“I haven’t seen his work. I have to admit I’m a bit scared about it now—what if it’s awful? But I have a feeling it won’t be. He says he paints ‘contemporary landscapes.’”
“What? Gas stations and parking lots?”
“I don’t know. I’ll find out soon enough, I suppose. But I don’t really care. It is the idea that counts. It seemed a relatively small thing for me, and it was such a big deal for him: to have a studio.”
“But how did it get—well, romantic?”
“Romantic?”
“Well, isn’t it? Or is it purely sexual?”
“No,” said Lyle. “I suppose it’s romantic. Whatever that means. And, much to my amazement, it’s sexual, too. I don’t know. You can’t really explain these things, can you? They just happen.”
“Yes, but you can try,” said Marian. “It’s important to understand why, don’t you think? I mean, obviously there are reasons. What is it about him that you find so attractive?”
“What, you don’t like him?”
“No,” said Marian, “of course not. I mean, I don’t really know him yet. He seems very sweet. I’m just curious to know what attracted you to him.”
“Well, to be perfectly honest and superficial, his looks. That always seems important at the beginning, doesn’t it? I think he’s
very beautiful. And for some strange reason I don’t understand, he seems to find me attractive. I like that.”
“Of course he finds you attractive,” said Marian. “You are.”
“Well, it’s not something I often feel,” said Lyle.
“Then it’s good, that he makes you feel it,” said Marian.
“He’s also—I don’t know how to put this, really. I’m just figuring it out myself, I think. But he’s open, somehow—I suppose because he’s young—but I feel he hasn’t made all his decisions yet, he isn’t stuck thinking any one thing. He listens to people; he really listens.”
“So you like him because he’s malleable?”
“I suppose that’s what I’m saying. But it’s not so much that I’m interested in shaping him, or changing him. And he has a mind of his own. It’s more how it makes me feel. He makes me think about what I do and say in a way I’d thought I’d stopped, or at least can’t remember, doing.”
“Hmm,” said Marian. “That’s an interesting thing about meeting new people: one sees oneself differently.”
“Yes,” said Lyle. “And I was feeling very stuck with how I was. Who I was. It’s nice to know that even now one can change. At this late date.”
“You aren’t that old,” said Marian.
“I’ve felt old, though,” said Lyle.
“Well, don’t change too much,” said Marian. “I’m very fond of you as you are.”
“Don’t worry,” said Lyle. “In fact, I don’t even like to think about this all very much. I’d rather just let it happen. But I did want you to meet him. That’s why I brought him.”
“Well, I’m glad you did. It’s not what I—well it was a surprise, as I’m sure you know. But a wonderful one. I’m very happy for you.”
“Are you?” said Lyle. “Do you like him? I was worried that—”
“That what?”
“I don’t know. I thought you might disapprove.”
“Why? What is there to disapprove of?”
“I don’t know,” said Lyle. “It’s just that it’s all happened so quickly, and I don’t quite feel right about it yet. Sometimes I still can’t quite believe it. Basically, I don’t know what I’m doing. All I know is that I’m happier than I’ve been in ages. Especially, now, being here, and talking to you about it.”
Roland had fallen asleep. Marian stroked his cheek with the backs of her fingers. They were silent a moment, and then Lyle said, “It’s wonderful to see you. And to be here, and have a talk like this. I can’t tell you how good it feels.”
“I’ve missed you,” she said.
“How are things with you?”
“Fine,” she said.
“You haven’t been depressed?”
“No,” she said. “God, no. I don’t—” She rocked for a moment. “That seems very long ago, although I know it isn’t. I have a different life now. I really do. And it seems like the right one: now and here. Just not being in New York—you can’t imagine what a difference that makes. How much simpler each day is. It’s an awful thing to leave New York, because you feel that you’ll cease to matter, to count. In a way it’s like you’re leaving the world. But you aren’t at all. The world here is fine with me. And having Roland—well, that changes everything. Do you know that I haven’t taken a pill since I was pregnant with him? Not even an aspirin.”
“That’s wonderful,” said Lyle.
