The Dream Life of Astronauts

by Patrick Ryan

  When I come back into the living room, Emerald is leaning a little to one side, resting her body against the arm of the couch. I can’t get much of a read on her expression, other than that she looks a little grouchy and a little sleepy. She’s peering at me with her eyes half-squinted, like she’s never seen me before.

  “Emerald thinks we should take you for a test drive,” Derek says.

  He’s back on the other end of the couch now, sitting forward, holding the ceramic turtle in one hand and a piece of sandpaper in the other. He’s sanding the turtle’s shell, then blowing on it. Sanding, then blowing.

  “What does that mean, test drive?” I ask.

  “Your memory,” Emerald says. “Have you read something and tell it back to us. Show us what a goddamn computer you are.”

  Derek scans the coffee table and the surrounding carpet. He puts the turtle down, reaches under the couch, and produces a section of newspaper. “How about something from this?”

  “No,” I tell them both.

  “Nervous?” Emerald says, then looks at Derek. “Maybe she’s lost her touch.”

  Derek is grinning and holding the newspaper out for me. Feeling a flush rise into my neck, I snatch the paper out of his hand and ask, “What, like, a whole article?”

  “Just part of one,” he says. “For kicks.”

  I peer at the tiny print. There’s a story about Black Monday and the stock market crash, but that looks so boring I’m worried I wouldn’t be able to keep track of more than a few sentences. There’s a story on how a porn star got elected to the Italian parliament, but I’m not touching that one. Baby Jessica is in stable condition, which is uplifting, but I don’t feel like reciting her story in Derek’s living room, so I skip that one too. Finally, I settle on a story about some German guy who landed his plane in the middle of Red Square, which apparently is a very big deal because of the whole Iron Curtain thing. I read the first three paragraphs silently, then hand Derek the newspaper, point at the article, and recite the paragraphs back.

  It turns out Derek has an ability I’ve always wanted to have: he can lift just one eyebrow to show his reaction to something. Unfortunately, it’s the brow over the eye that’s out to lunch. “Almost perfect,” he says. “That’ll come in handy when you’re giving acceptance speeches.”

  “Thanks.” I look at Emerald. “You about ready to go?”

  She’s drinking from the Slurpee cup and squinting at me over its lip.

  “Wait, now, don’t rush off,” Derek says, dropping the newspaper onto the floor. “I understand there’s something I might be able to help you with. Something that’s not necessarily career oriented, but kind of is. Seems like there’s this—Brian person? Who ought to have his joystick cut off?”

  I feel my stomach drop. I look at Emerald. “What the hell?”

  “Wuh,” Emerald says, her shoulders jumping like she’s just felt a tiny electrical shock.

  “So you’re offering to do it?” I ask Derek. “Cut off Brian’s ‘joystick’?”

  “No, no,” Derek says, laughing through his words. “I’m not the mafia. I’m into ceramics, show business. Good times. What I’m talking about is something a little more—listen, do you want to step out to the back porch with me so we can talk in private?”

  I don’t, and I’m about to tell him so, but then Emerald says “Wuh” again. And leans forward. And vomits into her Slurpee cup. To her credit, not one drop gets on the floor.

  “Oh, for the fucking love of god,” Derek says.

  He seems not only surprised, but truly irked, and I don’t have a strong stomach these days and am worried Emerald’s going to make me throw up, so I say, “Let’s go outside.”

  The back porch is closed off, has a corrugated tin roof, and is windowed on three sides with horizontal planks of greenish glass that eat up most of the late afternoon sun. It’s a little like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in there, except for several boxes that say LYDIA’S SHIT stacked against one wall. I get about two feet in and turn around to see Derek standing right behind me.

  He puts his hands in his pockets and leans against the doorframe.

  “Sorry about Emerald,” I say.

  “Nothing I haven’t seen before,” he says. “So, listen, Dani. Your situation”—he bobbles his head around a little—“isn’t exactly earth-shattering. The sky’s not falling, is what I mean.”

  I wait for him to say more, but he doesn’t. “Why?” I ask.

  “Because it’s not. I mean, what’s going on with you right now doesn’t necessarily have to get in the way of the life you want.”

  I wait a little more. “Why?”

