“Well, there’s Violet and Ollie. They’re enviable. Thayne and Celeste? I think Zach used to really love Dora. At least, he took care of her all those years. And maybe Gretchen and Joe—”
She laughed. “Gretchen and Joe. Boy are they being watched. And you realize we are too? The two new couples of the mountain. They’re the mid-life ones, the now-or-nevers. We’re the young ones—”
“Speak for yourself, youngster—”
“We’re the young ones, full of both more promise and more potential to crash and burn.” She picked up his right hand and placed it on her breast, over her heart, and held it there.
He leaned up to look at her face but it was not sex she wanted, only frowsy comfort, so he pushed himself closer against her. They were now skin to skin on every plane, from toe to shoulder, and he touched his forehead to the back of her head so that they would be touching there too. Wasn’t there something to be said for this? Full-on contact? For better or worse, sickness and health? To the effort of getting inside another person and staying there? In the intentionality and work of commitment? Of leaving the worst selves for the better ones, with someone as a guide and witness? And for putting up with someone even when they were taking you for granted?
“I love you, Ruben. And I see what you’re really saying here. Something like Sy—well, it makes us all want to look around and take note of the only anecdote. But look at the old couples at Moon’s. The dining dead, I call them.”
“But we won’t be like them.” Then he stopped. It was akin to asking her to marry him.
He felt a shift in her body, a small hardening, and he was sorry for it. He pushed his lips against her scalp and then stared at the zigzag of the part in her hair and kissed again. She turned around to push her nose into his chest, trying for playful. “That’s what everybody thinks. Don’t go all conventional on me, Ruben. The zeitgeist has shifted. Commitment is a lovely idea, though, and I’m all for it. I’m here with you. But marriage, no.”
He held her against his chest but propped his head on his hand and let his eyes drift across the snowy mountainside. Past the aspen trees was the rise of pines. Many of the lodgepoles there were dead, from the beetlekill epidemic, and someday they would burn; it was a dangerous spot to live, and they’d admitted that perhaps it would be best to consider the cabin a temporary structure.
“I miss the blue.” He heard the glum in his voice and squeezed his eyes tight, trying to purge himself of the weight. The churning gray of the clouds was doing something to him. Perhaps he should see a doctor. His throat kept closing, his GI system didn’t seem to be working right, his wrists and knuckles hurt more than usual, and it seemed more than age, more than the old injuries from all the animals, more than the shock of Sy, and, in fact, predated Sy’s death by several months. It was something deeper, something like a cancer or a gloom that had settled into every single possible nook and cranny of his body. He felt allergic to himself, allergic to this winter. Jess was the only antihistamine.
“It has us all feeling restless and unsure.” She was turned around now, looking up at him, her dark eyes rotating color, her dimple deep, her skin clear, looking young, perhaps too young. “Especially you. Come on, now. We agreed to go one day without talking about Sy.”
He turned away from her; she was too beautiful and he was too miserable. He looked outside again. The clouds reminded him of a vast sea; if the world were turned upside down, it would be difficult to distinguish if one was looking at sky or water.
“Ruben, I am in love with you,” she said, resting her head back on his chest now. “You are Paralos to my Piraeus.”
He kissed the lightning bolt on her head. “Tell me again.”
“It was a ship,” she said. “Paralos was the sacred ship of the Athenian fleet. Piraeus was its home port. They needed each other.”
“It’s no good, being lost at sea.”
“It’ll warm up soon, Ruben. Yesterday it was sunny for a little while.”
She climbed on her hands and knees over him and kissed him, brought his hand to her breast with a different energy. He felt a something—victory or triumph or the bloom of kismet—spread in his body, even his spine, even his throat, even the base of his neck. He loved all this. It was the opposite of winter. The smell of her morning breath. Her lust. Her direction in the matter. The magic she had—sex had not always been like this for him—of forcing himself outside of his body, his head, giving him a break from his own self. For this reason, he’d never turned her down, never even considered it.
