“This is not where I thought the night was heading,” Cory tells Infinite Darlene.
She smiles. “Nor I, my dear. Nor I.”
She is holding one of his hands. He takes her other hand. They are a ring.
He pulls down on her arms and raises up his face. She realizes what is happening and bends over slowly, so her lips will match his.
It is not Infinite Darlene’s first kiss, but it’s the first one that counts. Everything before has felt like an attempt. This kiss is its own creation.
She closes her eyes, but she doesn’t drift very far. In fact, she doesn’t drift at all. And neither does he.
* * *
—
Cars pass. Dozens, even hundreds, of people pass. The moon changes its position slightly. Dotted lights reflect in the water.
* * *
—
She opens her eyes and looks into his.
“We are the only two people in the world,” she says.
“We are the only two people in the world,” he agrees.
* * *
—
It turns out to be a very long book.
TRACK FIVE
The Mulberry Branch
1.
There must be pictures
of storytime from that time,
back when our corduroys had elastic
and our sneakers flashed red.
There has to be some record
that we were in the same room
at the same time, no possibility
of knowing that someday the girl
sitting next to me, watching
that purple crayon draw the moon,
would be the one to make me realize
I have a heart.
2.
A funny thing happened to me
on the way to Mulberry Street.
I knew you would be there
in your usual place, folded
into a chair, folded around a book,
music in your ears without you
really hearing it, because
when words and songs collide,
it’s the words that get through to you,
and everything else ties for third place.
Except maybe me, except maybe
if I’m there, turning the pages
beside you, lost in my own story,
but not as lost as you are
in yours. I was picturing this
on my way to Mulberry Street
and as I did, a ragtag marching band
trumpeted their way down Prince Street,
like they’d made a wrong turn at Macy’s
and were trying to horn their way back.
The Soho shoppers were stupefied,
some gleeful, others glaring.
I caught the eye of a triangle player
wearing a high square hat,
and smiled when he refused
to smile first. I wanted you
to be there, and even though
you were only a block away, it wasn’t
close enough. I wanted to be close
enough to see your head lift
as the marching music infiltrated
your concentration. I wanted
to share the smile that would happen
when you figured out
what was happening.
This is what love does—
it draws these pictures
out of air that doesn’t feel
thin at all. Thick air,
the undark matter
of everything I think of
when I think about you,
all these thoughts
that take up so much space
and don’t take up any space
at all. When I showed up
at the library, you could see
the story written across my face,
and took off your headphones
and put down your book
so I could tell you
everything.
3.
and you were there
with a book. I noticed
what you were reading
before I saw you were reading it.
Or at least that was my cover.
School was out, and I was
a different person out of it.
You wouldn’t have liked me
in the mind-numb variation
I played during the day.
I held myself at a distance
until the last bell rang, so by the time
I hit the afternoon, I was adrenalized
from all of the things I hadn’t said.
All of my friends
were like that—climbing over
the library, gossip-crazy and loud,
checking the computers every five seconds
to see how our lives
would update. If you were the
self-settled corner,
we were the self-proclaimed center.
But there was a pathway,
a tangent my eye made
when it spotted how devoted you were
to your paperback.
First I saw your glasses,
then I saw your book, then I saw
your face, and it was the face
(not the glasses, not the book)
that caused me to focus, caused me
to shake off the commotion
and dive into the silence of
myself, because it was a silence
you appeared to be sharing.
I let myself drift from the center,
first Jupiter, then Saturn, moving
a Neptune distance from my friends,
then finally Pluto cut loose
to hover at the shelf next to you,
pretending to look for something
other than the girl at my feet.
I saw you see me, saw you see
my hand reach for a book
I didn’t really need, and then
put it back. Out of orbit,
I reached into the vast unknown
and said I really liked
the book you were reading—
what you would later call
my (Vonne)gut instinct—
and you said you really liked
it, too, and that was all it took
for two tangents to curve
into a new orbit, for two girls
to meet in a library.
4.
It was your mother who asked
about storytime, asked if you
remembered storytime, and
even though you couldn’t,
I could. The pillows seemed
as big as cars, the carpet
ready to fly from our feet.
I was still willing to believe
that everything was true,
so I danced with the wild things,
visited the night kitchen,
said goodnight to the moon,
and all along, you were there,
too. We shared this,
long before we shared kisses
or trust or conversation.
That storyteller taught us
together, taught us how to
make soup from stone,
make way for ducklings,
make it to where the sidewalk ends,
make it through any terri
ble,
horrible,
no good,
very bad
day.
5.
I’d meet you in the stacks,
meet you surrounded by books,
escape from the subterranean
frustration of my day and emerge
to find you waiting for me in the
808s, my heart leaping at a Dewey
decibel, all the noise turning into something
like a song. My days had possessed
a pulse, but now they had a rhythm,
to have you there waiting for me,
even if I was the first to get there.
I knew you’d be there soon enough.
To be with you
meant not having to talk,
not having to prove myself,
not having to worry
about doing everything right,
because we were as good
in the silences as we were
in the sentences, like the balance
of the library, containing
millions of words
but creating that safe and quiet space
where they can be explored without rushing,
encountered
in our own time.
We were still tethered to school
until our homework was done,
but that felt immaterial
compared to the way our spines would touch
when we sat back to back on the floor,
the way the small kids would run
around us like we were part of a jungle gym,
how we’d find each other’s loosest threads
and manage to tie them off by talking about them.
We’d exist like this until closing time,
until dinnertime, and more often than not,
we’d continue off together,
your house or mine,
it didn’t really matter
because they were both stops
in the same shared world.
