Lydia Netzer - How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky

“I’m done,” said Witch sadly. “All these people are wearing me out.”

In their senior year, Sally got engaged to Dean. She did try dating other people, but then she would get back together with him in a mad, tantric affair. Bernice said it was like she kept getting on lifeboat after lifeboat, but then when the lifeboats got too far away from the ship, she had a panic that she would never find land, yanked the oars away from whoever was rowing, and paddled right back to the sinking vessel. Bernice didn’t care for Dean much. But Sally couldn’t live without him.

As Sally approached graduation, Dean switched from the philosophy department to visual arts. He painted large canvases with scenes part science fiction and part mythology. His form was graphic and dark, like a comic book in paint.

“I love him,” said Sally. “I know it’s crazy. I mean, he’s an artist. But I love him. And you know what? I think he’s really talented. He dazzles me.”

“That’s stupid,” said Bernice. It was the weekend of the first basketball game of Sally’s senior season, and Bernice was in Ann Arbor to see it. Sally and Dean had a place off campus, a little half house that Sally’s mother had insisted on purchasing and furnishing. “You’re just drunk on fucking him. Tantric this, tantric that. That’s no reason to marry the guy.”

Bernice was living in her parents’ old house in Toledo while finishing her degree at Bowling Green. Her father had been only too happy to give her the house, as if her graduation from high school had been some kind of finish line that he was eager to cross. He also bought Bernice a car, and she could drive to Ann Arbor to visit Sally whenever she wanted. This was good, because the only way they could dream together was if they were in the same city. It still worked best in Toledo. Sally said it was because the energy was right. Bernice wouldn’t have said, “Sally, it’s because you suck at lucid dreaming.” But it was true. Sally would lie down and hope for magic every time, where Bernice was learning exactly what physical behaviors would contribute to maintaining control of her dreams. “Just put your body to sleep, but keep your mind awake. It’s not mystical. It’s not even difficult,” said Bernice. But Sally struggled, and could only dream with Bernice if Bernice would come and find her in one of her own dreams. Sally always had trouble sleeping. It was something that troubled her all of her life.

“I thought it was stupid at first, too, this art thing,” said Sally, throwing herself down on the leather sofa her mom had gotten from Finland.

“But then you took him to bed,” said Bernice. “And then it didn’t seem so stupid.”

“Hey, shut up,” Sally said. “You should try it sometime. You might like it.”

But Bernice had actually had sexual encounters with several girls. Her thin dreadlocks, her porcelain skin and large gray eyes, her tiny frame made it easy to pull in someone whose warm mouth would bump against her crotch enough times to forestall the aching need there. Whose fingers would slide around in a pleasing way, soothing her. She did like it. But she was a greedy lover, uninterested in giving back what was given to her, and sometimes she slapped her girlfriends, so she didn’t have a lot of repeat customers. This didn’t bother her. She didn’t want a lot of love.

“You’re leaving disappointed,” she would say to these girls, and then blame it on the liquor. “You shouldn’t have let me get so drunk.” The booze she could leave in Ohio long enough to visit Sally for one day, two days, and then she would be driving south on 75, back to the comfort of gin, back to pushing her crotch into the face of some sad soul who didn’t mind keeping her pants on, who didn’t mind having her hair pulled a little, just to be in company for the night. She wouldn’t say, “Sorry.” She certainly wouldn’t say, “I apologize, but I’m in love with my best friend. And when your tongue is on me, I’m pretending it is hers. And that’s the reason I have such a longing for your tongue.”

“Hey,” said Sally. “I have something to show you. Look in that envelope on the counter and pull out what’s inside.”

Bernice reached over and slid a manila envelope close to her, reached inside and slipped out a bundle of stapled papers and some photographs.

“What do you think? This is the place I picked out. You know. For the astrology studio. When we take over from Witch.”

Bernice spread the pictures out on the counter and looked them over. They showed a strange little farmhouse and some wooded land. Yes, they could appoint this place with all the trappings of a gypsy’s lair. It already had an old well, a busted-down split-rail fence, and plenty of odd outbuildings.

“We could make it really arty and interesting,” said Sally. “Kind of like Witch’s house but even more so. So it’s a real experience, not some tawdry affair in a strip mall in the suburbs or glassy storefront downtown, like next to the cheese store. Or the magazine rack. Let them feel the magic of it.”

Bernice glanced at the map, the survey. She said, “From here we could see the stars. Witch’s house is too close to the city. This place would be perfect.”

“Exactly,” said Sally. “You get it.”

“But what about Dean?” Bernice asked.

Sally rose from the sofa and came over to the counter. She leaned over Bernice and pulled aside one of the photos. It showed a little shack, maybe what used to be an old sheep barn.

“This,” she said, “will be his art studio.”

“What about his degree? Won’t he be staying here?”

“Well, he’ll have to come back up, you know, on weekdays or sometimes,” Sally explained. “But of course he’ll be there, I mean, I can’t leave him. I need him, Bernice. This will be our house, mine and Dean’s. We’ll live there,” Sally said slowly. “We’ll live there. You’ll keep living at your house, of course.”

“Oh, of course.”

“I mean, you don’t want to live with us, do you? I just assumed you wouldn’t. I mean, that would be kind of awkward. We’re in love.”

“Of course.”

Sally laughed suddenly. “Whoa, that could have been super uncomfortable!” She tossed her long body onto the other barstool and leaned against the counter.

“Don’t be dumb,” said Bernice. “I think the farmhouse idea is perfect.”

That night, Sally scored twenty-nine points and her team won. Bernice sat in the stands, watched her friend going left and right, left and right, twitching the basketball jersey forward on her shoulders, folding her waistband over, pushing down her socks. Three months later, Sally missed her period. It was early February, midseason for basketball. Sally took a pregnancy test, and it was positive. She spent an hour crying in the bathroom in the dark, and a day in near silence. Then she called Bernice.

“BER-niss,” she said. “BER-niss, what I have to say to you is very SERI-iss.”

“OK,” said Bernice. She closed the book she had been reading and switched on the television. Laverne and Shirley . They both had boyfriends, equally distasteful and equally serviceable. Maybe if there was another Dean, she would, too. Would she, if there was another Dean?

“I’m pregnant,” said Sally. Then she coughed or sobbed. “I’m pregnant; I just found out.”

“Oh, no,” said Bernice. “How did this happen? How did you let this happen?”

“I’m not even sure,” Sally said, not offended. “He’s not even sure. I don’t know how it could have happened. You know how his big sex thing is that he shoots it right back into his balls.”

“Maybe he got distracted.”