He moved his fingers to her nipple, raised his head to the other, and when her back arched in response, he moved his fingers inside her, and then he was inside her. It was not sleepy morning sex; it was intense and focused, and just once he had an actual line of thought, right before he came, which was: Odysseus shouldn’t have left Calypso, what a fucking fool.
Jess loved this most about their relationship, perhaps: waking up dreamily on the days they allowed themselves just to do that. Or, rather, she allowed it. Allowed herself to escape her ambition, her calling, her art. On those Days of Push, which was most days, she hated the mornings, or rather, hated the annoyance of coupledom: showers, bathroom needs, talk—all the while, she wanting him to leave so that she could write. She sometimes thought that she’d be better as a single person, the main reason being her love of solitary mornings, some absolute nonnegotiable need to leap right into her ideas. Mornings like this, though, they gave her a chance to reconsider. To appreciate a different kind of life.
Steak and eggs is what he was making. If it were up to her, she’d eat a banana and a cracker. Or half an avocado and a handful of almonds. But he believed in food. In the preparation of it, in the romance of it. He also needed the calories: He had several big animals to work on today, it was very cold out, and some of the calls would be difficult to get to with some of the blizzard snow still unmelted.
Lots of calories and sleeping and slow mornings was what they all needed now, since Sy.
She watched him—slippers, sweat pants, shirtless—pad out to the grill to light it, then again to put on the meat. Unbelievable, how handsome he was. Arms and back that always seemed alive with different motion of tendon and muscle and bone, a stance that was comfortable and solid and frankly just sexy and manly. He was thirty-two and in the perfect prime of his life, the most handsome and perhaps the most needed man on the mountain. Everyone had animals, and for a long time, Sy had been the one, but as Sy started to check out, Ruben stepped in, and, in fact, he was brilliant with animals, perhaps even better than Sy, though Sy had the formal veterinarian degree and Ruben’s education stopped at vet-tech status, but the way he moved his hands on animals implied a certain grace, as if he understood the problem and could heal—which is what had made her fall in love with him in the first place, ten years ago back when she was a teenager and he was visiting her grandparents’ and her parents’ ranches at the base of the mountain. She could see this magic in him; everyone could see it in him. He was treated with a certain reverence. Perhaps even worshipped; yes, that was not too strong a word.
He was staring up at the sky, then back at the grill, then at the mountain, as if looking for something he couldn’t find. Jess watched his face closely. It was the other most unique thing about him. His mother had been from Mexico, and his father a full-blooded Czech, and something about the high cheekbones, the strong set of the jaw—his bohemian gypsy quality, he called it—combined with dark eyes that seemed to have extra fluid in them—well, it simply made him mesmerizing to watch.
She was sad for his sadness. He was stricken in ways he didn’t understand yet, she realized; Sy’s death was surprising him in ways he didn’t see. Truth be told, he hadn’t always enjoyed working for Sy. Like any relationship, it was fraught with personality differences, and Sy was simply frustrating—dreamy and perpetually late, sometimes barely able to sustain a focused operation or exam. Ruben had often said how glad he was that he and
Sy rarely ran into each other—one was doing a farm call while the other was at the clinic, or vice versa, and so had joked, even, that it was like a good marriage—avoiding the other most of the time so as to have the reservoir of patience required while in the presence.
But still. He was clearly not himself and the best thing she could do now was simply love him. She rolled out of bed. Her crotch was a bit tender—he’d been oddly rough—and wet streaked across her thighs. She pulled a thick red robe over all of it and pulled on wool socks and went to the kitchen. She hugged him from behind as he stood staring at the melting butter in the pan. “You okay?”
He kissed her ear, but she could feel the sorrow, could tell he wanted to talk about it more, the status of their relationship. But there was simply no more to say. Not until more time had passed. Time would clarify their relationship. Time and all it wrought: Boredom. Annoyance. Restlessness. Or, continued kindness. Care. Deeper knowledge. Somehow she wanted to tell him this, that he needed only to be patient, but she knew that this is what he feared, and he was trying to guard them against the corruption of time. He wanted the lighthouse of marriage to keep the ship safe.
