Jane Smiley - Golden Age

Richie didn’t say anything.

—

ROSANNA HAD SPENT years regaling everyone who cared and who didn’t care with tales of the Langdon children; Minnie had always listened with interest, and sometimes wondered what her mother or father would have said of her. But she was seventy-one now, and Lois was sixty, and if there had been stories, they were lost. For that reason, she wrote down entries in a small diary about Felicity, who would soon be two — nothing lengthy or analytical, only notes about what she had said or done that she would give her someday, to go along with the pictures Jen and Jesse took. One thing she didn’t write down, but did think, was that this was the child she wished she had been — not good, not agreeable, like Guthrie and Perky, who were now seven and six — but intent. When Felicity talked, she talked to herself — if you entered the room or interrupted her, she zipped her lip and stared at you, and then, after you left, she would begin again, a dialogue with two or three parts. Twice Minnie had managed to write down some of the lines in her little book—“Please do sit down. Thank you very much. Once upon a time.” Minnie supposed that she was trying out phrases, maybe wondering what they meant or consigning them to memory. When she had to communicate, she was good for her age — precise and direct.

Jen had no complaints — Felicity ate well, slept well, was potty-trained, knew how to button her shirt, sat quietly in the shopping cart when they went to Hy-Vee — but she was not a cuddler. Jen seemed surprised that Felicity was restless in her lap and always climbed down after a moment or two. And Jen seemed disappointed that when she made a playful face, the kind that Guthrie or Perky at the same age would have laughed aloud at, Felicity only gazed at her, as if to say, What next? Jen would say, “She was born suspicious. I wonder where she gets that?” Minnie had an answer, but she never mentioned it.

Minnie’s pleasure was that Felicity would sit beside her on the sofa in the breezy, oak-paneled living room while Minnie crocheted or looked out the front window at the cornfield across the road, and she would pat Minnie on the leg, rhythmically. She would look into Minnie’s face while Minnie sang her a song—“Froggie went a courtin’, he did ride.” She made an “f” and an “o” sound with her lips. “Sword and a pistol by his side.” She made a little hissing sound. Her face had a studious expression. Minnie’s diagnosis, as a woman, former teacher, and former principal, was that Felicity was going to do things her way, and she thought that single-minded was the best strategy, even if you pleased few of the people not much of the time. Two, she thought, was the most ephemeral age, the age of incipient consciousness, when personality was first chinking into place. Felicity was her last chance to enjoy this, and so she did, day after day.

—

ANDY DIDN’T LIKE waking up facing the clock, because she didn’t want to know what time it was, for example, now, when it was one-fifty-nine. One-fifty-nine was too early, and as far as she could remember, she’d had no dreams, so maybe no REM sleep. Then, even though she was careful not to move, and did not roll over (she could still see the clock), Frank’s arms went around her and he kissed the back of her neck. She said, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I was awake. I was watching the snow. There’s enough of a moon that it sparkles.” Frank didn’t draw the curtains; his vision was still sharp, and he could make out constellations and passing satellites.

Andy turned over. Frank was solid and warm even though the room was cold. Now that they were sleeping together every night, she’d had to buy lighter bedclothes, and a mattress firm enough to support the weight of both of them in one spot. He slipped his hand around the small of her back and pulled her toward him. She put her leg over his. Frank ran his hand down her thigh and rested it, then jiggled himself so that they were even closer. Andy kissed him on the lips, but it wasn’t going to lead to lovemaking. A pleasure of being seventy was that comfort seemed more appealing than passion.

In the last year, he had won her. He had come to Sleeping Beauty and kissed her again and again, and each time, she had awakened another degree, sloughed off another layer of skepticism. It was a surprisingly painful process. In all the stories, the prince went away, sometimes for ten years, sometimes for a hundred years. All the princess had to do was mind her own business, and that was what Andy had been doing for thirty-five years now. Sometimes her business had been trivial, sometimes her business had been misguided, sometimes her business had been useful and informative, and quite often she had been helped in her business by people who did and did not know they were helping her. But Frank, the prince, had been on the scene the whole time, and so she had put a layer on every time he grimaced, every time he left the room, every time he rolled his eyes, every time he looked around the restaurant or the theater or the parking lot or the airport as if he were searching for someone, known or unknown, who might save him from the troublemaking boys, the clingy girl, the unloved wife.

That night she had truly been sleepwalking. It wasn’t the first time. As a child she’d done it twice: Once out into the snow in January; Sven, who was only eight to her nine, had heard the door open, looked out the window, and told their parents. The other time, she was twelve — she walked into her parents’ room and lay down on the floor between their beds. They were sound asleep, and her father stepped on her when he got up in the morning. But no one delved into the book or the story or the nightmare that had produced the somnambulism. She had done it twice in this house, once to the kitchen, where she woke up sitting at the table; once to the car, where she woke up stretched out on the front seat, staring through the windshield. But Frank had known nothing about those incidents. And so she had been dreaming about something — she liked to think it was one of the children — and had gone into Frank’s room and inserted herself back into his life.

The result was that there was this time every day, between ten at night and eight in the morning, when they were alone, sleeping or talking, the lights out. They prepared by adjusting their pillows, straightening the covers, making sure the room was ventilated and cool. They coiled together; then Frank’s breaths started ruffling within a few minutes, while Andy thought blank thoughts — the names of islands or flowers or views she had seen of scenes that meant nothing to her, like a beach in Venezuela. Andy preferred dreams that made no sense and referred to nothing. By mutual consent, they did not talk about the boys, the girl, the collapsing investment in the farm, any beloved relatives who seemed to be effacing themselves from the world despite the kind attentions of a recently discovered grandson. In their room and their bed, they regretted nothing, recalled no missed opportunities, acknowledged no loss of beauty or grace. Sometimes, Frank told a joke: Did you hear the one about the guy who went to his doctor, and after a lengthy examination, the doctor said, “I’m sorry to inform you that you are very ill. You have six hours to live.” Andy laughed — she didn’t have to wait for the punch line. Frank kissed her on the forehead, and when she turned over and pressed her derriere against his crotch, he slipped his arm under her neck, along the line of the pillow. She put her hand in his. She could feel his warmth all along her back, animal comfort.

She fell asleep between “Oahu” and “Patmos” and woke up at seven-thirty-seven from a dream that she was trying to remove a box from the trunk of her car, which she had parked on the grassy shoulder of the Palisades Parkway. As she woke, she was turned toward Frank, who was looking upward, his profile as distinct and alluring as always. She gazed at him in the extra-bright, snow-whitened, Hudson River — inflected morning sunshine, and thought that these long, perfect nights were the best thing that had ever happened to her. But wasn’t it also true that they came over her faster and faster, warm, comforting waves that made everything that she got up for in the morning seem trivial and ephemeral? Perhaps, she thought, if you were happy half of every twenty-four-hour period, your punishment was that you sped toward the end of that happiness ever more quickly.