The Ramblers

by Aidan Donnelley Rowley

  “Spiked,” he says. “I saw you out here and figured you could use it.”

  “You figured right,” she says. “Kids asleep?”

  “Yes,” he says. “For now. I hope you’ll come by and see all of us tomorrow?”

  “Absolutely,” she says, staring up at the sky. Stars twinkle. Beside her, he swings, pumping his legs, his feet skimming the grass.

  “Where’s Henry?”

  “He had to get back to the hotel. You’ll meet him next time.”

  If there is a next time, she thinks.

  Jack nods. “You hanging in?”

  Clio shoots him with a punitive look. “Not funny.” Jack and Jack alone is the only person who gets to make a suicide joke.

  “Kind of funny?” he says. “Maybe we are allowed to be funny now?”

  “How are the girls?” Clio says.

  “They’re good,” Jack says, looking toward his house. It amazes her that he has kids. “Maddy fought her nap for more than an hour and then passed out on the carpet, and Gabby is miserable cutting a tooth, but all’s fair in love and war, eh? I’m fried.”

  “But no regrets?”

  His eyes brighten as he looks at her. “Are you kidding me? It’s a wild ride, this parenthood thing. Hardest thing I’ve done in my life and by far the best.”

  “What’s it like?” Clio says, well aware that this is a ridiculous question.

  “It’s like yanking your own heart out of your chest and handing it over to these tiny humans. It’s like falling in love again every day.”

  “Wow,” Clio says, smiling at him. “What happened to my macho Jack?”

  He grins. “Your macho Jack is a dad now. Total game changer.”

  “He wants a family, Jack. Henry does.”

  Jack doesn’t seem surprised by this. “Do you? Is that what you want?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Clio shoves her hands in her pockets and looks down at the grass. She imagines Henry sitting on the train, probably fiddling away on his phone, getting things done, always getting things done. She still can’t believe he came, that he met her father, that everything was fine.

  The wind picks up and makes a murmuring, whistling sound. Clio snaps back into the present, looks over at Jack, Jack who was there for everything, who held her as she cried her way through childhood. It was the portrait of innocence, of platonic affection, until that one night the summer before college when it tipped into more. There was beer and laughter, a tangle of young lust and limbs in her floral-sheeted twin bed. It was each of their first time, a simple, sweet foray until Eloise walked in on them. Clio remembers her mother’s eyes in that cruel moment, how they glowed in the dark, the rage-filled words she sputtered as she flipped on the light, the keen panic she and Jack shared. He scrambled for his things and escaped.

  In the weeks that followed, Clio wondered what might have been if Eloise hadn’t ruined that night, whether she and Jack would have found a way to be together, but even back then, Clio knew that it would never work. She loved him and would always love him in an abiding, brotherly way, but he’d seen too much and he knew too much. In August, she went to Yale and he went off to Wake Forest. They promised they’d speak on the phone and they did. Almost every evening of freshman year, less so as time went on, particularly after he met Jessica, an English major, now his wife and the mother of his girls.

  She looks over at him, Jack, a new iteration of the boy next door. His eyes are bleary, his forehead showing faint wrinkles. His hair is beginning to thin, but only slightly. She can see that he’s happy, content. His contentment, though palpable, is not of the simple, saccharine variety. She can see this. It’s a complex breed, edged in effort and exhaustion, an elegy of real life. It inspires her.

  “What if it is, though?” Clio says. “What if this is something I want? What if I do want kids with him?”

  “Then you’ll do it,” Jack says, smiling. “You’ll do it and you’ll figure it out as you go. That’s all any of us can do.”

  Clio hears this and feels an odd surge of optimism. You’ll figure it out as you go. This coming from the one guy who knows everything she’s been through, who saw it all unfold harrowing scene by scene, who knew her then and knows her now, who knew her mother. You’ll figure it out as you go.