6.
This is what a library knows:
To read, it’s not enough
to have a book.
You also need
a comfortable chair,
good light,
inabsolute quiet,
the feeling of other readers
orbiting around you.
Reading is a conversation
between you and an author,
held inside
the pages of a book.
The library allows
the conversation
to occur.
7.
To love, it’s not enough
to have a girlfriend.
You also need
a comfortable heart,
good light,
inabsolute quiet,
the feeling of other friends
orbiting around you.
Love is a conversation
between you and the one you love,
held inside
the pages of a life.
For us, the library allowed
the conversation
to occur.
8.
Imagine if the storyteller
had opened her book one day
and told us the tale
of what we’d become.
What if she had seen us
on different corners
of the carpet, and had said,
‘One day, such riches
shall be yours!’
We would have thought
she meant coins or candy,
the pot at the end of the rainbow,
the hoard in the dragon’s lair.
But she would have told us, ‘No,
there is a deeper richness
that life sometimes offers,
and you will find it
in each other.’
I would have made a face.
You would have made a face.
We would have told her to go on
with the story, get to the
adventure parts.
And she would have said,
‘You will.
Mark my words,
you will.
Make soup from stone.
Make way for ducklings.
Make it to where the sidewalk ends,
make it through any terrible, horrible,
no good, very bad day,
and at the other end, you will find her
waiting for you. You will find her
again and again
and each time
you will be grateful.’
9.
The librarian lets us linger.
We can stay until
the last light is turned off,
until the carts make their way
back to the office,
empty because
all of the books are back on their shelves,
back home with their neighbors,
back where they, like we, belong.
If it were in my power,
I would keep the libraries open
all night long.
I would give the librarians
the keys to the city
so they could keep unlocking
each of us
by providing the stories
that draw us out of our shells
and into the world.
10.
You look up from the book
and your eyes are
storytelling.
11.
Nobody is writing us down
as I whisper something
that makes you laugh.
No words fall onto a page
as you take my hand
and welcome me
to a new part of the day.
We are writing ourselves,
writing each other.
I am words,
and there you are
to read them.
TRACK SIX
Your Temporary Santa
It’s hard not to feel just a little bit fat when your boyfriend asks you to be Santa Claus.
“But I’m Jewish,” I protest. “It would be one thing if you were asking me to be Jesus—he, at least, was a member of my tribe, and looks good in a Speedo. Plus, Santa requires you to be jolly, whereas Jesus only requires you to be born.”
“I’m serious,” Connor says. It is rare enough for him to be serious with me that he has to point it out. “This might be the last Christmas where Riley believes in Santa. And if I try to be Santa, she’ll know. It has to be you. I don’t have anyone else.”
“What about Lana?” I ask, referring to the older of his younger sisters.
He shakes his head. “There’s no way. There’s just no way.”
This does not surprise me. Lana’s demeanor is more claws-out than Claus-on. She is only twelve, and I am scared of her.
“Pweeeeeeeeeeeeease,” Connor cajoles.
I tell him I can’t believe he’s resorting to his cute voice. As if I’m more likely to make a fool of myself if he’s making a fool of himself.
“The suit won’t even need to be altered!” he promises.
This is, of course, what I am afraid of.
* * *
—
Christmas Eve for me has always been about my family figuring out which movies we’re going to see the next day. (The way we deliberate, I thin
k it’s easier to choose a pope.) Once that’s done, we retreat to our separate corners to do our separate things.
Nobody in my family is particularly religious, but there’s still no way I’m letting them see me leave the house in a Santa costume. Instead I sneak out a little before midnight and attempt to change in the back seat of my car. Because it is a two-door Accord, this requires some maneuvering on my part. Any casual passerby looking into the window would think I was either strangling Santa or making out with him. The pants and my jeans don’t get along, so I have to strip down to my boxers, then become Santa below the belt. I had thought it would feel like pajamas, but instead it’s like I’m wearing a discarded curtain.
And that’s not even taking into account the white fur. It occurs to me now to wonder where, exactly, this fur is supposed to have come from, if Santa spends so much time at the North Pole. Perhaps it’s him, not global warming, that’s dooming the polar bears. It’s a thought. Not much of one, but it’s all I can muster at this hour, in the back seat of this car.
As I’m strapping on my belly and putting on my coat, Connor is meant to be asleep, safe in his dreams. He offered to stay up, but I thought that would be too risky—if we got caught, not only would we be in trouble, but the jig would be up with Riley. Lana and his mother are supposed to be asleep, too—I don’t think they have any idea I’m coming, and only have a vague idea of who I am in the first place. It’s Riley who’s supposed to be awake—if not right at this moment, then when I appear in her living room. This is all for her six-year-old eyes to take in. I wouldn’t be doing it otherwise.
I also have a gift of my own to deliver—a wrapped box for Connor, which I am trying desperately not to smash as I grasp in the dark for my boots and my beard. It’s the first Christmas since we started dating, and I spent way too much time thinking about what to get him. He says presents aren’t important, but I think they are—not because of how much they cost, but for the opportunity they provide to say I understand you. Plus, there was the risk factor: When I ordered the present three weeks ago, there was always the slim chance we wouldn’t make it to Christmas. But that hasn’t happened. We’ve made it.
Once I’m dressed, I find it near impossible to slide into the front seat with any ease. I must manipulate both the seat and the steering wheel in order to lever my Santatude into the driver’s seat. Suddenly I understand the appeal of an open sled.