Lydia Netzer - How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky

“Come on,” George called. He was looking at her as if she were a knife. Or a sandwich. Or a knife about to cut open a sandwich. She liked the way he was looking at her. He motioned for her to follow him, and she said, “Am I dressed for this? When you said, ‘nightclub for astronomers’ I thought you were kidding. I thought it was some back room at the institute.”

“Why?” said George.

“Because it sounds like something that wouldn’t be real!” Irene said. She smoothed her shirt and kicked the dirt off her boots.

Then she was standing on the sidewalk, and there was George, big and tall, with a questioning look on his face, like what the hell is wrong with you, lady? And then he was shaking his head. He said, “Are you kidding? You are perfect. Just like you are.”

George’s hand wrapped around her arm and she was pulled out of the street. The astronomers’ club had no name on the front. They stepped through an iris door into an airlock, and the door closed behind them. There was a hiss of silence and frozen air, and cold steam surrounded them. Quiet.

“Couldn’t they give it a name? Like The Comet or The Milky Way or…”

“Or The Black Hole?”

“Yeah.”

The cold steam hissed again. She could barely see George. She shivered. The silence, after the noise on the street, was weird.

“That’s what the gay secret astronomers’ club is called.”

Irene said nothing.

“Because of the gayness,” George explained.

“I get it,” said Irene.

“I bet people kiss in here sometimes,” said George.

Then his hand was on her shoulder, and she felt his thumb hard against her collar bone. What strange energy was in his hands, she did not know, but it made her feel as if he was leaving fingerprints on her, marking her, turning little parts of her alive at a time, wherever he touched. She heard his breath in the cold steam.

“You bet or you know?” said Irene.

Then he was kissing her again, and she felt herself rising up off the floor to meet him, like she was inhaling through his face, one long breath in. He put his hands in her ponytail and tugged the scarf away that was holding it, shook out her hair behind her head, pulled two handfuls of it up beside her face, grinning.

“Now you look more like a scientist,” he said.

“George, that thing doesn’t actually work where the boy pulls the girl’s hair out of a ponytail and she shakes it out and she’s magically transformed into hotness.”

“Actually it’s pretty reliable,” said George. “You were hot before, but you should see yourself now.”

The second door of the airlock swooshed open, and George and Irene spilled into the room. It was cavernous and dark, with a blues band taking up the stage. A singer in white was bathed in a spotlight, crooning at the microphone. Tables and chairs were scattered around the place, and there was a dance floor, where several couples were standing.

“I look too much like a scientist,” said Irene.

George waved at people who were calling to him from the bar. There were astronomers of both genders draped around the place, locked in conversation, moving to the slow jam, or showing off big smiles.

“Let’s get a drink,” said George.

“I don’t drink,” said Irene.

“You’ll drink this,” said George.

He led her to the bar and motioned to the bartender, who turned around and started mixing.

“Uh oh, I think our favorite Daughter of Babylon is here,” George said into her ear. The proximity of his mouth to her ear made her body tighten up into a spiral. When he said, “Over there,” his lips brushed against her earlobe and a passing group of guys pushed her into him. His rib cage was broad and strong, his shoulders wide. He caught her up and held onto her. She raised her face to him, wanting just to kiss him and not to think about it, but he was pointing.

Sam Beth wore a long white dress, flowing and puddling on the floor. Her pigtails were drawn up fiercely into two buns, one on each side of her head, her arms were wrapped with gold bracelets, and under each eye the three dots glowed a bright white. It seemed like there were stripes in her hair. She approached them sedately.

“Princess Leia,” said Irene.

“Nice boots,” said Sam Beth.

“Thanks, Patrice,” said Irene pointedly.

“Are you here together?” asked Sam Beth, motioning to George.

“Have you been drinking?”

“The Daughters of Babylon do not drink alcohol,” said Sam Beth, but she took a crystal atomizer from the bar and gave herself a brisk shot in the face. Her eyes widened.

“What is that stuff?”

“What is that stuff?” Sam Beth imitated her.

With a rustle of fabric and a slow nod, she moved on through the club, and then the bartender was ready with the drinks and George was leaning over the bar. His shirt came untucked. She saw the waistband of his khakis and underneath the waistband of his underwear, heather gray. What was it about this man that made her feel so possessive, as if she should reach out and tug that shirt down into place or slide her hand under it. He turned and smiled at her, holding a blue drink in a tall glass. Inside the drink was a flutter of white blobs, floating between the surface and the bottom and then back again, like a lava lamp.

“I said I don’t drink,” said Irene.

“This isn’t alcoholic,” said George.

Irene took the drink out of his hand. It felt cool in the glass, but there were no condensation droplets around it.

“What’s in it?”

George rolled his eyes. “Do you want a recipe? I can have someone print one out for you. Or you could just drink it. It’s pretty good. If you don’t like it, I’ll get you something else.”

“It’s not alcoholic, really? I don’t drink alcohol, like ever at all.”

“Why?” asked George. “Why no drinking?” A simple question, asked in innocence. One she had never answered.

“My mother was an alcoholic,” she said suddenly. She reached out for him and grabbed his hand. The air went whooshing out of her. She couldn’t believe she had told him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Well, I would never give you alcohol without telling you.”

“I feel like you wouldn’t,” she said. “I believe you.”

“But it’s hard for you,” George said. “I get it.”

Irene took a deep breath and a little drink of the blue liquid. It tasted like raspberries and cucumbers. Very fresh. She let one of the white bubbles into her mouth and it burst with a little fizziness against the roof of her mouth. She felt a tickle in the back of her throat, and then she seemed more able to breathe than she had been before. The band finished their song and set down their instruments to take a break. New music came through the speakers, some kind of strange world house music or something. It thumped in the bar. She looked up to see that George was watching her. She had told him about her mother. And nothing bad had happened.

“You look beautiful,” he said. “Will you marry me?”

“I’ve only known you for three days,” said Irene. “I’m not going to marry you.”

“You will,” said George.

“Whatever,” said Irene.

“Tell me everything about yourself. Favorite color, favorite food, what you want from life, what you want from me.”

“Black, don’t have one, some sort of publication like everyone else, and—” Irene stopped.

“I want publication, too,” said George. “You see, we’re not so different.”

“I want something from you,” she went on, her breath coming fast.

“You told me,” he said, smiling. “I mean—”

“I think I just want you to be real,” said Irene. Whether it was the bubbly drink or the music thudding in her sternum or the proximity of George and the skin she wanted to touch, kiss, press against, she felt herself telling him something serious.