  “He met Henry. And it was fine, Jack. They just sat there with their beers and talked construction. I don’t know why I’ve been so afraid. I know it’s not that easy, that it was just fifteen minutes, that it’s bound to be more complicated, but I was kind of shocked. How do you think my dad seems anyway? Do you think he’s handling this move okay?”

  “Have you asked him?” Jack says. “Have you asked him how he’s doing?”

  Clio shoots him a punitive look. “You know how it is with us. The fine art of avoidance.”

  “You need to talk to him, Clio.”

  Clio nods, looks down at the grass. He’s right.

  “You going to miss this place?” he says.

  “Yeah. More than I thought.”

  “This better not mean I won’t ever see you,” he says. He stands and walks over to her and reaches out his hand. Clio drags her feet in the grass to stop the swing. She lets Jack pull her to stand. He smiles down at her and throws both arms around her, pulls her into a hug. It’s cold and she’s shivering. He kisses her lips very lightly, but there’s nothing to this kiss but simple affection, history. As if he’s reading her mind, he says, “Not that my opinion matters anymore, but I think you would make a terrific mother. I always have. She’s gone now, Clio. It’s your time to live.”

  Thursday, November 28, 2013

  TATE

  There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative. Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever.

  —Henri Cartier-Bresson, in a 1957 interview with The Washington Post

  INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL

  OF PHOTOGRAPHY

  MFA (Photography) Application 2014

  Statement of Interest and Intentions: Please outline your reasons for applying to this graduate program. Articulate how you envision contributing to the program. Make sure to include a description of your academic/professional background, a tentative plan of study or area of inquiry in the field, and your professional goals, and indicate how you see this program helping you reach those particular goals. If you have not been a student in the past five years, it is recommended that you address challenges and opportunities you might predict facing in pursuing the degree as well as the career possibilities you foresee upon completing the program.

  The truth: I can finally afford to do what I want to do. I have long loved photography, ever since I was a small boy with a bowl cut in St. Louis, Missouri. My parents gave me a Polaroid for Christmas when I was eleven. My father probably regretted this; he harbored hopes that I might be a jock, that he could live vicariously through anticipated athletic triumphs, but, sorry, Pops, I’ve always been more drawn to the arts, to the lights and shadows of life in this world. What it came down to was this: My parents worked hard to send me to Yale. They were loving, but firm in their love. My mandate was clear: I was to choose a practical major, a major that would lead to a lucrative career.

  Unenthusiastically, I chose economics. I enjoyed it well enough. I graduated; worked on Wall Street; started PhotoPoet, a software company, and then sold it. At the age of thirty-four, I now have financial means I never expected to have.

  This is not to boast or brag; it is simply to explain. Finally, I feel free to pursue my passion. I’ve taken many courses over the past fifteen years, in college and beyond, and I’m comfortable with my technical skills. That said, I know I have a lot to learn and I’ve never been more eager to learn it. I’m most interested in street photography, in people, real ordinary people, and New Yorkers in particular. There is
something feral and utterly unique about this city and the individuals it attracts. It’s all in the eyes. Degrees of solemnity and soul, of ambition and artifice, of exhaustion and euphoria, of panic and purpose. It’s my aim to collect slices of unself-conscious and unrehearsed life. My hope is to contribute in my own humble way to the history of street photography in this country, to continue to take portraits à la Henri Cartier-Bresson, to capture moments that are decisive and fleeting, filled with the grit and glory of everyday life.

  I haven’t been a student for thirteen years, but I do not see this as a negative. I’m eager to get back in the game, to return to a life of questions and creativity. I will also say that after too many years of doing what’s been expected of me, I feel a tremendous energy to take a crack at the work I’ve always dreamed of doing. To put it simply: I’m ready to live my own life with my eyes wide open. I’m hungry.

  7:14AM

  “Well, mercy me, that’s the first time you’ve used that word in a while.”

