Without breaking his hold, he slips his hand into his suit pocket and hands me a handkerchief. I take it and blow my nose. I’ve never known what to do with a borrowed handkerchief after you’ve blown your nose into it. But my father does. He takes it from me, snot and all, and slips it back into his pocket. Only when my tears have stopped does he pull away to take a long look at me.

  My father brushes a finger over my cheek, carrying off the last remaining tear.

  “I love you, Sylvie,” he says. “I haven’t done a very good job of showing you over the years, but I do, you know.”

  I nod because if I say anything I’ll start to cry again. The truth is, I’ve always known he loves me. In his own quiet way, Dad’s always been there. Even when he was simply sitting on my bed, or silently reading his paper at breakfast. Sometimes, he even started a conversation with me, asking how or why, on those occasions it was me who kept us at a distance. I chose not to engage.

  Tonight, he’s opened the door. Head held high, I am going to walk through it.

  “Dad?” I begin the conversation I came to talk to Mom about. “Have you ever wondered why I want to go to Yale to study astronomy?”

  “You’ve always wanted to walk in your mom’s footsteps,” my father says, seemingly puzzled. “Have you changed your mind?

  “Not really.” Then, I admit, “Well, sort of.”

  “Are you all right?” He looks worried. My father doesn’t ask for the details of what’s happened. He just leaves his question, his concern for me, hanging in the cool night air. He might not be a man of many words, but in this moment, he’s asked the right ones.

  “I’ll be okay,” I tell him. “I’m not sure what I want, yet,” I pause to change conversational direction. “How’d you know Mom was the one for you?”

  My father takes a step back from me and turns. He heads over to the edge of the rooftop and peers out at the night sky. I follow.

  “There was magic in her kisses,” he tells me, and instinctively I know if I could turn up the brilliance of the stars, I’d see tears in his eyes. There are tears in mine. I don’t ask for the handkerchief again, choosing to wipe my face on my sleeve instead.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I figured you’d say that.” We look out at the stars for a while, side by side. Daughter and Dad.

  My father finally breaks the silence. “Well?” he says. Even though we’re in the midst of our big reconciliation, should I have expected him to speak in a complete sentence? He’s still the guy he was a half hour ago. It’s me who’s changed.

  “Well, what?” I ask him.

  “Ask her,” he says simply.

  “Ask who what?”

  “You came up here tonight to ask your mother a question.”

  “No I didn’t,” I begin to protest. “I came to see the eclipse.”

  “Are you sure?” I know he’s encouraging me to say whatever’s on my mind.

  “I suppose—Oh,” I reply, surprising myself when a question comes to me like a supernova explosion. I suddenly know exactly what I want. There are two things and one of them I can have right now. All I have to do is ask.

  “Mom,” I call out into the night. “Would you be terribly disappointed if I didn’t go to Yale?”

  “Tell her why,” my father prods. “She’ll want to know the reason.” It feels as if he knew I was coming to this decision all along. Maybe he did. He might not have commented, but he’s been around a lot lately. Watching. Wondering. And waiting for me to acknowledge what’s been inside me all along: I’m my father’s daughter. As much, or perhaps even more, than my mother’s.

  “Mom,” I say boldly, looking up at the stars and watching them blink at me. Or are they winking? “I still want to be an astronomer,” I tell her. “But I also want to sew. If I go to Case Western Reserve, I can study astronomy and keep making costumes with Jennifer and Tanisha.” I pause, wondering if I need to explain who Jennifer and Tanisha are, then decide she already knows. “They offered to pay me to sew for them once, maybe I can do it to earn money while I’m at school,” I tell her. Then turning away from the stars, I look at my father and add, “Astronomy’s in my heart. Sewing’s in my blood.”

  He smiles at me and wraps his arm around me. “She’s proud of you no matter what you do,” he tells me. Then adds in a whisper near my ear, “I am, too.”

  “What about the Yale scholarship?” Being practical, I’m going to need to work out the details of my college shift.

  “I bet Case Western has scholarships, too.” He grins and adds, “I’m glad you’ll be in state. Yale was too far away.”

  I smile warmly at my dad and then, together, we turn to look up at the sky.

  The eclipse is beautiful. But it’s a shooting star that seals my fate.

  As a future astronomer, I can tell you, on the average night shooting stars occur every ten to fifteen minutes. But as Sylvie Townsend, daughter of Bernard and Miriam Townsend, I know this particular star was shooting just for me.

  Twenty-two

  Follow your instincts. Trust your gut.

  www.astrology4stars.com

  I ask Adam to meet me at the Corner Café after swimming practice is over. This isn’t a date. Not a real one, at least. What’s the opposite of “date”? Undate? Antidate?

  No matter what you call it, it’s time.

  Time to tell him what I’ve been thinking.

  Time to break up.

  Breakups suck. Even when you know for certain that you’re doing the right thing, they suck. This is my first breakup so it has an added layer of extra sucky-ness.

