The History of Us

by Leah Stewart

  And then, at last, Adelaide. She was just as lovely as he remembered, maybe more, at this oblivious distance, with her limbs so beautifully displayed. She was alone onstage with one of the dastardly men. They were clearly meant to be a couple in some distress, as couples often are. They stalked each other, sprang together, sprang away. Her body expressed both yearning and confusion. The end of the piece was a rapid pow-pow-pow of ecstatic spins and lifts that made him think of the finale of a fireworks display. Then the male dancer set her down and she pulled herself up straight. They faced each other like fighters, and then turned their backs and did their stalking dancer walk off opposite ends of the stage.

  Josh unfolded, slowly, in a daze, clapping vigorously as he got to his feet, barely aware of Noah standing beside him. He could hear his own heartbeat as she took her bows. He’d found her attractive before, but now she was definitively beautiful—she was a necklace in a window, a sparkly ornament on the Christmas tree. She caught the light.

  Before and after Sabrina, love and sex had been easy—too easy—to come by. That was how it was when you were in a relatively successful band. He’d been a singer, a guitar player—the guy pouring his heart out at the front of the stage. Most girls he met already thought they were in love. It was only a matter of whether he felt like loving them back. And then right after he quit music his history seemed to exponentially multiply whatever his natural attractions might be. The first woman he dated at all seriously loved tales of his glory days—How he had a hit in France! How he met the guys in Phoenix! But then she started to want those days to return. She didn’t say so, not at first. She introduced him to friends and family without a word about his current job. “Josh was in Blind Robots,” she’d say. “You know, the band. He toured with Spoon! He had his picture in Rolling Stone!” People’s eyes brightened at this news. He took a guilty pleasure in this. It was like having a ticket to a sold-out show, or better yet, a backstage pass. People let you in. They took for granted you were special, particular, worthy of their attention. But he really wasn’t, not anymore.

  After a month or so she started to ask, “Do you ever think about going back to it?” It was exciting to date a former almost rock star, but in the end that was just a gateway drug, and the more she thought and talked about his past the more she wanted it to be her present. Then she could go on tour with him and meet the guys in Phoenix herself. Then she could take a special pride in dating Josh without ever needing to explain why she had the right to do so. Then she’d never feel deflated by the people who failed to be impressed, who asked, “Why haven’t I heard of you?” and took obvious pleasure in the notion that under their strict standard of accomplishment he could still be dismissed.

  Josh had stopped calling her six or seven months ago, and hadn’t been out with a woman since. He was done with music, with the currency it gave him. There was both novelty and excitement in being the one in the audience tonight, handing up his heart to the one onstage, hoping, hoping to be chosen. What he’d been drawn to, meeting Adelaide, was her passionate ambition, or ambitious passion. He liked her for that. It was the thing he’d lost, or surrendered, the thing he tried to stop himself from wanting back.

  Outside in the lobby Noah said, “So, are we going to hang out and see if she emerges?”

  “What?” Josh asked.

  “The dancer. Your sister’s teacher. Adelaide? That’s why we’re here, right?”

  “I guess it is,” Josh said.

  “Good with me,” Noah said. “Let me just hit the head and see if I can get another drink. I’ll find you back here?”

  Josh told himself he didn’t feel awkward, leaning against the wall, waiting, surveying the room. If there was anything he had gained from his time as one of the nearly famous, it was an ability to stand alone in a crowd and feel self-contained rather than exposed, an assumption that eventually someone would want to talk to him. Except—that wasn’t true here, was it? He’d believed for some time that he no longer traded on his sort-of fame, but almost everyone of his acquaintance knew about it. He hadn’t realized that that was a kind of armor before having to stand here now, entirely without it. The dancers began to appear, approaching the lingerers with the hesitant air of deer in a garden. He understood—they were comfortable performing, but performing made people want something from them offstage, and they weren’t always sure what it was or how to give it, because offstage they were just themselves. And now people began to swarm them, offering the same compliments over and over—and the dancers wanted those compliments, they needed them—but still there was an endlessness to nodding and smiling and saying, “Thank you, thank you,” and beginning to feel the need for a transition to another topic, but not knowing how to bring one about.