  She fiddles with her panties. They are chocolate brown, lace, barely there. She bends over, mumbles something about a missing boot. She’s on the floor now, crawling around like an animal, looking under the bed, ass in the air. He’s hard again. As she contorts her arms behind her to clasp her bra, he presses himself against her back. Let me help with that, he says, grabbing the straps and pulling the whole thing away. He kisses her neck and she turns to him. He reaches between her legs. In clumsy unison, they topple back. He pulls her on top of him. This time he doesn’t bother with a rubber and she doesn’t say anything. It’s fast, too fast, far too fast. He pulls out, makes a mess all over, and she takes the final dregs in her mouth. She swallows. Licks her lips. Swallows again. They rest briefly, in his bed, tangled in sheets. She stands, puts on her blue cowboy hat. This time, she says, I’m really leaving. Good, he thinks. Fucking go.

  A crooning sound. A phone ringing. Tate startles, shoots up in bed, opens his eyes.

  Fuck.

  It was only a dream. Was it about Olivia? Smith? He can’t conjure a face. Just pale skin, breasts, long dark hair . . . all of which they both have. Disappointment and relief fill him, but everything fades as he talks to his mother. It’s good to hear her voice this morning, the steady cadence of her reasonable thoughts, her chirpy, cheerful tone. The connection is bad because she’s calling from the cruise ship, but he’s able to piece it together: his dad is terribly seasick and has spent most of the trip in bed, his mother has won a whopping $78 playing blackjack. The mundane details buoy him.

  He checks the clock in his room. It’s not even eight. He can’t remember the last time he was up this early.

  “Well, anyway, happy Thanksgiving,” she says. “I’ve made a deal with myself not to worry too much about you today.”

  “I’m telling you I’m fine, Mom,” he says. “I’m good, actually.”

  Good. For the first time in a long while, it doesn’t feel like a lie. He actually does feel good. A little groggy and out of it, yes, but decent. His hangover is on the mild side today, just a dull ache at his temples and a dry tongue, but nothing major.

  “Well, mercy me, that’s the first time you’ve used that word in a while,” his mom says. “I just spoke with Emily. She says she’s going to call you, so keep a listen out. What do you have planned for the day?”

  “I’ll keep myself busy.”

  Tate smiles into the receiver and thinks of the day ahead. He will spend the majority of it with Smith. They will watch the parade from her apartment and then head to the Hamptons. “Happy Thanksgiving, Mom. Give my best to Dad. Love you both.”

  They mutter quiet good-byes, a mother-son melody they’ve had years to practice and perfect.

  He hangs up. Sits there on his bed for a minute to think. When’s the last time he paused to reflect on himself and his life? He can’t remember. He’s never been very good at this, he’s always thrived on constant motion and activity, on avoidance, but it’s gotten worse since Olivia. It’s the moments where he’s left alone with his thoughts—and regrets—that are the hardest, so he’s fled them like the plague, drowned them with alcohol. He knows this. Hey, whatever works.

  But here he sits, in no hurry, just looking around. What’s up with the dreams? He hasn’t remembered his dreams in ages, but now they linger, and crisply too. What does this mean? And what does it mean that his dreams have been consistently hypersexual, near pornographic? He’s not complaining, there are worse things, but this is new. Is this because he’s sleeping better? Or is this about Smith? About his ridiculous attraction to her, the fact that he feels he can’t act on it?

  It’s too soon to make a move and he knows this, but the thought that he might slip up tonight excites him. It’s downright bizarre that he cares enough already to worry about messing this up, but he does. He will meet her parents and they might take one look at him and disapprove. From everything Smith’s said, they’re a tough crowd, and it’s clear that she loves them and despite ambitions of independence, she’s all about her family.

  He thinks back to meeting Olivia’s parents at graduation, how he felt not a twinge of nervousness. Why is this so different? Is it just that he was young, that he didn’t know enough to worry?