  Adam sits across from me in the booth. I take a sip of water, as much to steel my nerves as to keep my hands out of his reach. I don’t want to be holding hands with him when I tell him.

  “Adam,” I begin, then stop. I rehearsed this last night. It went smoothly in front of my bathroom mirror. My heart wasn’t racing the Indianapolis 500 and sweat wasn’t dripping down my back. I close my eyes and begin again.

  “This relationship isn’t working for me,” I say in one breath. “I want to break up.” Okay, so that wasn’t very eloquent, but in a pressured moment, I couldn’t have done any better.

  Adam sits silently soaking in the full impact of what I’ve said then asks simply, “Why?” He doesn’t look torn up or like he’s going to cry or anything like that, he just looks surprised. As if he expected a different conversation entirely when he came to meet me.

  “Something isn’t clicking for me.” I don’t know exactly how to explain, so I stumble on my words as I say, “It’s not you. You’re amazing. Awesome. You’re definitely a prince charming, or a superman, just not mine.”

  Adam doesn’t look like he is ready to formulate a response, so I ramble on.
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  “It’s like a puzzle,” I tell him, using the only metaphor that makes sense. “You’re so stoked when you get to the last few pieces. You’ve spent hours working on it. It’s been fun and great. But then, you discover a few pieces don’t fit. No matter how hard you try to force them, they’re the wrong shape or color.”

  Like when your boyfriend thinks your dream is a cute hobby, or if he’s part of a social group that makes you uncomfortable no matter how hard you try, or the kisses just aren’t right. Then there’s also the problem that you can’t stop thinking about someone else.

  “If the last pieces don’t slip into place, the whole puzzle’s off and you have to stop trying to force it.”

  Adam nods. “Is this about what happened with Gavin?” he asks. “You know I don’t hang out with him anymore.”

  “I know,” I assure him. “This has nothing to do with Gavin.” Not directly, anyway. “A lot of the puzzle pieces are out of whack.”

  He sighs. “I suppose we were going to have to break up eventually.”

  “Huh?” Graceful, eh? I sound like a screech owl, but come on, how could he possibly have known what I was thinking?

  “Oh, Sylvie,” he says, reaching out and peeling my hands off my water glass, where they’ve been this whole time. He takes my hands in his. “I like you. I really like you. But I’m not in love with you.” He squeezes my hands. “You’re fun to be with. Smart. Clever. And a good kisser.”

  Did I just hear him correctly? He thinks I’m a good kisser!

  “But I’m not looking to fall in love,” he tells me. “Like you and Yale, I have college dreams, too.” I suddenly feel bad that I never told him I got the scholarship. Or that I’ve turned it down.

  Adam releases my hands. “I wanted to go to prom with you. After that there’s only a month before graduation; we’d have had to go our separate ways at that point anyway. I was going to talk to you after the dance.” He smiles. “You have your dreams and I have mine. Our path together would eventually come to an end.”

  He gives me a sweet look and adds, “Unless you’ve decided to go to UCLA.”

  I smile. “No, thanks.” There’s no reason to tell him I faxed over a new scholarship application to Case Western this morning.

  “I didn’t think so.” Maybe he knows me a little better than I’m giving him credit for.

  My heartbeat has settled back to normal. The sweat on my back has dried.

  “It wasn’t meant to be,” I say.

  “Nope,” Adam agrees. Then he offers, “We can still go to the prom together if you want.” He quickly adds, “As friends.”

  I think about it for a second. I chose viewing the eclipse (and hanging out with my dad), over making the Cinderella dress. I’d have to work myself to the bone if I want to wear it tomorrow night and that seems … well … pointless.

  “I don’t think so,” I tell him. But then I grow concerned. I don’t want Adam to have to go alone, and he did rent a costume for the dance.

  “Would you mind if I asked Melanie?” he asks me. “We hung out last night during the eclipse and I think she’d like to go.”

  I start to ask who Melanie is, but quickly realize she’s Mrs. Kelsow’s daughter. I smile. “Sounds good.”

  It’s getting late. We decide to go ahead and have dinner together. One final hurrah for our romance and a first step for our friendship.

  And as I order the spaghetti, I can’t help but feel deeply satisfied.

  I’m beginning to think that nearly four weeks after the diamond fell out of my mother’s ring, it’s possible that I’ve changed. I’m not same old neurotic Sylvie anymore.

  I’ve discovered that days are more fun without a schedule. People are much more interesting when they’re cloaked in mystery. And I have to admit, I now believe that maybe there is something real about Cherise’s predictions. They all came true. Well, kind of. She said that I’d meet a guy on Wednesday, he’d ask me to prom, and that I’d fall in love. I met a guy that Wednesday and he asked me to prom (though it took two tries to get the invitation).

  Falling in love was only one thing she totally botched. Cherise said that when “Neptune’s moon was high in the sky, a guy who loves you and whom you love will ask you to dance.” I got asked to prom, but not by a guy I love. He doesn’t love me either.

