Amy walked into the dark living room. A forgotten Louis Armstrong CD played in the background. “What’s going on?”
“Sit down,” Scott said from the shadow on the couch. “I thought we should make this an event. A premiere.” She accepted a glass of merlot and curled on the cushion next to him. Scott turned on the machines and pressed play.
The first reel, mostly landscape. The picture jumps, but not because the film is bad. Andrew, behind the camera, stands up above the windshield and captures the verdant flood cut by the gravel road. An egret lopes across the shot. Suddenly, I’m the focus. I wave briefly. The steering wheel is difficult to control, I’m a terrible driver, really, scared to death that I’ll wreck Mr. O’Connell’s automobile. The picture returns to the land, the flat wild tangle of June, each tree an oasis of shade.
Second reel. Graduation day, Wednesday, June 12, 1929, after the ceremony. Three sets of parents greet each other on the lawn: the Knights, the Nolans, and the O’Connells. Obviously called, they wave to the camera.
“My great-grandparents,” Amy said. “I recognize the Knights, but—oh, the older people, those are Poppa’s parents. My great-grandmother, she’s so stiff, but he looks friendly enough. The other two must be Razi’s parents. I wonder who that woman is, with the white hair, holding Mrs. Nolan’s arm. A grandmother maybe? Her father—he’s gorgeous.”
The picture goes black for a moment, then returns to the families. Mr. O’Connell and Mr. Knight chat seriously. Nearby, the mothers nod and look for their children. My father struts across the field of vision. When he disappears, Mr. Knight and Mr. O’Connell exchange small white cards and shake hands. The lens drops to the ground. Up again, the three friends stand with their arms linked. Twolly and I kiss Andrew on his cheeks. His blush turns the color of soot. I begin to sing and shimmy. Twolly joins in. I grab my mother and Grams, Twolly grabs her mother, and Andrew walks away laughing.
“Take it back,” Amy said. The film rewinds to the start of my dance. “That’s him. That’s Poppa Fin. Look. He’s laughing. Really laughing. My God, look at him so happy.”
The final reel. I float into view. My eyes are closed, my hair spread like moss in the water. I look absolutely peaceful. I open one eye and smile. My body pivots, and I reach for the diving board, pulling myself up, my mouth in a pucker. The lens turns right to catch Simon standing with a rag and bucket. His expression shows he is watching us kiss with interest. The image goes black. Moments later, the picture shows the rim of a white iron table on which the camera is balanced. In the distance, Andrew cradles me at the edge of the water. I cling to him, laughing. He moves as if he’s going to throw me in, but I grip tight, refuse to let go. Suddenly, we fly forward, our force against the water making a splash so big droplets hit the lens. When we come up, we swim into each other’s arms.
“Want to see it again?” Scott asked.
“Yes.”
They watched without speaking. Louis’s trumpet bleated in ragtime.
“Why didn’t he tell anyone? About her. About before,” Scott said.
“He left everything behind when he left New Orleans. He wanted to forget.”
“That makes no sense. They obviously loved each other.”
“It makes sense. He didn’t want to remember. He didn’t want to share her. She broke his heart. It’s painful to love that much and lose it.” Amy ran the last five minutes again. When it was over, she turned off the machines and looked at her husband in the dark. “I’m just like him.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Then your love is truly blind.”
“You’re not like him. The truth didn’t kill you.”
Amy set her empty glass on the coffee table. She took his glass, finished the last sip, and placed it next to hers. Near the glasses, in the small shallow bowl that had always been there, every loose marble in the house had come together. She did not notice. With her hand, she nudged him against the arm of the sofa. “That’s why I married you, Scott Duncan. You’re sincere in your delusions about me.”
“It’s not delusion. You just don’t see what I do.”
She kissed him with affection. He didn’t move. She kissed him again, tugging the tie at her waist. Amy linked her hands behind his neck. “I’ve been unfair to you, terribly, mercilessly unfair. I’m sorry. Do you forgive me?”
“Yes.”