  Adelaide was one of the last dancers to emerge. It was startling to see her in street clothes again, the stage makeup suddenly garish, so that she looked at once normal and strange. She wore a red sundress and very high heels, her long hair released from its bun. He really didn’t like how nervous he felt. Maybe he could walk up, remind her who he was, and then immediately say something about missing the postshow high, and then she’d ask what kind of performer he’d been, and he could tell her, and everything would be as it always had been. Same as it ever was. Except if that was what it took to get her attention he didn’t want it. Except he did want it, and maybe he didn’t care how he got it. No, he should stick to his resolution. Besides, what if he tried that and it didn’t work? It wasn’t like with Sabrina, when he could then invite her to a show. His failure to impress Adelaide would be a crater in his psychic landscape. This was just so hard, walking up to a woman without any idea what she thought of him. He really wished he’d thought to bring a bouquet.

  He saw Noah, then, coming his way with two beers in hand. He watched as Noah spotted Adelaide, then looked his way, eyebrows raised. Josh shook his head. Noah made an oh-come-on face, reached him, handed him the beer, and said, “Follow my lead.”

  Feeling simultaneously trapped and grateful, Josh followed Noah up to Adelaide, who turned to look at them without apparent recognition. Still abuzz with adrenaline, she smiled at them anyway. “Adelaide, right?” Noah said. “I’m Noah. We met briefly at Eloise Hempel’s house.”

  “Yes, right,” she said. “Hello.”

  “And you probably remember Josh, her nephew,” Noah said. “Claire’s brother.”

  “Of course.” She looked around. “Is Claire home?”

  “No,” Josh said. “She’s in New York. She got us the tickets, though.”

  “You two came by yourselves?” she asked, pointing at them, and when they nodded she looked impressed. “I’ve always found it hard to get men around here to come to performances. Even the ones I’ve dated.”

  Dated, she said, not dating. “You were great tonight,” Josh said. “You looked fantastic.”

  “Thank you,” she said, smiling.

  “You were terrific,” Noah said.

  “Thank you,” she said again.

  “I don’t know much about dance,” Noah went on. “But I thought your piece was the most expressive.”

  “Thank you.” Now her smile was growing a little fixed, and Josh had a desperate need to say something to which she wouldn’t have to answer thank you.

  “How did you feel?” he asked.

  She looked at him. “How did I feel?” she repeated.

  “Onstage,” he said. “You felt good?”

  “I felt . . . ” She shook her head. “I felt amazing.”

  He smiled. “You weren’t thinking about how much your feet hurt?”

  “You remember that? No, no, not thinking about that at all. Though it’s good to get the shoes off.”

  All three of them looked down at her feet. “Because those ten-inch stilettos must be a lot more comfortable,” Josh said.

  She laughed. “They are. You’d be surprised.”

  “So,” he said. “Did we compliment you right? What should you say to a dancer? What do you guys
say to each other?”

  “We say ‘congratulations.’ We say ‘beautiful job.’ We hug.”

  “You hug,” he repeated.

  “We say ‘congratulations,’” she said again, sounding wary.

  “We should have brought a bouquet,” he said.

  “Oh no,” she said. “If everybody brought bouquets we’d have way too many bouquets.”

  Over Adelaide’s shoulder Josh saw an older woman approaching, her eyes glued to Adelaide. Just before she reached them, he leaned in and said, “Can I call you?”

  Adelaide glanced at the woman, now standing inches away, and nodded. “Here,” Noah said, handing Josh a pen. While the woman waited, beaming, to congratulate Adelaide, she wrote her number on his program, both of them brisk and businesslike. She handed him the program without looking at him, and then disappeared into the woman’s arms. Josh listened for a moment to Adelaide being told she was beautiful, she was fabulous, she’d been the best one out there. Then he and Noah walked away, and pushed out the glass doors into the hot, humid downtown.

