God is an Astronaut (27 page)

“Oh,” said Paula. “Well, in that case.” I could picture her, standing in the pristine kitchen of her condo, with its alphabetical spice rack, winding the hem of her T-shirt around her nonphone hand. It’s a gesture of exasperation that we share. I only noticed this the last time she was here. You’re an only child, Arthur, so you probably don’t understand how disorienting it is to see your expressions play across someone else’s face or hear your own inflection coming out of someone else’s mouth. For a few seconds you know exactly what you look like to everyone else in the world.

“For God’s sake, Jess,” she said. “You’re his wife. The world must be full of nutjobs who would take your place in a heartbeat. Tell him no. Tell him to find someone else.”

For a moment, Arthur, I considered coming clean. I leaned over and buried my face in the mason jar stuffed full of flowers on the table. In spite of all the rain we’ve been getting, everything in the greenhouse area has been flourishing in the way only the wicked is supposed to. There’s been such an abundance that I’ve been going out almost every other day to hack things back. I gave away some of the surplus orchids and basil to Lacroix a few days after he drove me to the ER. I piled them up in one of our old Easter baskets and left them out on the step of his trailer. The offering was a bizarre expression of gratitude and resentment—one part “Thanks for your help” and one part “Fuck you.”
I’m pretty sure this is something Paula would have understood. She once told me that there’s nothing we’re not of two minds about if we dig down deep enough. Ambivalence is the bedrock of human existence, she said. Face it.

But then I chickened out. “I can’t,” I said.

The point of this anecdote is . . .

OK, I forgot what the point was. But there’s this: Has it occurred to you, Arthur, that I might actually want to go?

j

From: Jessica Frobisher

Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2014 9:59 pm

To: Arthur Danielson

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Subject: Re: facing it

It absolutely is a test. And, yes, I’m going to do my damnedest not to fail.

But that’s not what I was asking. I was just asking you to consider the possibility. It’s a free $250,000 ticket, Arthur. To see space. Every time I think about it, my stomach drops, which is about once every ten minutes. I haven’t felt like that since—well, never mind. But I’ve gone back to swigging Pepto.

I’ll try to take some pictures. Seriously, Arthur. They’ll be absolutely stunning.

Jess

From: Jessica Frobisher

Sent: Thursday, July, 31 2014 6:52 am

To: Arthur Danielson

Cc:

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Subject: Funny thing happened on the way to the office

Arthur,

I have a story for you.

It opens on a dull note: Me in the Nat Sci building. I’m knocking on Thom’s office door.

It continues with Thom inviting me in. Me getting some paperwork signed. Thom and I make small talk. It goes something like this: Pregnant-with-twins Olivia is doing great. Jack is doing great. Corinne is doing great. (This is still boring, I know, but bear with me.) We do not discuss Liam. Liam, obviously, is not doing great. Thom knows this. I know this. Neither one of us lies that well; we have this in common. We don’t want to even try.

I turn to leave. I make it all the way to the door, and Thom clears his throat. (And here’s where things get interesting. Are you ready?)

“Ah, Jess,” Thom says.

I am still holding on to the doorknob. I turn around. What Thom says next is this:

“Sorry to hear about Arthur.”

“Excuse me?” I say. My first thought is that there has been some sort of accident, that you, Arthur, have died, and no one has told me. The reason I say “Excuse me”
is not because I have a hearing problem. It’s because all the blood has just rushed up to my head, and I need that extra second before I let go of the door and try to make it to the chair. I really and truly am afraid to move. I am afraid I might collapse on the way.

“About his taking the job at Duke,” Thom says. “I know you two were close.” He is watching me with those mild blue eyes of his, and pretending not to notice a thing, and I realize in a sudden and sad and blindingly obvious way that he knows what he knows. There isn’t an ounce of malice in his voice. There is just a regretful sympathy that might, in another life, have disarmed me. The me in this story can’t be disarmed, though, because I am still in something like shock. This is a good thing. It prevents me from saying something unwise, something that I will later remember against my will, and be forced to squirm at for years to come.

Thom continues valiantly talking, continues valiantly pretending. “I tried to bribe him to stay,” he says. “I offered him all the meager filthy lucre I had on hand, but I got the impression he was eager to shake the Ann Arbor dust off his feet.” He is fiddling apologetically with some paper clips on his desk, like he’s untangling them, although you and I both know, Arthur, that those paper clips have been snarled together for years, and they are never fucking coming apart. Thom says, “He was playing hardball. You know how a person bargains sometimes in that way that tells you that he doesn’t really want his mind changed?”

I don’t remember how I respond. There is a very loud ringing in my ears, and I’m not sure that whatever I say next makes any sense. Maybe it’s “Why wouldn’t he?” Maybe it’s “Who would?” The power of movement has returned. More than anything I want to get back to the safety of my office. When I finally escape I pass Moira in the hall, and she says, “God, Jess, take it easy.”
It occurs to me—and not for the first time—that in her loud, stupid way Moira is the most astute person in this entire department of scientists, and what does that say about us?

That is the story.

So tell me now, Arthur: what do you think?