  “Because there are things you can do about it. One thing, in particular.”

  “I kind of know this already.”

  “I’m sure you do. But you might be wondering how to go about it. How to get it done without everybody and his uncle finding out. Bottom line is, it’s not a big deal. Quick and easy. It’s basically like a glorified checkup.”

  And how many glorified checkups have you had? I want to ask.

  “Don’t worry about what it costs,” he says, as if either one of us has said anything about money. “I’ll front you the funds, I mean. That’s what friends do for each other.”

  A dragonfly pecks on the outside of one of the window slats. Derek is almost blocking my way back into the house. “Why?” I say again.

  “Look, how many Miss Americas you think had bastard kids when they were crowned? I’d venture to say none, unless they were keeping it a secret.”

  “I met Philip.”

  “Did you? I hope he didn’t talk your ear off.”

  “He’s in the bathtub.”

  “Funny kid. Really funny. I call him my new and improved me. But I want to help you out,” he says, setting the needle back down on his thought. “As your friend. Let me do this for you, and one day maybe there’ll be something you can do for me, down the line. That’s how people learn to trust each other, right?”

  The dragonfly’s fluttering shape through the glass is like a floater in my peripheral vision. I listen to it peck-peck-peck as Derek takes one of his hands out of his pockets, reaches up, and rubs a dusty thumb along the side of my jaw.

  “Okay,” I tell him, knowing this is what he wants to hear, hoping this will shut him down.

  He looks a little surprised. “You’ll let me help you?”

  “Okay,” I say again.

  “Then you and I should get together and talk logistics. Sooner than later, of course. You could come back by tomorrow, if you want—on your own, just you.”

  I move fast but try to be graceful about it, fluid, like it doesn’t make any difference to me where I am, only right now I happen to be just barely sliding past him, back into the kitchen. “I have to check on Emerald,” I say over my shoulder.

  I’m half-expecting Emerald to be passed out, but she’s still sitting more or less upright, hunched forward, head tilted down. The cup is nearly full and is sitting on the coffee table next to the turtle.

  “Come on,” I say. “We’re going.”

  When she looks at me, openmouthed, I see tears running down her cheeks. “I screwed this whole thing up,” she says.

  “No you didn’t. Let’s go.”

  She stands, and I take hold of her elbow to steady her. I pick up her purse from the couch, and the Glamour Shots, and guide her toward the front door.

  “What time are you coming tomorrow?” Derek asks, coming in from the porch.

  “Any time’s good,” I say. “Thanks for everything!”

  The sky is just starting to turn periwinkle as I walk Emerald across the front yard, past the kiddie pool, to the Chevette.

  “I guess I shouldn’t drive,” she says.

  I fish her keys out, get her into the passenger seat, and climb in behind the wheel. Before I drive away, I see Derek standing in the doorway, watching us.

  Emerald is quiet for most of the ride. She sits with her hands in her lap, staring o
ut the side window. We’re almost to her house when she tells me she doesn’t understand what happened—meaning, I assume, the way Derek was more into me than her, the way he insulted her, his mention of something happening between us tomorrow that she’s not in on.

  “There’s nothing to understand,” I tell her. “I’m not going back there.”

  “No, I mean how did I get drunk so fast?”

  When we get to her house, I help her out of the Chevette and walk her inside. Beyond the sliding glass door, I see her dad on the patio in the backyard, squatting down over a hibachi and holding a spatula. Her mom is setting out plates on the picnic table. It’s like stepping into a TV show whenever I come over here, it’s that nice. Emerald’s mom waves at us. I wave back, and steer Emerald to her room, where she flops down onto her bed and hooks an arm over her eyes. I take off her shoes and put them beside the bed. Then I set her keys on the nightstand, close her bedroom door behind me, and walk the five blocks home.

  —

  Half of our silverware has been added to the box sitting out by the curb. It’s scattered over top of the wedding portrait. My mother is sitting at the dining room table with a box of Pecan Sandies and an open, spiral-bound notebook. She’s holding a pen with a heart-shaped piece of plastic attached to the eraser end. “I’ve decided to start keeping a diary,” she says. “What do you think of that?”