  “Well done,” Noah said, but Josh wasn’t so sure. He had no idea if she’d given him her number because she was interested, or because the woman bearing down on them had left her no time to think. She’d seemed a little guarded, a little suspicious of him, and he thought back to the days when girls came up to him after shows, and how he sometimes wondered what they would say if he asked just what it was about him that they liked. He remembered those early days with Sabrina, when everything had been so good, so charged with pleasure, and how he’d wondered what would happen when the novelty of dating a musician wore off, if they’d be left staring at each other blankly, with nothing to talk about once rock star fell away and left her alone with Josh.

  As if Noah could read his mind, he said, “I bet it’s been a while since you had to make the first move.”

  Josh shot him a look. “Are you picturing groupies?”

  Noah laughed. “Not groupies, exactly. Just hipster girls in cute outfits.”

  “I guess there were a few of those,” Josh said. He was walking, without thinking about it, toward Fountain Square, where a very loud band was playing, and Noah walked alongside him. Neither of them spoke again until they reached the square, where teenagers danced with ecstatic violence between the stage and the hundred-and-forty-year-old fountain that gave the square its name, bronze and majestically tall and flowing with water that was totally inaudible beneath the raucous music.

  “These guys suck,” Noah yelled at Josh, who nodded. Then Noah said, “You know what I keep thinking? Why don’t you record a solo album, just you, Justin Vernon–style? I bet a lot of people would be psyched to hear it.”

  “I don’t know,” Josh said. “Where would I do that?”

  “Your house, of course,” Noah said. “The acoustics are awesome. Man, the first time I walked in that place I thought, This would make a perfect studio.”

  Josh looked at Noah. “My house,” he said.

  Noah grinned. “And if you feel like making my dreams come true, I play a mean piano.”

  Josh looked away from Noah and back to the fountain, the metal woman atop it, shimmering in the artificial light, her arms outstretched and water pouring from her hands onto the creatures below. What was she thinking up there, way above the crowd? “My house,” Josh said again. “I never thought of that.”

  6

  Eloise could tell, when Heather called to invite her to lunch, that Heather had in mind a serious talk, probably about the house. Eloise wanted out of the house. Eloise wanted to be unburdened. No one knew that better than Heather. But Eloise wasn’t unburdening herself on Heather’s timetable, even though she’d promised—so long ago she didn’t exactly remember promising, though she’d been reminded of it often enough—that once Claire moved out she’d force the issue of ownership with Francine. She’d insist on knowing whether her mother was ever going to sign the place over, as she had long ago promised. And then, one way or another, Eloise would be rid of it—that gorgeous monstrosity, with its ten-thousand-dollar box-gutter repairs, its room upon rooms, dusty and waiting, impossible to keep clean. Rid of it, she’d move in with Heather, and everyone would know about them. That was the prize. That was the brass ring, the golden egg, the finish line. So why—Heather undoubtedly wanted to know—wasn’t Eloise sprinting toward it?

  Eloise arrived at the sandwich shop in Northside feeling braced and wary, but when she walked in and saw Heather already in line at the counter, for a moment she forgot her wariness and just studied her. Her dark hair was pulled back into one of those stylishly messy buns Eloise could never achieve, her compact body both muscular and curvy. Heather was a devotee of Pilates. She had a truly enviable behind. Heather laughed at Eloise for using the word behind, but Eloise, though not usually prudish, did like elegance, and neither the humorous word butt nor the crass word ass captured the lovely curve of Heather’s backside. Heather claimed that if Eloise would exercise with her she, too, would possess such an attribute, but Eloise didn’t believe it. In Eloise’s mind Heather was much younger than she, though in fact the difference between them was only six years. “Once I turn forty, you’re going to have to stop talking about how young I am,” Heather had said the other day.