Jess

From: Jessica Frobisher

Sent: Saturday, August 2, 2014 1:03 pm

To: Arthur Danielson

Cc:

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Subject: Re: explanations

It’s not the same thing, and you know it. The whole spaceflight will take 2.5 hours from start to finish, and then I. Am. Coming. Back.

When were you planning on telling me? Were you going to wait until a week before the semester started, and then send me an e-mail: “Oh, by the way, I’ve moved to North Carolina, so good-bye forever. P.S. Have a nice life”?

From: Jessica Frobisher

Sent: Sunday, August 3, 2014 9:09 am

To: Arthur Danielson

Cc:

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Subject: Re: re: explanations

Point taken. You don’t owe me anything. I’ve only been your best friend for six years. Have a great time in North Carolina.

Jess

P.S. Have a nice life

From: Jessica Frobisher

Sent: Sunday, August 3, 2014 10:09 pm

To: Arthur Danielson

Cc:

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Subject: Re: amends

Yes. T minus 14 days. I haven’t started packing yet. There’s actually not that much to take. Mostly just long underwear for under the space suit. A doctor’s note, declaring me to be physically fit—and not pregnant. Sunscreen. That’s about it.

When are you headed down to North Carolina?

From: Jessica Frobisher

Sent: Monday, August 4, 2014 10:24 pm

To: Arthur Danielson

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Subject: treehouses

Arthur, please. I get it. You were just being honest. There’s no need to say anything else, so please do me a favor and don’t. I’ve just been taking some time to resign myself, that’s all. Resignation is something I’ve never been very good at. I should be grateful to you for giving me the chance to practice.

Gripe of the day: Lacroix has switched from calling me “Jessica”
in his sexy-making accent to referring to me as “fellow astronaut.” He’s been trying to get some more shots of me on the home planet doing mundane Earthling things, so this morning he and Elle tagged along with me and Jack and Corinne on our trip to the park. We’re all sick of the one near our house (which has a hideous postmodernist jungle gym that Corinne’s afraid of), so we went to this place on South Wagner Road. It’s where I used to take Harley before he died. It was the best off-leash pooch park you’ve ever seen. Most of the dogs would congregate in the middle of the field next to the parking lot, in a yappy, swirling mass, but Har-har and I would steer clear of them. We’d head down into a drainage ditch and tack around the edge of the lot until we reached the safety of the woods on the west side. The two of us had an understanding. Harley was as eager to avoid the exuberant hip-checking and humping of his fellow canines as I was to avoid small talk with their latte-clutching owners. Liam was right about Har. He was one ornery little muttski. But there are moments when, out of nowhere, I’m still jolted by how much I miss him. I’ll be standing at the stove, say, frying up a batch of bacon, or straightening up Jack’s boots in the corner where the ratty corduroy dog bed used to be and
has not been for years
, and I’ll feel it—a sudden stab that makes me say out loud, “Holy shit,”
or some other non sequitur that’s just as profane.

Nobody takes dogs there anymore. It was only a matter of time. You could have predicted it: someone got bitten a few months back, the company that owned the land revoked its laissez-faire approach to leash laws, and people started trickling away, saying they knew it all along, that it was too good to last.

Now the field’s all quiet, reverted back to its natural savannah-like state. In places the grass practically comes up to Corinne’s neck. Whenever she stooped down to clutch at a grasshopper, she would vanish. Then reappear. Then vanish again. The grasshoppers really were everywhere, flying up around us like showers of sparks, and landing with sad little sizzling sounds on our bare arms. I concentrated on naming all the wildflowers I could see, yelling out the species and genus when they came to me. I knew that I was hamming it up, Arthur, being as obnoxious as the kids, but I didn’t care. It helped me stop thinking, for a few minutes, about what is coming next. We trooped along, stepping over fossilized dog turds with Elle and Lacroix trailing behind us, turning their cameras this way and that. Fortunately the park was empty. We only passed one runner, a lanky, half-naked college girl who slowed down to stare at our strange little entourage, but when she saw Lacroix turning the camera toward her, she picked up the pace and disappeared back into the grass.

This is the place where Jack and I go to climb trees. The last time you and I talked face-to-face I was still letting him win, but no more. The two of us are now dead equals. He’s lighter, so he’s hauling less weight to the top, but I’m still taller, so I’ve got a better reach. Our handicaps balance out us perfectly, but they won’t stay that way for much longer. The physics is working against me; I can feel it, even if Jack can’t. He’s getting strong, and I’m getting old.

I wasn’t in the mood for a strenuous scramble, but Jack desperately wanted to race me—and Jack doesn’t want desperately to do anything these days. Corinne had wandered away to go stomp down some monstrous toadstools she’d discovered, but we coaxed her back and bribed her into being the starter by giving her Elle’s periwinkle scarf to wave as a flag. (Corinne has—maybe it goes without saying, Arthur—no interest whatsoever in climbing, or in roaming around anywhere other than on solid earth. She’s been wearing an old paper crown from Burger King. It’s her accessory of choice these days. I’m sure she’s imagining she has royal blood running through her kindergarten veins, that some secret arrangement has placed her with a pair of commoner guardians, disgraced astronauts, that she’s only biding her time until a horseman comes to take her back to the castle where she belongs.)