“If we had a boy, I think Andrew is a nice name.”
“I’m partial to Mordecai. Or Spike.”
“Maybe as a middle name.” Amy kissed his throat.
“Are you sure? Where’s the diaphragm?”
“Let’s risk it,” she said, looking into his eyes. “Now where’s that book?”
BECAUSE OF THE PROPOSAL I can’t accept or refuse, because of the future we can’t see, Andrew and I carry on, locked in a stalemate. Neither of us will budge. Neither of us will let go. If anything, the uncertainty makes us cling tighter, as if the love one has for the other is strong enough to break the other’s will. Even though I have accepted Northwestern, and Andrew has accepted Yale, we pretend there isn’t a moment we will actually have to part.
I cannot give in. It isn’t the idea of marriage, no, not entirely. Perhaps becoming someone’s wife years before I expect to be is a concession I can make. But why bother, if there will be such a distance between us? Married or not, faithfulness depends on trust. I trust him, as he can trust me. If I marry him and postpone my medical studies—how can I? why should I? but if I do—what I fear is that the drive will fade with each year, those three years of law school, being a wife to him, my energy redirected to hearth and home. Will there be an unexpected child, even with the best precautions, unexpectedly wanted, one I might secretly resent years later? Will I resent Andrew for being that important?
I cannot forgive him for not giving in to me. What makes his desires more important than mine? What traditions hold him so tightly that they are more powerful than his love for me? Because if he truly loves me—right—if he truly loves me, he will see that my future is no whim or wish, not a mere dream but a purpose. And if he believes that I am meant to love him, he must also believe that I am meant to help and heal. Of course, I know what people would say—what kind of man stalls his own plans, allows his wife to wear such pants? And I know, in every moment—past, present, future—when there is only the two of us in those quiet, intimate spaces, the world feels miles away but is only a veil apart.
Why not have everything at once? What is three, four years compared to a lifetime? Without the distraction of the other, perhaps one of us will finish in record time. And if our love is true, it will tolerate the distance, no matter how far. Absence, they say, makes the heart grow fonder. But can my taut little muscle endure such fullness? Would missing him erode my will, his will? I don’t expect him to deny himself his aspirations, either. What will our letters say between the lines? And could I, my flesh not so weak as it is want, bear the separation from his touch?
Why him? Why now? Why not?
THE SATURDAY after graduation. The elder O’Connells are on the Atlantic Ocean, going to Europe: destination, Switzerland. The trip was intended for Andrew, a bachelor’s adventure, but he refused to go. He believes persistence will break our indecision, that one of us—that I?—will give in.
“What are we going to do?” he asks.
“We’ll decide when the time comes. Don’t spoil it.”
“I can’t wait any longer. I need to know.”
“What’s wrong with what we have now?”
“Razi, we can’t linger like this for three or four years.”
I peer into his face. He is so serious, and his irises shine. “Who’s lingering? I love you just as much as I ever did.”
“But you won’t marry me.”
“Why? We’ll be apart. What would it matter? Isn’t it enough that I love you?”
“Then are you turning me down?”
“No, darling, I’m not, but it’s not so simple. We both have big plans
for ourselves. I don’t want you to give up on yours.”
“And I don’t want you to give up on yours.”
“But you want me to wait.”
Andrew perches at the edge of the settee. “It only makes sense. I come into my trust when I turn twenty-five. I’ll have my degree by then, and I’ll be able to provide for us and pay for your schooling.”
“Why don’t you wait? I’ll have what I need for tuition and living expenses. Daddy has taken care of that. You could support us while I’m in school. You would have no trouble finding a job. Then, once you get your trust, you could go.”
“But once I’m at school, then what? Where will you be?”
“Then I’d get an internship somewhere near you. New York, maybe.”
“Why didn’t you just let my father get you in?” he asks.
I can’t believe he said it. “I told you. That wouldn’t be right.”
“Because your acceptance would be through his influence, not your own merits. That doesn’t matter. You’re smart enough to succeed there. You know it.”