  What’s clear is that he will have to behave himself and, if necessary, put on a good show. He knows how to be the résumé guy, how to turn on the Ivy League charm, how to tweak his accent to attain that affected privileged drawl, to drop it into conversation that he stinted at Goldman and started his own multimillion-dollar company. Truth is, he hates talking about this stuff; these conversations are dreadfully pretentious and banal, but he will rise to the occasion and do what he has to do. And no, he will not lay a hand on Smith even though that’s all he wants to do.

  In the bathroom, he splashes cold water on his face and then cups some water in his hands to drink. New York City’s finest, he thinks. He brushes his teeth.

  He settles in on the toilet for his morning dump and loses himself in his latest favorite book: Bystander: A History of Street Photography, a thick tome surveying the evolution of the kind of photography that intrigues him most. He overnighted an extra copy to give Smith’s parents when he visits them in the Hamptons tonight. It cost $200 and he wonders if it’s too much, if it will seem that he’s trying too hard.

  The phone rings and he adjourns. He runs into the bedroom to pick up. A London number appears on the caller ID. His sister.

  “Em.”

  “Tater,” she says. Hearing her voice, he remembers how much he’s missed her. She’s younger but far wiser, and it was her long e-mails that helped most in the aftermath of Olivia’s betrayal. He’s always told her everything about his life and he’s never once felt judged by her.

  “Hey, Em. I don’t suppose Mom made you call?”

  She laughs. “She’s worried about you, Tate. All by your lonesome in that big, bad city. She’s allowed to be concerned. I’m not saying she should be, but it’s kind of her job to worry about us. She’s also fretting about me being pregnant here, like I’m in some third-world country or something. I’m in London. What do you have on tap today?”

  “I’ll bum around with my camera this morning and then . . .” He pauses. “I didn’t tell Mom, but I met someone, Em. I’m spending the afternoon with her. I’m going to her sister’s wedding on Saturday.”

  “I knew it. Tell me everything,” she says. “I told you. I told you you’d meet someone. Who is she?”

  “She went to Yale with me. My year. A buddy convinced me to go back to Yale on Saturday for the game and I was at the tailgates and I brought my cameras and there was this girl and she was . . . I can’t explain it . . . but she had such an expressive face and I didn’t even think about it. I just started snapping away, getting closer and closer. She wasn’t paying attention. She was with friends, but kind of on the edge of the group and lost in her phone. I got incredibly close and we started talking, Em, like really talking. I’ve seen her twice this week. I’m going wi
th her to her sister’s wedding this weekend. I’m spending Thanksgiving with her family in the Hamptons. Fuck, it sounds so nuts saying these things out loud. I know what you’re going to say.”

  “What am I going to say?” Emily says, laughing. “Educate me. What exactly am I going to say?”

  “That this is too fast. That I should be careful. That I’m still hurting from Olivia and I should slow down.”

  “Nope,” Emily says. “I wasn’t going to say any of those things.”

  “No?”

  Maybe these are his thoughts. His fears. His hesitations.

  “I think you deserve this, whatever it is or whatever it isn’t, and I think you know just what you’re doing. You’re smart, Tate. I haven’t heard this kind of energy in your voice in ages. Have an adventure. And, for what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s an accident that you met this girl while taking pictures. I think passion begets passion.”

  Tate laughs. “Is that what you think? Passion begets passion?”

  “Yes,” she says. “It is. I think when you take steps to do what you want to do and be who you want to be, then the rest starts falling into place.”

  “Okay, now you are sounding like Oprah Winfrey meets fortune cookie.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment, actually,” she says, laughing into the receiver.

  “I miss you, Em. Mom says you’ve been feeling the baby kick?”

  “Yeah. It’s the coolest, most surreal feeling, Tate. Like a butterfly flapping around inside me. Kind of mind-blowing, really.”

  “That’s rad,” he says, thinking about this little life growing inside his sister. “You going to find out what it is?”

  “It’s a baby,” she says, laughing. “The rest will remain a mystery. There are so few mysteries in life, you know?”