  If you include the freak blizzard and all the times she’s intuited our exam questions, I’m finally willing to consider astrology might not be as ridiculous as I thought. Even a professional statistician would have to say she’s well within the margin of error.

  She was close, real close, but in the end, Adam and I weren’t written in the stars after all.

  A wise man once said that the stars provide opportunity. It’s up to me to make my own destiny. He told me that the stars can both illuminate the sky and give courage to the soul. I believe now that my destiny waits in that middle place where astronomy and astrology intertwine.

  As of this very minute, I’ve begun to sculpt my own destiny.

  Phase one is now complete.

  Phase two is just beginning.

  Twenty-three

  You are older and wiser than you were yesterday.

  www.astrology4stars.com

  “I’m not going to the Spring Fling dance tonight.” That’s what I tell Jennifer and Tanisha the fifteenth time they call. They called a bunch of times while I was at home, then after I turned off my cell phone, they managed to track me down at the tuxedo shop.

  One calls. Then the other. Back and forth like it’s a tennis match.

  “Pleeease,” Jennifer begs me. “We can still go together like we planned. You can dance with Jordan if you want.” The thought of me dancing with a big tree flashes through my brain. It’s hard not to laugh.

  “I’m not going,” I tell Jennifer. “I never finished the Cinderella dress.”

  “Wear my nymph costume,” Jennifer says. “I’ll wear a paper bag if you’ll say you’ll come with us.” Jennifer wouldn’t offer me her costume if she didn’t mean it. All those years I passed judgment on her and I was wrong. Jennifer’s a nice person. A good friend. Tanisha, too.

  They were thrilled when they heard that I was going to shoot for a scholarship to Case Western instead of going to Yale. They even offered to change the name of their design-team to JT&S Costumes. I turned them down. I’m still planning to major in astronomy. I might, however, be the first astronomer ever to minor in costume design. We’ll see. For now, I want to be their silent partner.

  As far as the dance goes, however, I refuse to budge my position. I tell Jennifer to have fun at the Spring Fling and to show me pictures at school on Monday. She says she’s going to call me from the dance to fill me in and give me the gossip. I’m sure she will.

  I hang up and sit by the phone. Jennifer needs enough time to call Tanisha, explain that she failed, and for them to come up with a new tactic. The phone will ring again any minute. Even though I have stuff to do around the shop, I might as well stay where I am.

  The phone rings.

  “Hi Tanisha,” I say, without checking the caller ID. “No thanks.”

  “Come on, Sylvie,” she begs. “So what if things didn’t work out with Adam? We totally respect your decision to break up. But you don’t need a date to go to prom. You have us!”

  “Nah,” I tell Tanisha. And since we’ve been through this a thousand times already, she finally gives up. “I’ll call with the reviews on the costumes in the morning,” she says. I know I’ll hear from her long before tomorrow. She’ll call with Jennifer from the dance.

  The afternoon wears on. I’m in the back of the store finishing up an invoice for some buttons when the front door chimes. I don’t have any fitting appointments, so this must be a new customer. Dad ran out to pick up some tuxedos left at a hotel, so I’m in charge.

  I come out from the back room saying, “Can I help you?”

  “I hope so.” It’s Tyler.

  That’s strange. As far as I can recall, he’s
never been in the shop before.

  “Hi,” I say, stashing the invoice papers behind the front desk. “What’s up?” I’m acting casual. The reality is that I’m not quite ready to tell him that I’ve thought about calling him, oh, say, about every five minutes, since I left the Corner Café yesterday afternoon. I’m trying to take control of my destiny, but it’s way harder than I thought. Maybe tomorrow …

  “What brings you to the shop?” I ask. “Did Cherise send you?”

  “Cherise’s at home,” Tyler replies. “She’s getting ready for the dance. Did you hear that Nathan’s going to do AmeriCorps with her after graduation? Once Nathan gets finished at the UN, of course.” He adds, “Mom and Dad weren’t too happy at first, but after talking to Mrs. Feldman, they’ve mellowed. I think it’s great. I hope they’ll get placed in Manhattan.”

  “Yeah,” I say. I know all that. Cherise told me because she’s my best friend. Then again, she didn’t fill me in about Nathan right away, so Tyler has reason to think she might be holding back information from me. All in all, this is a very weird conversation we’re having.

  “Do you want something?” I ask. Tyler’s casually looking at some of the ties and cummerbunds we have on display. He picks up a purple cummerbund and holds it across his waist. With his black pants and T-shirt, the cummerbund completes his outfit.

  “Purple?” I remark. “It’s a big change.”

  “I like color,” Tyler responds. “I think I’ve gone too long without any.” He puts back the cummerbund and walks over to the desk. “Maybe I’ll get some new white socks. I wouldn’t want to make too many changes at once.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I can totally relate.”

  In the past month I’ve had a boyfriend, lost a boyfriend, gained two new friends, changed colleges, reconciled with my father, and accepted that my best friend’s a pretty good astrologer. And I’m not quite done. There’s one more change I’d like to make. If only I wasn’t such a coward.