“I do know it.” I take a deep breath, long enough to decide whether I’ll tell him. “The school rejected me.” Andrew blinks, confused. “I applied to Yale. Harvard, too. I didn’t get in.”
He bolts up from his seat. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have had Father put in a word for you. In the right ears—”
“That’s not the point. I didn’t get in. I don’t want his influence, covert or otherwise. What kind of a trade would he have had to make? What would his motivation have been to do such a thing?”
“He admires your spirit, despite what he thinks of women and their place. It’s a compliment. My father is not so easily swayed.”
“Neither is his son.”
“What have I ever asked of you? When Mrs. Delacourt was caught again—and you distributed what was left and let women know where it was—”
“Only if they knew what to ask for.”
“Word spreads. You were an innocent girl before, when all they thought was that you’d been led astray by youthful curiosity about such things. You and she had been smart enough to have those parties for women with no influence. Women who would never volunteer to tell police what they knew once the rumors filtered to those circles. But you threatened to make yourself a real suspect, someone in cahoots with her, to continue in any way. And did I once insist you stop? No. Did I want you to? Yes, desperately. For your protection. For your own good, your future—and ours.”
“They don’t want me, Andrew. They want Gertrude.”
“No, they want Mr. Delacourt. You know what he does to earn his living. There are people in this city who are willing to take his place any way they can. They’ll simply use this scandal as a way to draw attention away from what they truly want. You and Mrs. Delacourt would be nothing but a diversion.”
I could not argue. My silence urged him to continue.
“And as much as I think people will treat you badly and call you an unnatural woman, even in your very presence, have I ever asked you to give up on becoming a doctor? Have I put my foot down? Have I discouraged you? Have I given you any reason to believe I would interfere?”
“You’ve danced around the issue. Nursing school, I recall.”
“An option. That is all. I meant nothing more.”
“I don’t compromise.”
“There is a difference between compromise and compromising. One allows for negotiation. The other undermines who you are.” He pauses. “I’m only trying to be sensible.”
“Then if sense is the crux of the matter, if we are both to get what we want at the same time, why don’t we wait and reapply somewhere with a school for each of us?”
“Would you do that?”
I freeze. “Would you?”
“Is that what you want?”
“No. That’s not what I want. It’s not what I planned.”
“I’m willing, goddammit, if it means I don’t lose you.”
“You won’t lose me.”
“What if Yale had accepted you, too? What would you have done?”
“I can’t think about ‘what if.’ It doesn’t change the present.”
Andrew starts to cry in a fast hot tense silence. I am suddenly afraid like I’ve never been in my life. “Yes, it does. It’s changing us now, right now. That matters. Don’t I matter, too, Razi?”
Without warning, I spring into tears. “You have no idea.”
“I love you,” he says.
“I love you.”
We don’t speak for several moments. Instead of calming ourselves, within our own thoughts, we both cry harder. He is vulnerable in a way that makes me ache. I go to him, take his face in my hands, wipe the tears with my fingertips. Andrew clasps my wrists to his chest—his hard, forceful breath at my pulse—and kisses me with a pressure desperate and angry. I return the kiss with a different passion, one that lets him feel the truth he doubts—I do love him, so much that I cannot be rational.
Our lips part open. His palm caresses the cradle of my skull. Near his loins, my hips lie flat. We remain embraced, and we look at each other. I know that glint. My own mirrors in his eyes.
The quiet house rumbles with the steady patter of footsteps along the solid, creakless stairs. Inside his room, where a humid breeze rushes through the open windows, there is only enough light to discern the placement of things: his bed, his desk chair, the bookcase. Neither of us reaches for a lamp. I undress as he opens a bookcase drawer, finds a little metal box, and locates the pessary. When he comes to me, I am lying on the sheets, his quilt a knoll near the footboard. I don’t think there’s enough jelly, he says. As long as it stays in place, I reply. Don’t worry. He draws my legs over his shoulders and gives me a hurried, intense kiss. An ecstatic shiver urges him away. With a smooth, gentle curl of his fingers—he is practiced now—the membrane cups the seal of my womb.
