departments (Denise had read dozens), claiming to have found a message hidden in a nebula. It was an act of faith to call him a writer, the kind of faith a wife should have, must have. And yet, Denise’s anger came because, partly, she didn’t quite have it. She had read his failed novels and hadn’t understood or liked them; they seemed static and a little dull.
I’m wrong, though, of course,
she thought to herself. Surely she had made the right choice. Surely he, too, was a genius.
Adam was moving from group to group like a bee pollinating a field of clover, picking up a drink along the way (a martini, which seemed very unlike him). As he reached a group, he would lean his head forward and nuzzle it between two people so he could address someone, and then, fairly quickly, he would take off for the next. Sweat was showing just under his hairline, glimmering in the torchlight. There was the smell of smoke everywhere. Denise knew what he was doing—he was bumming cigarettes. He had supposedly quit, but the calendar was a checkerboard of quitting and resuming the habit. Denise smiled because it was all right with her; she had never tried to have any control over him; and anyway, he was younger than she was by two years and deserved more time to make mistakes, time to wean himself of the habits of his youth. She had to give him things like that. But still it made her husband seem, sweating in that light, a little dwarfish and pathetic, dipping into crowds begging for a cigarette, pointlessly stooping so his wife wouldn’t notice—a boy cheating badly at cards.
Denise got back to the point: “So, are you looking forward to next week?”
“What’s next week?” the woman asked.
“You know,” Denise said, stroking her son’s head and thinking it was odd how he could suspend a bubble on his lip for ten minutes, in defiance of known physics. “You know, the holidays.” She was fishing for Passover now, hoping she wouldn’t get Easter.
But the student, straightening the part in her hair with two fingers, laughed and brushed the entire topic aside. “Oh that, oh no—oh, I don’t do Western congregational religions anymore. I’m into meditation.” She said this almost as a challenge.
“TM?” Denise asked wearily, but the conversation was on automatic now as the student went on happily about the wonders of a trance state, and alpha waves and all the pseudoscience Denise was used to hearing from young people these days. Here was something Denise did not understand, not at all, this need for religion. She felt pure, this way, needing nothing but light through a lens to explain her world. She understood this was snobbery; she could not resist it. In any case, the girl, Jewish or not, was not inviting Denise to any seder.
Adam had found a cigarette and seemed happy. That was good. He was talking to a spouse with old-fashioned peroxide hair (like something from a billboard), smoking, looking handsome, and the woman was laughing. Good. Denise would grant him all kind of pardons tonight if he’d look happy for her.
“And in London,” the student was saying now, taking the gum from her mouth, “I hear there’s an amazing swami. Kathy was talking about him at the conference, if you can believe it.”
“Kathy who?”
“Spivak, Eli’s wife.”
Denise tensed. How strange: Here was this young woman with pink gum in her mouth, talking nonsense, and then out of nowhere here was Eli. How unexpected. Who knew conversations could be as haunted as old houses?
She had not seen or talked to Eli in years. That summer after the comet’s return, a cold green summer faintly echoing with that cry they’d heard, the boy’s cry from the overlook, Eli had abruptly transferred his studies to a lab in England, and within a month was on a plane with Kathy through the fog of San Francisco. Denise remembered their breakfast in the airport lounge, stiff scrambled eggs and coffee sipped loudly through the silence. Eli would not
I’m wrong, though, of course,
she thought to herself. Surely she had made the right choice. Surely he, too, was a genius.
Adam was moving from group to group like a bee pollinating a field of clover, picking up a drink along the way (a martini, which seemed very unlike him). As he reached a group, he would lean his head forward and nuzzle it between two people so he could address someone, and then, fairly quickly, he would take off for the next. Sweat was showing just under his hairline, glimmering in the torchlight. There was the smell of smoke everywhere. Denise knew what he was doing—he was bumming cigarettes. He had supposedly quit, but the calendar was a checkerboard of quitting and resuming the habit. Denise smiled because it was all right with her; she had never tried to have any control over him; and anyway, he was younger than she was by two years and deserved more time to make mistakes, time to wean himself of the habits of his youth. She had to give him things like that. But still it made her husband seem, sweating in that light, a little dwarfish and pathetic, dipping into crowds begging for a cigarette, pointlessly stooping so his wife wouldn’t notice—a boy cheating badly at cards.
Denise got back to the point: “So, are you looking forward to next week?”
“What’s next week?” the woman asked.
“You know,” Denise said, stroking her son’s head and thinking it was odd how he could suspend a bubble on his lip for ten minutes, in defiance of known physics. “You know, the holidays.” She was fishing for Passover now, hoping she wouldn’t get Easter.
But the student, straightening the part in her hair with two fingers, laughed and brushed the entire topic aside. “Oh that, oh no—oh, I don’t do Western congregational religions anymore. I’m into meditation.” She said this almost as a challenge.
“TM?” Denise asked wearily, but the conversation was on automatic now as the student went on happily about the wonders of a trance state, and alpha waves and all the pseudoscience Denise was used to hearing from young people these days. Here was something Denise did not understand, not at all, this need for religion. She felt pure, this way, needing nothing but light through a lens to explain her world. She understood this was snobbery; she could not resist it. In any case, the girl, Jewish or not, was not inviting Denise to any seder.
Adam had found a cigarette and seemed happy. That was good. He was talking to a spouse with old-fashioned peroxide hair (like something from a billboard), smoking, looking handsome, and the woman was laughing. Good. Denise would grant him all kind of pardons tonight if he’d look happy for her.
“And in London,” the student was saying now, taking the gum from her mouth, “I hear there’s an amazing swami. Kathy was talking about him at the conference, if you can believe it.”
“Kathy who?”
“Spivak, Eli’s wife.”
Denise tensed. How strange: Here was this young woman with pink gum in her mouth, talking nonsense, and then out of nowhere here was Eli. How unexpected. Who knew conversations could be as haunted as old houses?
She had not seen or talked to Eli in years. That summer after the comet’s return, a cold green summer faintly echoing with that cry they’d heard, the boy’s cry from the overlook, Eli had abruptly transferred his studies to a lab in England, and within a month was on a plane with Kathy through the fog of San Francisco. Denise remembered their breakfast in the airport lounge, stiff scrambled eggs and coffee sipped loudly through the silence. Eli would not
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