“It’s nice of you. To volunteer, to go to the bear den.”
“Well, Sergio asked me. He needs someone to administer the tranquilizer. It should be Sy, of course—”
“Well, it’s nice of you.”
“And the state vet canceled.”
“I know. It’s nice of you, is all I’m saying.”
“It’ll be a good adventure.”
“Did you know, Ruben, that the word laconic comes from Laconia? Spartans were known for being short on words. I’m thinking of using this all somehow in my book.”
He let out a genuine bark of laughter. “Laconic and authoring don’t go very well together in the same sentence, Jess.”
She smiled and rubbed his back, down to his butt, and up again to his shoulder. “The history of it. The metaphor of it.” She turned to set the table, glanced outside at a dove alighting in a dead pine tree. “They—the Spartans, that is—always gave the briefest answers to complicated questions. For instance, when they were asked by the Macedonians whether they wanted to meet at the border as enemies or as friends, they replied with a one-word answer. ‘Neither.’”
“That’s not much of an answer.”
“And this one: In Thermopali, they were told that the Persians had enough arrows to block out the sun. You know what they replied? They said, ‘We will fight in the shade.’”
She went on, delighted now. “Okay. Here’s a good one. The Persians sent a long message to them that basically told them to surrender their weapons. You know what they said? They said: ‘Come and get them.’”
“They don’t sound laconic so much as just solid in their opinions.”
She considered that and then brightened even more. “Well, yes. And here is my favorite. They were threatened by the Macedonians, who sent a message: ‘If we conquer you, you will become our slaves.’ You know what the Spartans’ response was? One word. Ready for it? Their response was: If.”
He paused. “So, if I asked you to marry me . . .”
Ruben couldn’t believe those words came out of his mouth. “Sorry. Jess, I’m sorry! Forget I said that. I’m getting the steaks.” He wanted to punch his fist through the clouds, or crawl out of his body into them.
He kept his eyes down as he came in with the steaks, stood at the stove and nestled the eggs against them, added a wedge of orange and a strawberry, which he’d bought especially for her. He wished for a moment that he could find his old self, the one before he knew her. Or had he always been so fucked up? When had his brain started to be such a heavy weight in his skull?
“Let’s eat.” He turned around. “Jess, I’m so sorry I said that. I’m a mess. You know I am. Worse than usual today, though. I’ll learn to be more laconic. Let’s have a nice breakfast. This morning was so nice. Still is nice. The Vreelands’ horse is in labor. One of Lillie’s cats needs to be put down. Zoë’s cockatiel has a tumor on his throat and I’m taking them some pain medication. I hope it doesn’t die soon; they need a break from sorrow. My brain feels weird. Just know that it comes out of love. But still, I’m sorry.”
She paused, uncertain, her eyes clouded. They sat down and ate silently and near the end of the meal, she caught his eye and said, “Did I ever tell you about Calvin Coolidge?”
He snorted. “No, Jess, you did not.”
“So, Warren Harding died in office. Calvin Coolidge took over. Remember that?”
“No.”
“Well, Coolidge was not extraordinary. But anyway. He was at a ball one night at the White House, and a young flapper was attempting to engage him in a conversation, and he just wouldn’t talk.”
“A Spartan reincarnated, perhaps.”
She smiled genuinely and he was glad for it. “Yes. Anyway, she goes up to him and says, ‘Mr. President, I made a bet with a friend that I could get at least three words out of you.’ And you know what he replied? He said, ‘You lose.’”
“I guess he wasn’t feeling very gracious that day.” Then he added, “That’s too bad, really. That was a lost opportunity. Perhaps she was a brilliant and beautiful person.” He winked at her. He had something poetic to say, but it wouldn’t form in his mind. Something about how intimacy and love were the only sanctuaries, safe places for the human soul, like this mountain was a sanctuary in the rest of the crazed world, and the only road to intimacy was communication, and that Sy’s death was circling around in him like a cement ghost, and he needed her to witness that.
