Jane Smiley - Golden Age

He said a wrong thing: “We probably should have stayed in Golden, but—”

Golden was where the Solar Research Institute was, but the funding had dropped again, and Riley’s internship had been canceled in June. Charlie’s rafting trips had been so lucrative that they’d decided that the most eco-sensitive choice was for her to move to Aspen, where he had a job in a locally owned equipment store and was closer to the rafting company, while Riley looked for another position. Riley had enjoyed hiking and camping. However, “Hansen” prodded her, made her certain she was wasting time. Here it was, mid-September; graduate programs were starting up everywhere, and she hadn’t applied.

She said, “We should have. I regret that every single day.”

Charlie hadn’t realized that.

But maybe if Riley had not been sitting up since 3:00 a.m., thinking apocalyptic thoughts, staring at the horizon out of the bathroom window for tendrils of smoke rising into the morning sky, she would not have noticed the look on his face that said, Oh, be reasonable, a blip is a blip, we need more data. (That was not what he was thinking; he was thinking, I can’t handle this until I have a cup of coffee and something to eat, maybe she’ll let me take her out for breakfast in spite of the budget.) The look on her face changed — Charlie could read it — it said, Revelation. Then she said, softly, “I think we’re done, baby.” And she got up and went into the bedroom. He noted the pale curve of her thigh as she left the room, the bounce of her half-red hair on her neck. She was his first girlfriend, and he didn’t want another. She was patient (most of the time), broken in, used to him; he would drive her anywhere; he would try anything she cooked, including tofu, including nettle tea; he loved her breasts and her lips especially. He followed her into the bedroom.

He hadn’t made the bed. She had, of course, and perfectly. Now her big old suitcase was sitting on the smoothed-over counterpane. Charlie said, “I’ll go with you.”

“And do what?”

“What am I doing here?”

“The ski season will begin eventually.”

“Not according to you.”

“Charlie, you are so much fun.”

“I thought you liked that.”

“I’m getting old.” Her face was smooth, unlined; her hair thick. She looked sixteen.

Charlie said, “You’re twenty-two.”

“I’m not learning anything here. If I apply to the Forest Service, they will stick me in a fire lookout somewhere, and I will sit there scanning the horizon, and then I will make friends with a deer and a fox or two, and then I will wake up in ten years and be too old to make a difference, and I will have to reproduce and train the kid to make a difference when I didn’t.”

“It can’t be that much of a cri—”

She spun around. Her hair actually lifted as she did so. She barked, “It is.”

“I lo—”

She reached for his hand and pulled him down beside her on the bed. She said, “Yes, Charlie, you do, and I love you. But what is the point of that? You tell me. We aren’t ever going to have kids. We have a good time together and laugh a lot, but in the larger picture, so what? I don’t believe in true love or made-for-each-other. I believe you learn what you can, and you move on. You have to accomplish something.”

“I want you to accomplish something.”

“Then don’t try to keep me here.” Her eyebrows shifted toward one another, and a little vertical wrinkle appeared. Charlie knew this wrinkle meant she was dead serious.

He said, “Just admit that we’ve had a good time here.”

He kept holding her hand in both of his. She tried to pull hers away, the wrinkle deepened, but then she actually smiled. She said, “We’ve had a good time here.”

“Then let me come along so that we can have a good time somewhere else. Look. You have a vocation. As far as I can tell, I don’t. So I’ll support your vocation until mine kicks in.” He loosed his hands, so that he wasn’t gripping hers anymore, and then she snaked her right arm around his back and laid her head in the spot where she put it when she fell asleep every night — right where the trapezius met the deltoid, right where, she said, his “musk” invaded and overwhelmed her chemoreceptors. She sighed a defeated sigh and said, “Okay.”

Charlie said, “Where are we going?”

She said, “We have a year and about ten applications to figure that out.” Then, “Columbia?”

Charlie grimaced at the thought of New York City.

“Harvard?”

Charlie made himself sit still.

“Princeton?”

Charlie put his hands on either side of his head and mimicked an Edvard Munch sort of expression.

“Woods Hole?”

Charlie shrugged.

“St. Paul?”

Only then did Charlie grin.

Riley said, “You are truly one in a million, Mr. Wickett.”

“I might compromise on Madison.”

She said, “We’ll see what I get into. And which one is farthest from Stevens Point.”

They went back into the kitchen. The radio was playing regular old rock-and-roll, and then Leonard Cohen came on, “First We Take Manhattan.” Without seeming to realize it, Riley started bebop-ping around the kitchen. There was nothing about any fires nearby. At noon, Charlie went out and bought The Denver Post . Not much. When he returned, though, Riley was parked in front of the television, staring at what turned out to be footage of the Old Faithful Inn, in Yellowstone, not of the firestorm itself but of the aftermath — people saying how they had been stuck on the roof ready to die, how they had been watching the fire when, suddenly, they’d had to run for cover, how firebrands had landed all around them, how a fireball had shot down one slope toward the inn but missed it. Everyone was shaken, no one was dead. Charlie stood there until the report was over. She was upset; Charlie was, too. But what a plan gave you, no matter how bad things looked, was a path. And so she only shook her head and said, “Jesus. When is this going to end?” They sat quietly in their little safe spot for the rest of the afternoon, not saying much, and eating leftover macaroni and cheese for dinner.

DEBBIE PULLED OUT Arthur’s chair; he let her, though it made him feel stupid. Then she opened the menu for him. He peered at it, turned it upside down, and perused it seriously until she finally said, “Oh, Dad!” and laughed. Once she laughed, he set the menu down. The only thing he liked was French toast, and maybe a slice of bacon. Her mouth opened, and he said, “I do not know anything more about cyanide in the grapes.”

She said, “Okay. But—”

“All I know is what I read in the article, same as you. A little cyanide in two grapes out of twenty-two hundred. Not enough to harm—”

“They always say that.”

“Yes,” said Arthur, “they always do.”

The waitress came; Josie, her tag read. Debbie was always friendly. She said, “Hi, Josie. I’ll take the Western omelet, and my dad will take the French toast, and we’ll split a side of bacon. Thanks.”

Arthur said, “I’ll take my coffee straight up.”

Josie didn’t smile, just said, “All righty,” and turned away. Debbie’s eyes followed her, but she said, “Maybe they blame us for the disappeared.”

“Maybe they do,” said Arthur. “You throw away your fruit that might have come from Chile. I’m not going to bother.” He took an emphatic breath, and this time she believed him. Josie brought the coffee. Arthur took a sip — black and bitter, just the way he liked it.