“I don’t mean to say that medication isn’t wonderful. It certainly saved me. But it can only do so much. I think it’s mostly
about finding the life that’s right for you. It seems such an obvious thing, but it isn’t. At least it wasn’t for me. So much of my life was wrong. It scares me to think of all those people out there, living the wrong lives. And you don’t realize it until it’s almost too late. Until it becomes too horrible to bear.”
“I’m so glad things are going well for you,” said Lyle.
“And what about you?” asked Marian. “What about your work? Have you started a new book?”
“No. I have articles and I’m doing a lot of panels and lectures. Did I tell you I got a speaking agent?”
“No,” said Marian. “Really?”
“Yes. He’s the man Sigrid uses. It’s amazing how many calls I get. Or got—it’s slowing down, a bit, now. But next fall I’m traveling someplace almost every week.”
“Goodness,” said Marian. “You’ve become quite the star.”
“Oh, you know how these things work. It won’t last. But I figured I might as well exploit myself while I can.”
“That’s wonderful,” said Marian. “I’m so happy for you. It’s too bad that … Tony would have been so happy, too. To see you acclaimed. He would have been proud.”
“Yes,” said Lyle. “I know.”
Marian looked down at Roland. “It’s strange to have a child,” she said. “It keeps surprising me. Sometimes I think that when Roland learns to talk he’ll tell me everything. Everything he’s thinking. That I will always know him entirely, as I feel I do now.” She rocked for a moment. “I know it won’t happen like that, but I think it.” She looked up at Lyle and smiled. “But I guess we never know anyone like that, do we? Entirely?”
“No,” said Lyle. “I guess not.”
They sat for a moment. The day had plateaued into an hour or two of shimmering stillness, poised for its descent toward evening.
“I think I might take a nap, after all,” Lyle said.
“It feels very sleepy, doesn’t it?” Marian said.
Lyle stood up. He went over and kissed Marian, and touched Roland on his head. His hair was still damp from where it had been pushed back by the cloth. “Can we try the Dances again, later?”
“Yes,” said Marian. “Now go have a nice nap.”
THE DAY WAS AT its hot, still center, that hour or two on a midsummer afternoon when the sun seems to have found a niche in the sky it has no intention of ever abandoning. Lyle sat reading in a canvas sling-back chair on the dock. Tony was listlessly treading water around the dock’s edges. He filled his cupped hands with water and poured it over Lyle’s feet.
“Stop,” said Lyle. “It’s cold.” He shook his feet, but he didn’t look up from his book.
“I thought it would feel good,” said Tony. “You looked hot.”
Lyle continued reading.
“You have ugly feet,” said Tony.
Lyle did not reply.
“I think feet in general are pretty ugly, but your feet are especially ugly.”
“No they’re not,” said Lyle.
“If you look at them closely, they are,” said Tony.
“Then don’t look at them closely,” said Lyle.
“Maybe if you look at anything closely enough it gets ugly,” said Tony.
“That’s not true,” said Lyle.
“I guess ugly things get more ugly and beautiful things get more beautiful. But I bet some ugly things get beautiful and vice versa. What ugly things get beautiful the more you look at them?”
“I don’t know,” said Lyle. He looked up. “Insects, perhaps.”
“Yes,” said Tony, “exactly: insects. Actually, I like your feet. They’re genuine. They’re kind of Old World, and biblical.” He kissed the bridge of Lyle’s foot and then pushed himself back from the dock. “What are you reading?” he asked.
“Sigrid’s new book,” said Lyle.
“Is it good?” asked Tony.
“Not bad,” said Lyle, “for Sigrid.”
“What’s it about?”
“The apocalypse. And art.”
“Which apocalypse?”
“What do you mean, which apocalypse? There hasn’t been an apocalypse yet. It’s coming.” Lyle put the book down and stretched out his feet. “Do that again, what you did. It felt good.”
“Why don’t you come in?”
“I will,” said Lyle, “in a minute. But cool my feet.”
“You’re spoiled,” said Tony, but he complied. “I want to write a book,” he said, as he watched the water spread out in a shadow around Lyle’s feet.
“I’m always encouraging you to write a book,” said Lyle.
“Not always,” said Tony.
“Sometimes, then. What book do you want to write?”
