chigan winters are pretty extreme."
"I used to smuggle you into our basement; the house has a huge basement
with several rooms, and one of them is a storage room and the furnace is on the
other side of the wall. We call it the Reading Room because all the useless old
books and magazines are stored there. One time you were down there and we
had a blizzard and nobody went to school or to work and I thought I was going
to go crazy trying to get food for you because there wasn't all that much food in
the house. Etta was supposed to go grocery shopping when the storm hit. So you
were stuck reading old Reader's Digests for three days, living on sardines and
ramen noodles."
"Sounds salty. I'll look forward to it." Our meal arrives. "Did you ever learn to
cook?"
"No, I don't think I would claim to know how to cook. Nell and Etta always
got mad when I did anything in their kitchen beyond getting myself a Coke, and
since I've moved to Chicago I don't have anybody to cook for, so I haven't been
motivated to work on it. Mostly I'm too busy with school and all, sol just eat
there." Clare takes a bite of her curry. "This is really good."
"Nell and Etta?"
"Nell is our cook." Clare smiles. "Nell is like cordon bleu meets Detroit; she's
how Aretha Franklin would be if she was Julia Child. Etta is our housekeeper
and all-around everything. She's really more almost our mom; I mean, my mother
is...well, Etta's just always there, and she's German and strict, but she's very
comforting, and my mother is kind of off in the clouds, you know?"
I nod, my mouth full of soup.
"Oh, and there's Peter," Clare adds. "Peter is the gardener."
"Wow. Your family has servants. This sounds a little out of my league. Have I
ever, uh, met any of your family?"
"You met my Grandma Meagram right before she died. She was the only
person I ever told about you. She was pretty much blind by then. She knew we
were going to get married and she wanted to meet you."
I stop eating and look at Clare. She looks back at me, serene, angelic, perfectly
at ease. "Are we going to get married?"
"I assume so," she replies. "You've been telling me for years that whenever it
is you're coming from, you're married to me."
Too much. This is too much. I close my eyes and will myself to think of
nothing; the last thing I want is to lose my grip on the here and now.
"Henry? Henry, are you okay?" I feel Clare sliding onto the seat beside me. I
open my eyes and she grips my hands strongly in hers. I look at her hands and
see that they are the hands of a laborer, rough and chapped.
"Henry, I'm sorry, I just can't get used to this. It's so opposite. I mean, all my
life you've been the one who knew everything and I sort of forgot that tonight
maybe I should go slow." She smiles. "Actually, almost the last thing you said to
me before you left was 'Have mercy, Clare.' You said it in your quoting voice,
and I guess now that I think of it you must have been quoting me." She continues
to hold my hands. She looks at me with eagerness; with love. I feel profoundly
humble.
"Clare?"
"Yes?"
"Could we back up? Could we pretend that this is a normal first date between
two normal people?"
"Okay." Clare gets up and goes back to her side of the table. She sits up
straight and tries not to smile.
"Um, right. Gee, ah, Clare, ah, tell me about yourself. Hobbies? Pets? Unusual
sexual proclivities?"
"Find out for yourself."
"Right. Let's see.. .where do you go to school? What are you studying?"
"I'm at the School of the Art Institute; I've been doing sculpture, and I've just
started to study papermaking."
"Cool. What's your work like?"
For the first time, Clare seems uncomfortable. "It's kind of...big, and it's about..
.birds." She looks at the table, then takes a sip of tea.
"Birds?"
"Well, really it's about, um, longing." She is still not looking at me, so I change
the subject.
"Tell more about your family."
"Okay." Clare relaxes, smiles. "Well...my family lives in Michigan, by a small
town on the lake called South Haven. Our house is in an unincorporated area
outside the town, actually. It originally belonged to my mother's parents, my
Grandpa and Grandma Meagram. He died before I was born, and she lived with
us until she died. I was seventeen. My grandpa was a lawyer, and my dad is a
lawyer; my dad met my mom when he came to work for Grandpa."
"So he married the boss's daughter."
"Yeah. Actually, I sometimes wonder if he really married the boss's house. My
mom is an only child, and the house is sort of amazing; it's in a lot of books on
the Arts and Crafts movement."
"Does it have a name? Who built it?"
"It's called Meadowlark House, and it was built in 1896 by Peter Wyns."
"Wow. I've seen pictures of it. It was built for one of the Henderson family,
right?"
"Yes. It was a wedding present for Mary Henderson and Dieter Bascombe.