  “Only until I’m fifty and you’re still in your forties,” Eloise had said. “Then I can start it up again.” From the way Heather had smiled, Eloise could tell that the implication they’d still be together in five years had gratified her. More and more lately, Heather wanted some kind of public confirmation of commitment, which so far Eloise had been unable to provide.

  As she watched Heather checked the time on her cell phone, then glanced back at the door and spotted Eloise, who walked up to join her. “What were you doing back there?” Heather asked.

  “Checking you out,” Eloise said.

  Heather grinned and leaned over to kiss her, but Eloise moved her head so that the kiss hit the corner of her mouth. The place was crowded, and for all Eloise knew there was a former student in here, or a friend of one of the kids. Heather was not Eloise’s first girlfriend. There had been one woman before her, a brief and passionate fling that had taken Eloise completely by surprise. She and Heather had met about six months after it ended, when a grad school friend of Eloise’s came to town to do research on the birthing center where Heather worked as a midwife. When Eloise met Heather she’d recognized the other woman’s interest for what it was. Even if she hadn’t, Heather wasn’t one to leave her intentions unclear. “Do you date women?” she’d asked, and Eloise had said, “I’d date you.” Heather had been delighted, her face breaking into a broad grin that somehow managed to be both friendly and full of desire. Eloise had later regretted her own frankness, not because of what it had led to but because she’d given Heather the impression that she was open and forthright about her romantic life. She’d proceeded to be anything but.

  “Relax, sweetie,” Heather said now. “It’s Northside.” Heather only called her sweetie when she was put out with her. Lately Eloise was getting called sweetie a lot.

  “Is it Northside?” Eloise asked. “Is that where we are?” Eloise liked the neighborhood—gay-friendly and overrun with academics and artists and relatively diverse. The population was largely a mix of middle-class white and poor black people, everybody united in voting Democrat. On the business strip were stylishly funky restaurants and tattoo parlors and a yoga studio and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance. The convenience store near Heather’s house sold microbrew six-packs and XXXL white T-shirts. Though the different populations passed each other on the street more than they mingled in the establishments, every year there were events with a palpable community spirit. At Halloween the residents sat on their porches handing out candy, elaborate cotton spiderwebs and dismembered baby dolls decorating the houses, the sidewalks a crush of princesses and superheroes. On the Fourth of July they turned out for the parade, sitting on the sidewalk to cheer not only the standard marching bands but th
e twenty-somethings dressed in Victorian wigs and elaborate costumes, the plumbers’ floats featuring giant toilet bowls and plungers, the drag queens on stilts, the Lawn Chair Ladies, who danced with their titular lawn chairs, and the Men’s Drill Team, who danced with their toy drills. This was where Eloise would have chosen to live if she hadn’t been saddled with her parents’ house. Still she’d built up some resistance to the place as a result of Heather’s living-together campaign, and she was a little annoyed at the inevitability of Heather’s suggestions that they meet there.

  As was so often the case, Heather ignored her sarcasm. “What are you going to eat?”

  Eloise started to name the sandwich she always ordered, and then stopped. “You pick something for me,” she said.

  “You don’t have a preference?”

  “It’s a trust exercise,” she said. “My adventure for the day. I’ll go claim a table.” She felt Heather watching her as she walked down the long, narrow hall toward the back of the restaurant. Three years together and still she felt Heather’s desire, her persistent longing. While she hated that it hurt Heather that she kept their relationship from the kids, that she hadn’t yet moved in with her, she wondered from time to time if there wasn’t some advantage to postponing the moment when Heather got what she wanted. Of course there was the danger of postponing it so long that Heather’s frustration overrode her desire. But why was Eloise thinking this way? She hadn’t made any of her choices in an effort to manipulate Heather. She’d just been thinking about what was best for the kids. Sometimes it seemed like that was all she thought about.