  I’m thinking it would have been better if I’d thrown up, because I’m feeling too full. Of everything. Of being somebody’s friend, somebody’s daughter, somebody’s mother. I pull the chair out across from her and sink down onto it. “Can I talk to you about something important?”

  She looks up from the notebook and blinks at me. She says, “I’m right here.”

  But how do I do it? And what’s the use, really? I’ve gotten myself into this, and expecting anybody to understand, trusting anybody to hear me out and maybe talk a little but mostly just shut up and let me be—I’m about ready to give up on that.

  “Well?” she says.

  I look at the paint chips taped to the wall behind her. The picture hooks that used to hold the still lifes she and Roger bought at an art show in Orlando. “Don’t worry, I’m not pregnant,” I say.

  She seems to get taller by a couple of inches, her back straightening against the chair. The little heart on the pen is also the cap, it turns out; she pulls it off, fixes it to the other end, and sets the pen down.

  “So I’m not looking for anybody to tell me what to do about that,” I say.

  With frantic little movements, her eyes zigzag over every part of my face. I can almost hear the gears turning in her brain. There’s a meltdown in the works, I’m sure, and at this point I’m ready to suffer it and get it behind me, because how could it be any worse than the afternoon I’ve just had?

  “But if I was pregnant,” I tell her, “I think I’d probably want to keep it, and that would be my business and nobody else’s, wouldn’t it?”

  For what must be the longest stretch of dead air we’ve ever shared, she doesn’t say anything and neither do I. Finally, she closes the notebook and folds her hands over the cover like it’s a bible she’s just given a reading from. “Oh, little lady,” she says. And I know what’s coming, because she thought her life couldn’t stink any more than it already did, and because why should she have expected it to be any different? Why did she ever get married, have a kid, think there would be anything out there waiting for her other than one mess after another?

  Her head is shaking no. No to me, no to my situation, no to the world.

  I brace myself.

  “I guess we should start thinking about names,” she says.

  Here’s my morning routine (just to give you an idea of what my days are like now): I wake up at 6:15, as if I’ve still got a job. I go downstairs to the front stoop I share with five other units and hope somebody hasn’t filched my newspaper. I take the paper inside and sit at the dining room table, and while I drink a glass of orange juice with Metamucil and eat a piece of toast with marmalade, I read the news. Christ, it’s boring. Depends on your vantage point, I guess, but for me it’s gutless. Meatless. Vegan. A dozen people blown up by an unknown attacker in a country I couldn’t find on a globe if I had to. Some woman in Smalltown, USA, who drove her kids into a lake. Some guy in some other town who didn’t like his neighbor’s music and dusted off his old hunting rifle to deal with it. Politicians with hookers. Cops with too much power. That’s the news: somebody’s an asshole, and another asshole’s got something to say about it. Which isn’t really news, is it?

  I go on the Internet to see what’s happening back in Chicago, and it’s like they gave typewriters to a bunch of cats. I turn on the television to check out the local affiliates, and it’s all traffic reports and “human interest” stories. So I watch a few reruns. The Big Valley, which I still enjoy. The Waltons, which is corny, but better than a lot of the garbage they show now. Kojak. Good old Kojak, still with the zingers and still walking into the room with his dick swinging.

  I turn the clock radio to the classical station, get in the tub, soak my joints. Put on my robe, go into the kitchen, pour a big glass of water and lay out my pills for the day. Atenolol, donepezil, hydralazine, quinapril—over the teeth, past the gums. I put on trousers or a pair of shorts, depending on my mood. A guayabera. Crocs decorated with little Mickey Mouse snap-ons the girl at the mall talked me into. SPF 30 sunscreen with zinc oxide I smear from my collarbones to the top of my head, which went the way of Kojak’s long before I ever had a chance of going gray. Onto this slathered bust, I place one of three straw hats and a pair of Oakleys strong enough to block UVAs, UVBs, and UVCs, whatever they are. Watch, keys, money clip, loose change, and I’m ready for what my doctor likes to call my heart-healthy, low-weight-bearing ambulation. I’m the roaming prince of Villa Ponce de Leon. Do I love my life? Not so much. It’s like the Players Club, only with none of the play.