They divorced two years after they moved in and sold the house."
"Posh house."
"My family is posh. They're very weird about it, too."
"Brothers and sisters?"
"Mark is twenty-two and finishing pre-law at Harvard. Alicia is seventeen and
a senior in high school. She's a cellist." I detect affection for the sister and a
certain flatness for the brother. "You aren't too fond of your brother?"
"Mark is just like Dad. They both like to win, talk you down until you
submit."
"You know, I always envy people with siblings, even if they don't like them
all that much,"
"You're an only child?"
"Yep. I thought you knew everything about me?"
"Actually I know everything and nothing. I know how you look without
clothes, but until this afternoon I didn't know your last name. I knew you lived in
Chicago, but I know nothing about your family except that your mom died in a
car crash when you were six. I know you know a lot about art and speak fluent
French and German; I had no idea you were a librarian. You made it impossible
for me to find you in the present; you said it would just happen when it was
supposed to happen, and here we are."
"Here we are," I agree. "Well, my family isn't posh; they're musicians. My
father is Richard DeTamble and my mother was Annette Lyn Robinson."
"Oh-the singer!"
"Right. And he's a violinist. He plays for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
But he never really made it the way she did. It's a shame because my father is a
marvelous violin player. After Mom died he was just treading water." The check
arrives. Neither of us has eaten very much, but I at least am not interested in food
right now. Clare picks up her purse and I shake my head at her. I pay; we leave
the restaurant and stand on Clark Street in the fine autumn night. Clare is
wearing an elaborate blue knitted thing and a fur scarf; I have forgotten to bring
an overcoat so I'm shivering.
"Where do you live?" Clare asks.
Uh oh. "I live about two blocks from here, but my place is tiny and really
messy right now. You?"
"Roscoe Village, on Hoyne. But I have a roommate."
"If you come up to my place you have to close your eyes and count to one
thousand. Perhaps you have a very uninquisitive deaf roommate?"
"No such luck. I never bring anyone over; Charisse would pounce on you and
stick bamboo slivers under your fingernails until you told all."
"I long to be tortured by someone named Charisse, but I can see that you do
not share my taste. Come up to my parlor." We walk north along Clark. I veer
into Clark Street Liquors for a bottle of wine. Back on the street Clare is puzzled.
"I thought you aren't supposed to drink?" I m not?
"Dr. Kendrick was very strict about it."
"Who's he?" We are walking slowly because Clare is wearing impractical
shoes.
"He's your doctor; he's a big expert on Chrono-Impairment."
"Explain."
"I don't know very much. Dr. David Kendrick is a molecular geneticist who
discovered-will discover why people are chrono-impaired. It's a genetic thing; he
figures it out in 2006." She sighs. "I guess it's just way too early. You told me
once that there are a lot more chrono-impaired people about ten years from
now."
"I've never heard of anyone else who has this-impairment."
"I guess even if you went out right now and found Dr. Kendrick he wouldn't
be able to help you. And we would never have met, if he could."
"Let's not think about that." We are in my lobby. Clare precedes me into the
tiny elevator. I close the door and push eleven. She smells like old cloth, soap,
sweat, and fur. I breathe deeply. The elevator clangs into place on my floor and
we extricate ourselves from it and walk down the narrow hallway. I wield my
fistful of keys on all 107 locks and crack the door slightly. "It's gotten much worse
during dinner. I'm going to have to blindfold you." Clare giggles as I set down
the wine and remove my tie. I pass it over her eyes and tie it firmly at the back of
her head. I open the door and guide her into the apartment and settle her in the
armchair. "Okay, start counting."
Clare counts. I race around picking underwear and socks from the floor,
collecting spoons and coffee cups from various horizontal surfaces and chucking
them into the kitchen sink. As she says "Nine hundred and sixty-seven," I
remove the tie from her eyes. I have turned the sleeper-sofa into its daytime, sofa
self, and I sit down on it. "Wine? Music? Candlelight?"
"Yes, please."
I get up and light candles. When I'm finished I turn off the overhead light and
the room is dancing with little lights and everything looks better. I put the roses
in water, locate my corkscrew, extract the cork, and pour us each a glass of wine.
After a moment's thought I put on the EMI CD of my mother singing Schubert
lieder and turn the volume low.
My apartment is basically a couch, an armchair, and about four thousand
books.
"How lovely," says Clare. She gets up and reseats herself on the sofa. I sit
down next to her. There is a comfortable moment when we just sit there and look
at each other. The