“You say that as if it already exists, and it’s just a matter of writing it,” said Tony.
“That’s how it should be with books. What would it be about?”
“It would be a travel book: a guide to a foreign country.”
“What country?”
“An imaginary country.” Tony placed his forearms on the edge of the deck and rested the side of his face on them. “I’d make it up. I’d make the whole country up, everything. All the cities and towns and restaurants and hotels and museums and cathedrals. Or maybe not cathedrals. I don’t think they’d be cathedrals in this country. They’d be more of something else, something more fun, like nightclubs. Or spas. I’d draw all the maps, of each county and city, every street, maps of the subway systems even. Lots of maps.”
“That sounds like quite a project,” said Lyle.
“It would always be the nineteenth century in this country, I think. But with electricity and plumbing. But no cars. Trains and ships, but no cars.”
“Humans are always sentimentally attached to the century that immediately precedes their own,” said Lyle.
“Is that thought your own?”
“Of course,” said Lyle. “All my thoughts are my own.”
“They often don’t sound like it,” said Tony. “But don’t you think there was something inherently nice about the nineteenth century?”
“No,” said Lyle. “It’s a century that appeals only to imperialists like you.”
“I think I’m a royalist, not an imperialist. I suppose I’m both. I like order. That’s why I’m glad I shall only live in one century. Even if it’s the wrong one. It must be confusing when one’s life bridges the centuries. Like Monet. My grandmother was born in 1900. I would like that: to grow old with the century. It was very neat.”
Lyle had returned his attention to Sigrid’s book.
“I thought you were going to swim,” said Tony.
“I was,” said Lyle. “I am.”
“Swim now,” said Tony.
“I don’t swim on command,” said Lyle. “Look: here comes Marian.”
Marian was walking down the lawn toward them. She and John were trying to get pregnant, and were making love according to a schedule posted on the refrigerator.
“Mission accomplished?” Tony called out as Marian stepped onto the dock.
“Well, I did my part,” said Marian.
“Did John do his?” asked Tony.
“Yes,” said Marian.
“I wonder if you feel it, when you become pregnant.”
“I think it takes a while.” Marian sat down on the edge of the dock, her sundress bunched up, her legs in the water.
“Do you make love differently when you’re trying to get pregnant?” asked Tony.
“I don’t know,” said Marian. “I forget what it’s like to make love and not try to get pregnant.”
“You sound so heterosexual,” said Tony. “Maybe you’re trying too hard. Maybe if you forgot about it, it would happen. Like how you remember something only when you’ve stopped trying to remember it.”
“I don’t have time to forget about it,” said Marian.
“I feel no desire to procreate,” said Tony. “Would you like to have a child?” he asked Lyle.
“Yes,” said Lyle. “Theoretically.”
“You can’t have a theoretical child,” said Marian.
“I know,” said Lyle. “But I like the idea of having a child. I think I’d like a ward. But wards are rather scarce nowadays, aren’t they?”
“It’s the century,” said Tony. “In my country there will be plenty of wards.”
“What country?” asked Marian.
“I’m going to write a book about a perfect country where it’s always the nineteenth century and where there are plenty of wards,” said Tony. “With maps. And appendices.”
“It’s hot,” said Marian. “I should have put on my bathing suit.”
“You don’t need it,” said Tony. “I don’t have mine.”
“You never have yours.”
Tony splashed her. “Take off your dress. Come in.”
“You’ve got it wet now.”
“Take it off.”
Marian stood up and pulled her dress off over her head. She was naked beneath it. “How decadent we are,” she said.
“How American of you to equate nudity with decadence,” said Tony.
Marian dove into the water. She surfaced and said, “It’s lovely.”
“Are you supposed to swim so soon after?” asked Lyle.
“I’ve spent the last twenty minutes with my feet up in the air,” said Marian. “If it hasn’t happened by now, forget it. And let’s stop talking about it. It jinxes it, I’m sure. Do you want to swim up to the rock, Tony?”
“All right, but slowly. Are you coming, Lyle?”
“No,” said Lyle. “I’m in no mood to exhaust myself. I’ll stay here and watch you.”
“Come,” said Tony.
“No,” said Lyle. “Wave to me when you get there.”