Page 54 - WTP VOl. X #3

Everything Flirts (continued from preceding page)
to. Finally what comes to mind is, Terry. But it’s
too soon. What would I say? Oddly enough, Dan, nerd though he is, writes to near-strangers with- out hesitation. Sometimes he asks these strangers for dates. Maybe he really does believe human sex lives are simple: he asks a question, not even in person but in writing, planning exactly what to say. And the woman says yes or no. Mostly no. And no is very simple.
After the Eleusis game ended, I went to the bath- room to wash my hands. In the bathroom, I thought of parting lines for Terry, perhaps an exchange of email addresses. But when I came out, Terry was gone. He’d driven back to Stanford with Rajiv. Jacob and Anna noticed nothing strange in Terry’s failure to bid me a special good night. I found myself asking roundabout questions to see if he had an excuse: “Was Rajiv in a hurry?” Em- barrassing now, too obvious. I try to remember any sign of interest from him, but come up blank. We didn’t talk after he ate my cards. Rajiv took his place. Did Terry notice, and defer?
The parting from the blond boy, Eric of Telegraph Avenue, makes me laugh. I’m happy about Eric. It’s easy to be happy, there’s nothing else I want from him. Maybe another look. A head in my window, a backlit blond halo.
I feel I must do something about Terry, but refuse to let myself log in again. In this mood I am bound to say something I’ll regret. What do I know about him? He might have a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. Jacob will tell me. I remember clearly Terry’s hands, but his face has sweetened in Eric’s direc- tion. It is an odd habit of mine that fantasizing involves remembering accurately, detail on detail, every last thing said and how, every look. Fantasy is analysis. Not the best habit, I think now that I think of it. Let Terry slip toward Eric. Why not? They would make a lovely creature.
I’m drunk, but I’ve forgotten to water the plants along the deck. It must be done. When Alex left I starting growing things: lobelia, poppies, cilantro and mint. Tomatoes have ripened since he left. I
pick a couple. The balls are tender, taut with juice. While fog drifts in to cover the Bay Bridge, then the Berkeley flats, I hold and polish them, taking off with my fingers a dusty coating on the surface to make their flesh perfectly smooth. The moon has crossed more than half the sky. The fog is bluish on top from
moonlight, dotted from below with yellow street lamps. I want to stay out longer, but it’s cooled off, my arms have goosebumps.
Most nights this semester, with no teaching, I’ve stayed in my lab until about this time. The peaceful thinking hours after midnight, airwaves cleared of other brains. All last week I studied the motion of a robot arm, trying to mimic exactly the hand gestures of a person giving directions, then waving good-bye. That careless loose pointing, that half-turn of the palm and fingers we never think about because the dozens of muscles, tendons, nerves engaged to pull off this movement are so effortlessly, elegantly under our unconsciousness control.
I recall the conversation with Eric, Eric & Terry (another glass of wine), Eric’s halo and Terry’s long fingers on my car window. “What about the robots?” Eric had asked. What can they do, what are they for? “Well, they would make great movie extras,” I had said. Eric laughed. And they would make great other-extras. I didn’t tell him this. Around the house.
I pretend he’s sitting in the overstuffed chair in the living room, which I can see through the door to my study, with a book propped in his lap, looking up at me from time to time with a slight, familiar smile. He has Alex’s dark-lashed eyes, Terry’s long fingers, Eric’s halo. My man du jour.
Alex and I were together for ten years, and I never knew, until he left, what an elusive concept loneli- ness is. It tore through me, something had to be done. Science is not an impersonal force: knowledge is yearning. Some nights, an impossible, almost un- bearable yearning. Someone will make these things. Maybe it will be me.
Wahl is a writer and documentary film producer living in Tucson,
AZ. Her publications include stories in The Iowa Review (Tim McGinnis Award); the Chicago Tribune (Nelson Algren Award Finalist); Harvard Review; Literal Latte (Fiction Contest Winner); StoryQuarterly; The Minnesota Review; and Pleiades (Editors’ Prize for Poetry).She has received five Pushcart Prize nominations. Other encouragements include awards from Villa Montalvo, the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Arizona Commission on the Arts, Tucson/Pima Arts Council, and Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation. Her most recent documentary film, Almost an Island, is airing on public television.
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