David Gates - The Wonders of the Invisible World

“Not that many,” the waitress says.

“It was a while back,” he says. “She and I were studying oceanography with Matthew Arnold.”

The waitress cocks her head. “Okay, you’re kidding. Right?”

“Would I kid you?”

“You might.” She narrows her eyes. “You’ve got that look.” She walks away, her long Mexican skirt swishing.

“Whew,” says Seth. “The air smolders.”

Van picks up his glass. “I’ve got to get the hell out of Florida.”

While they’re undressing for bed, Holly tells Seth she can’t smoke weed anymore. “I have to tell you,” he says, “I don’t think weed per se is the problem.” He balls up his shirt and brandishes it one-handed above his head like a basketball, lightly touching his wrist with the other hand. He misses the hamper.

“It’s the problem when it gets me too high to deal with anything.”

“You get yourself too high to deal with anything.”

“Okay.” She doesn’t follow. “But then wouldn’t you say the solution is not to do it?” She turns her back and unhooks her bra.

“I’d say the solution is to look at what’s really going on.” He goes over, picks up the shirt and stuffs it into the hamper.

“Right. Well, what’s really going on is, I get too high when I smoke.”

He sighs. “Look, you know yourself best. I thought it was a fun thing for us. Sort of us against the world.”

“I know that. ” She lets the “but” clause remain implied. Could he really have felt it was them against the world? Like, together?

He turns out the light and reaches over. No candle tonight.

“Listen,” he says after a while. “Would it break the mood too much if I, you know?”

She was beginning to like what they’d been doing. “Won’t it keep you up?” she says.

“Ah,” he says. “She begins to get the idea.” Holly sees his dark shape go over to the dresser. She hears the drawer slide open. “Shit, I need the light,” he says. “Hide your eyes.”

She closes her eyes, hard, and covers them with her fingers. Still, everything lights up red. What can it be but her own blood seen through her own eyelids?

She ought to be in bed, but instead she’s out behind the house for some reason, in the dead garden; this can’t be a dream because her bare feet are freezing. She wonders if Seth has noticed she’s not there beside him, so she wills herself up into the air as high as their bedroom window. It works. Now, let’s see if she can pass right through the window, as if it were a membrane. Yes! The glass stretches, gives way and reseals behind her, and she’s back under the covers with no one the wiser. Her powers are beginning to scare her, but at the same time she understands that this could be a dream after all, so she tries waking herself up. And sure enough.

She gets out of bed, creeps down to the dark kitchen and feels around by the phone for the pencil and Post-It pad. She’s got to preserve something of this; it’s like no dream she’s ever had. Primitive people thought you literally leave your body when you dream; this could be what just happened to her. She goes into the bathroom, closes the door and turns on the light. As she writes, she feels little prickly chills on her forehead. Maybe she’s got a fever and it was just a fever dream. She could be coming down with that bird flu; it started in Hong Kong, where people got it from chickens. It’s like a pun: bird flew. And she was flying in the dream.

She takes two Advils, turns off the light and finds her way upstairs. Seth is still breathing away: sound asleep, unless he’s as good a faker as she is.

Holly’s aware of Seth getting dressed in the gray early morning; he always makes the 8:05 no matter what he was into the night before. When she wakes up for real, it’s after ten. She finds the Post-It where she left it: stuck to the back of the nightstand where Seth wouldn’t see. Dream — I am out back (in garden) and find I can fly up and pass through bedroom window. Window is like a bubble. The dream is pretty clearly about just slipping back into her marriage with no harm done. She props pillows behind her and tries to concentrate on Madame Bovary (maybe the translation’s part of the problem), but she can feel Seth’s father in the house, the way you know where the sun is on a cloudy day.

She gets up and showers. She’s not the type of person who would ever have a bathroom off the master bedroom, but here she is. South Norwalk, Connecticut. She puts on the most unalluring stuff she can find: her loosest jeans, her hooded sweatshirt with the kangaroo pocket, running shoes with no socks. Down in the kitchen she finds half a pot of still-hot coffee, and a clean mug with a note under it: Out for my constitutional. Back soon. Van. She takes her coffee into the dining room and looks out at the garden. Whatever she was supposed to do with that pile of dead vines and leaves, she’s never done it. She wants to put on Portishead, but it could make Seth’s father feel unwelcome when he gets back. So she goes upstairs and brings her book down.

It’s almost noon when he comes into the kitchen in sweatpants and windbreaker, carrying a Times and pulling a blue sweatband off his head.

“I was wondering if you’d gotten lost,” she says.

“Like an Alzheimer’s patient.”

“Exactly. Just what I was going to say,” she says. “Is it cold out?”

“My God, I can’t remember.” He drops his mouth open and claps a hand to his forehead. “Actually, it’s okay once you get moving.”

“How about some lunch?”

“I would love it.” He sits down at the kitchen table, wet hair pasted to his forehead.

“I could make you a ham sandwich — we have this great country ham.”

“Anything.” Which in fact means anything else, right? But she’s not going to stand there neurotically naming off possibilities.

“And a beer?” she says.

“That’s a thought. Yes. Yes, please.” He opens the Times.

She gets two slices of rye out of the breadbox, the ham and a jar of mustard from the refrigerator. “Were you warm enough last night?”

“It was fine. I like a room to be a little cool for sleeping.”

“If you’re cold tonight, there’s extra blankets up in the hall closet.” She remembers the damn wheelchair. “Actually, why don’t I get a couple out for you and stick them in your room.”

“If you think of it,” he says.

She pours his beer into a pilsner glass she bought at Crate & Barrel, holding the glass straight up so there’ll be enough head to leave an inch or so in the bottle. She glances over to make sure he’s not looking, then chugs it.

When she brings the beer and the sandwich over, he puts the paper down. “This is splendid, thank you.” He lifts the glass. “Better days. And colder nights.” He takes a taster’s sip. “Beck’s?”

“Sam Adams.”

“Aha. So tell me something. Are you two getting along?”

“That’s coming right to the point,” she says. Did something happen last night? She can’t begin to think back. “In answer to your question, yes. If we weren’t getting along, why would I be here?”

“Ah. Miss Feist. Mizz Feist.”

“Van, you’re not trying to pick a fight, are you?”

“No. God, no. Just trying to get up to speed. I like you, believe it or not. The last few years have raised hell with my social graces.”

“Since you bring that up,” she says, “I’ve been meaning to tell you. Seth admires you so much for the care you took of her. I don’t know if he’s said that to you.”

“Yes, well. Seth’s a romantic. Small r. Can I tell you something? And you keep it to yourself?”