I watch him take off his clothes. He is shadow, shade, line, the dark parts of him only darker now, his penis an angle of light against his groin. I wet my hands and guide him into me. My limbs twine across his back.
The rhythm is his, steady, forceful, his body hovers above mine, he arches deep, skims my nipples, he does not rush, he does not hurry, motion in the measure of time. I lift into his throat, kiss him in the hollow, feel his groan as much as I hear it. He stops. His arms slip under my shoulder blades, he draws us in, breast to breast, breath to breath, his mouth barely touching mine, I reach my tongue but receive no reply, the air between us heavy as rain, the depth of me full. Where no one can see, I hold him close, release, hold him again. Don’t move, he whispers, his lips a glaze on my mouth. He tips my chin with his to direct my eyes upward and open.
We belong together, he says. To each other.
When I try to turn my head, he pushes his arms upward, his fingertips at the base of my skull. His weight lifts slightly away from my chest, and I feel him breathing, the rhythm in perfect concert with mine, in, out, I feel spread wide and full. I cannot look away now, I don’t want to, he is within every draw I take into my body until I cannot tell the difference between our breaths. A ripple begins under my navel, the waves move toward the surface of my skin, break through, take Andrew into the crests and troughs—I am pulled into his swell—our waves extend beyond us both, merge and emerge, return again and again, the intensity unyielding, beyond flesh, bone, blood, muscle, nerve, thought, desire, memory . . .
He releases me gently and rolls me on my stomach. Andrew holds my legs closed with his knees on either side, kisses my neck, softly at first, then takes my flesh in his mouth, teeth in the skin, tongue soft over the folds. I call to him in the language beyond words, I feel his cleft at my coccyx, now at my lower spine, he can curve no further, my nape in his firm jaws. With the whole of his hands, he takes my hips up and back. He moves ahead, inward. I press toward him as his touch crosses over my belly, down, where my being collapses to that one spot and expands from the same place, once, again, again. I pu
sh his hand away, the rhythm between us even, my back wet with drops from his brow, his chest, the pace quickens, the pitch of his breath rises.
I lean forward, away, turn—he is so close—push him to his back. Easily, I slip around him. Slowly, I rock, the sway gentle as spring boughs, I bend into him, his hands trace the sides of my body. My mouth dampens at his forehead, temples, cheeks, drenches at his lips, the kiss like drowning, my life inside of it, he can fill me no more than he does now. I succumb to his flesh, the strain and softness—
How could I have known when I first brought you to me
that your body is a veil,
that I would want it to fall away
and feel the pure element underneath
embrace me in return?
Under me, he moves, he is so strong, my hips lift with his. We mark the rhythm, his fingertips at the base of my spine, my body arches, one hand at his mound, one hand between his legs. The coming surge draws him inward. He grabs my arms, grounds my palms on his soaked chest, thrusting, the call, Razi. I bear witness to our little deaths and resurrections, his before me, mine in reflection—our bodies in tremor, our eyes locked through will on the other. Light springs where none should begin.
I transcend, transfixed.
I collapse onto him. He wraps me gently. An undertow swells straight from my gut. I cry out, startled, amazed, and cling tight. My sobs muffle in his throat. He holds me without question, without fear. He has shown me what I have not believed. He has shown me many times, I know, but this time, I cannot doubt that part of me I have never called by name.
My little succubus, he says, roused into the penumbra of sleep.
The room is aphotic, moonlight consumed by miles of low, fast-moving nimbostrati. Andrew reaches into the dark and along familiar contours. He finds the shape of my sacral curve with his fingertips, urges it forward. Not yet. The grip on him is warm, rhythmic, practiced. His arms sweep out. Pajama bottoms hit the floor with a gasp. He demands that the movement stop and pulls a kiss toward his mouth. The sky illuminates. He groans as the firmament rumbles.
The Mercy of Thin Air Page 29
