Donald Antrim - The Emerald Light in the Air

Glancing sideways, he saw that she was biting her lower lip. “How about that? It’s a world,” he said. She’d been thinking the same thing, though the world she saw was not his world. She saw the white walls and porch-paint gray floor inside her mother’s studio, in particular the floor, its smudged arabesques and dirty footprints of paint dripped from brushes held slackly in her mother’s hand, year after year, as far back as she could remember.

Why hadn’t her mother protected her?

She pried Christopher’s arms from her waist, stomped into the living room, and plopped down on one of the leather sofas he’d been looking forward to having sex on while listening to Danny’s stereo.

“Go to hell,” she said, and he flinched — was she joking? But it didn’t sound like a joke.

The situation wasn’t much improved in the living room. On one wall was a sculpture that looked like a complicated tricornered hat, with a high crown and a razor-edged brim. And that painting above Jennifer’s head couldn’t possibly be a — a what’s-his-name, could it? Outside, trees were in bloom and the park was alive with insects and birds. But Danny preferred that they not open the apartment’s windows. It was important to keep out dust. And, he had asked, could they please not raise the shades during the day, also for reasons having to do with conservation? Perhaps it was the drawn shades that caused Jennifer’s bad mood to worsen. Christopher spent Saturday afternoon alone in the semi-darkness, flipping channels on Danny’s giant television. Occasionally Jennifer called to him from the bedroom. She didn’t feel like getting out of bed, even though she was sharing the room with a Richard Serra print that looked like a leaden, black sun.

“I feel sick,” she told him that night when he came in and checked on her. “Do I have a fever?”

He felt her forehead. “If you do, it’s not high.”

“Ugh,” she said.

They had another conversation about art.

“Did you paint this week?”

“I tried one day. It was windy and the stretcher blew off the easel. Twice. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter. My painting is all over the place. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“That can’t be true.”

“I don’t understand color. I don’t understand paint. I want things brighter. Not brighter, more alive. What am I trying to say?”

“Intense? More intense?”

She coughed. “That’s part of it. I’m also searching for restraint.”

“Intense restraint.”

“Very funny.” She coughed again.

“I didn’t mean to be funny.”

“I know.”

He felt her forehead once more, and this time decided that she was hot. She had a temperature. He said, “I’d better get you some aspirin and a glass of water.”

When he came back into the room, he sat on the bed and waited while she swallowed the pills.

“Stop staring at me.”

“Sorry.”

“You’re making me nervous,” she said. She handed him the glass. “Could you get me a drop of wine? The merlot on the counter beside the sink?”

“Is that a good idea?”

“It’s Saturday night. Who cares if it’s a good idea?” She held the glass for him to take. “A drop? Just a drop?”

He took the glass and went out of the room. Who drank with a fever? He made a special effort not to drink on these weekends they shared. He did not want her to see him knocking back a six-pack in the hours past midnight, as he did in secret during the week, on the nights alone — and there were other things he didn’t want Jennifer to get wind of. His departure from his job hadn’t come about in precisely the way he’d indicated when he’d glossed the matter on their first night together, at Amy’s. Had he lied to her? He’d omitted certain specifics. She didn’t need to hear about his cavalier approach to sick days or his periodic failure to bill clients, or about the humiliation he’d suffered when, one day, he’d sneaked downstairs to have a beer in the restaurant attached to the building’s lobby and a partner standing at the bar had loudly upbraided him over some minor mistake, then called him a drunk. And there was something else Jennifer might not be happy knowing: He’d lately been taking walks in Central Park, hunting for her beneath the trees near Sheep Meadow and the Great Lawn. On his walks he became furtive, nervous; he imagined that if he could catch her at her easel, her brush in her hand, painting a picture of the known world, he might — he might what? Hide behind a tree and, like a trespasser hopped up on adrenaline, watch her? Call her cell phone from his and, while pretending to be nowhere near, chat?

He poured her wine and shoved the cork back into the bottle. He enjoyed a moment of pride over not having any alcohol himself. In the bedroom, he said, “Here.”

She took the glass. She sat propped against pillows. She said, “A sip will help me sleep.”

“Right.”

“It helps before bed, you know?”

“Yes.”

“Is something the matter?” she asked, because she’d heard his tone.

“No. I guess not. No.” He looked at her body outlined beneath the blankets. How could he tell her what was wrong? What was wrong? Was it simply that he didn’t care to watch her do what he did? He felt afraid for her — was that it? “It’s nothing, I’m fine,” he said, while she drank. But later that night he was unable to sleep. He got up and wandered into the kitchen, where he found Danny’s liquor in a cabinet above the stove. He went into the living room and sat up until three drinking Scotch. His mood followed a well-worn path: Halfway through his second drink, he knew his life was good — he was a lucky man. Everything, even the glass in his hand — especially the glass in his hand, crystal, heavy-bottomed, warm to his touch — felt right to him. As he drank, his ebullience increased, and he regarded his expensive surroundings as somehow belonging to him, or, more appropriately, as a preview of what he’d surely one day have. But after another few shots his thoughts veered into a familiar loop. Who was he fooling? How would he ever have any of this? Why was he unable to take possession of the world’s bounties? Why had he and Jennifer not ever gone dancing , for Christ’s sake? What was their plan ? They met, climbed into bed, leaped out of bed, said goodbye — was he in love? Was she? Or were they just fucking? They had so much to be thankful for, so much. They had each other.

His face was numb. He gave himself a bit more to drink, put away Danny’s bottle, rinsed the glass, and groped his way down the hall to the bedroom, where he stood in his underwear beside the bed. The shades were drawn, the windows blacked out. As Christopher’s eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw that each window — there were three — was haloed in a corona of light, the city’s nighttime glow seeping in through the narrow chinks between glass and shade. He felt the impulse to wake Jennifer and show her the illuminated windows, as if the phenomenon represented something uniquely worth experiencing, like a solar eclipse. Three black suns hovered over her as she slept. Make that four, counting the Serra.

The following afternoon, he woke beside her. How was she feeling today? A little better, she told him. He, of course, was hungover. But that wasn’t a life-or-death problem, was it? She wondered aloud if she’d given him whatever bug had bitten her, and he promised her she hadn’t, then asked her — he hadn’t planned this; it just came out of his mouth — if she would consider showing him her painting, the one she’d begun in the days after they met. Dry-mouthed, he added, “Don’t be scared.”

After that, he went ahead and joined her for drinks when they got together. Who took the lead in this new policy? It was she, after all, who didn’t make much fuss over a glass of wine. Following his old rule, he waited until dinner was finished before pouring his first, so that he could have a decent amount in a short span of time without causing a sodden evening. When he drank, she drank. Sometimes she smoked. She liked to stand at a window and exhale out into the world. When the nights got warm, she opened the window wide and leaned on the casement.