  —

  Villa Ponce de Leon is a very proud place. It doesn’t have bushes and trees; it has landscaping. It doesn’t have sidewalks; it has a promenade of winding, wooden slats carefully painted with yellow caution stripes at every step up and step down. It has a Seniors Activity Center—shuffleboard courts, tile-laid tables for checkers and chess, classes in yoga and tai chi and scrapbook making. Its own battalion of big-bellied security guards who ride around on golf carts and wave hello. Signs telling you where you can and can’t park, where you can and can’t walk, where it’s okay for your dog to do its business. Wooden dispensers with crap bags every twenty feet, and signs reminding dog walkers that the entire complex is a “Doodie-Free Zone.” Its literature boasts of being the finest retirement community in all of Brevard County—huzzah!—and in the center of the superfluous roundabout at the entrance to said community stands the man himself: Ponce de Leon, painted to look like bronze, one hand on his hip and the other thrust out, offering up this bountiful wonderland.

  “Good morning, Mr. Delacorte,” one of the residents says as she passes me on the promenade. At the end of the leash in her hand is a Chinese crested, looks like he’s got a toupee on top of his head.

  I will never get used to being Eugene Delacorte—ridiculous name—but I’ve gotten used to faking it. “Good morning, sweetheart,” I say, smiling my most devilish smile. She smiles back and might even blush if she had enough circulation to get the blood to her cheeks.

  Down the way, one of the ancients, he must be close to ninety, is squinting at the notice board with his mouth hanging open. I can’t tell if he’s reading the board or drying his teeth. “Huh,” he says just as I’m about to pass him. “Huh, huh, huh.” Then he turns around and glares at me like I’ve startled him on purpose. “John Kennedy Jr.’s plane went down,” he says.

  “It sure did,” I say. “About ten years ago.” I pat his arm and keep walking.

  The sky’s gone from blue to a kind of ashy white. Blink your eyes and it’ll be blue again. I follow the promenade around the lake they
scooped out of the middle of the complex, past the playground for visiting grandkids, cut across the grass on a path of round pebble stones edged with a rope railing about as high as my ankle, and end up at the pool.

  The pool is a fairly new addition to Villa Ponce de Leon. Finished just six months before I arrived, and still bearing the self-congratulatory banner across the entrance to the pavilion: Our Beautiful Pool Is Now Open—Residents and Their Guests Only. Maximum of three guests, that is, accompanied by a resident who’s responsible for his or her guests obeying the rules. So says the president of the condo association, the one and only, ball-busting supervillain, Sophia Humphries.

  She’s a formidable opponent to yours truly, the roaming prince.

  Under the umbrella of her presidency, Sophia is in charge of things like balcony etiquette (no barbecues, no storage, no nude sunbathing) and yard-sale etiquette (no yard sales). She’s also the self-appointed Welcome Wagon; rings your bell right after you move in and presents you with—I kid you not—a basket of takeout menus, mosquito repellant, and a little stuffed-alligator key chain. I can only assume the sweet smile and the twenty-questions game are a regular part of her routine, because when I invited her in for a glass of iced tea, she sat herself down on my couch and was a jovial grand inquisitor. Where had I lived before moving here? Lincoln, Nebraska. What line of work had I been in? Drywall. Any children, grandchildren? Why not? Two of the former, five of the latter. A wife who passed away a few years ago. A sister who runs a daycare center in Omaha. Solid answers, and none of them true—if she was wise, she didn’t let on. “I’d love to see pictures of your grandchildren,” she said, and I told her I would, too, but there were a few boxes that had gone missing when the movers arrived and I was still waiting for them to turn up. “And what made you choose Cape Canaveral, Mr. Delacorte?”

  It was chosen for me, just like the name Eugene Delacorte. But of course I didn’t tell her this. There she was, half a cushion away, halfway through her iced tea, around my age, wearing her reading glasses on a chain around her neck, a blouse patterned with hibiscus blossoms, and a whole lot of makeup, including a red-coral shade of lipstick that would have looked just fine on a young fox. She was kind of a sexpot in her own right, and you had to give her credit for it. “Sunny days,” I said with a shrug. “Balmy nights.” I rubbed the side of my neck and then laid my arm across the back of the sofa so that my fingertips—just barely—brushed the collar of her blouse. “Maybe a little romance.”