As if reading his mind, she said, “Ruben, I think being laconic is the greatest danger to a relationship. So I’m glad you’re talking. I’ll try too.”
When he left to do his Saturday-afternoon calls, Jess put on Suzanne Vega’s “Calypso,” stood with her back to the warm wood-burning fireplace, and stared out the window at the churning sky.
She didn’t want to embrace the zeitgeist of her generation, detached and ironic; she wanted to believe in love. This morning, when she’d woken, she’d stared at Ruben, still sleeping, and had been thinking of her grandfather, Ben, who’d killed himself with sodium pentobarbital, which he’d stolen from Ruben when they’d been putting down a dying donkey together, long ago. Ben didn’t believe in the zeitgeist of his times either; he believed in an individual’s right to decide. Alzheimer’s was on the way, and Ben was a rancher and knew about suffering, and Ben was the one who should decide.
It was with the money she’d inherited from him that she built this cabin up on the mountain. A few months ago, she invited Ruben to join her. She’d been in love with Ruben since she was a teenager, a crush, really, surely based on the fact that he was the one who came to the ranch to help animals, help her animals, some odd mix of savior/teacher/helper obsession. She knew that. So did he. It was weird; a therapist would have a field day. And yet. It did seem to her that they had been careful, and waited, and their attraction and respect had grown into a real love. He’d been too old for her at first—he newly out of vet-tech school, she just finishing high school—and yes, she’d traveled around, left for a summer here, a winter there—but the place kept calling her back, so finally she took the money she’d inherited from her grandfather and built this place.
Now she was twenty-five. So the relationship seemed less problematic. But still, it was weird, perhaps even fucked up, and needed to be treated carefully, and so why must Ruben complicate it by introducing the future?
As Vega sang I watched him struggle with the sea, she knew Ruben was doing exactly that, struggling with his sea. She wanted to help him without endangering their future or herself. What they needed now was someone to cling to. And stop. Right. There.
Surely, Ruben knew that this love, of all loves, should be held lightly.
Now she grew angry. She thought of Del and Carolyn, her parents, or at least, the parents who raised her, and their divorce l
ast year. She’d seen it coming for some time. They were both good people but also caught in that claustrophobic pattern of Days. Without. Love. Years of such days. She was angry at her siblings, who seemed so surprised. Surprised in a way that infuriated her. It was so small-minded, so banal to think that they should just continue on, regardless. It was such an obviously good thing, the parting. Del and Carolyn had made sense together, and then they hadn’t. Simple as that. At one time, they were ranchers running a ranch, raising kids, busy with the stuff of life. Then that stage was over. And look how they’d grown and changed, particularly her mother. And wasn’t that what life was for, to grow and change? She’d said to her siblings: Look at her! She’s beautiful! She’s come into her own. Has a tattoo, for godssake! She was exploring herself and the world! She was Odysseus, on a journey, literally in Greece, and it was about time she got to be the one to launch her ship! It bothered her—panicked her, really—that her siblings seemed so endlessly restless about it, so wedded to their version of the story, so wedded to culture’s version of love.
The song ended and she went to her computer to write. She had worked herself into a bad mood, a frantic mood. She had ruined her morning quiet.
She was capable of love, she was in love, she just simply doubted the longevity of love, hated the assumption that it should last, and, at the very least, this was not the time to think about it. Ruben would simply have to embrace what they had, not push for more, not have his eyes so firmly fixed on the future.
She poised her fingers above the keyboard. It took a long time to settle, and she spent that time staring out the window at the pines and sky. She’d hoped the clouds would clear, but they were only becoming denser, and perhaps it was her sorrow and anger that made the words come so well. It happened rarely, but it always felt like a gift from the universe when it did. Her story unfolded and she was surprised at a few turns of events, but she didn’t fight them; characters had a mind of their own, made their own decisions, and she just listened.
The Blue Hour Page 6