I remove my hand and carefully rip open the
condom packet with my teeth, a maneuver I haven't performed in years.
"Kangaroos. Toaster ovens. Penises."
Clare takes the condom from me with fascinated distaste. She's lying on her
back and she unfurls it and sniffs it. "Ugh. Must we?"
Although I often refuse to tell Clare things, I seldom actually lie to her. I feel a
twinge of guilt as I say, '"Fraid so." I retrieve it from her, but instead of putting it
on I decide that what we really need here is cunnilingus. Clare, in her future, is
addicted to oral sex and will leap tall buildings in a single bound and wash the
dishes when it's not her turn in order to get it. If cunnilingus were an Olympic
event I would medal, no doubt about it. I spread her out and apply my tongue to
her clit.
"Oh God," Clare says in a low voice. "Sweet Jesus."
"No yelling," I warn. Even Etta and Nell will come down to the Meadow to
see what's wrong if Clare really gets going. In the next fifteen minutes I take Clare
several steps down the evolutionary ladder until she's pretty much a limbic core
with a few cerebral cortex peripherals. I roll on the condom and slowly, carefully
slide into Clare, imagining things breaking and blood cascading around me. She
has her eyes closed and at first I think she's not even aware that I'm actually
inside her even though I'm directly over her but then she opens her eyes and
smiles, triumphant, beatific.
I manage to come fairly quickly; Clare is watching me, concentrating, and as I
come I see her face turn to surprise. How strange things are. What odd things we
animals do. I collapse onto her. We are bathed in sweat. I can feel her heart
beating. Or perhaps it's mine.
I pull out carefully and dispose of the condom. We lie, side by side, looking at
the very blue sky. The wind is making a sea sound with the grass. I look over at
Clare. She looks a bit stunned.
"Hey. Clare."
"Hey" she says weakly.
"Did it hurt?"
"Yes."
"Did you like it?"
"Oh, yes!" she says, and starts to cry. We sit up, and I hold her for a while. She
is shaking.
"Clare. Clare. What's wrong?"
I can't make out her reply at first, then: "You're going away. Now I won't see
you for years and years."
"Only two years. Two years and a few months." She is quiet. "Oh, Clare. I'm
sorry. I can't help it. It's funny, too, because I was just lying here thinking what a
blessing today was. To be here with you making love instead of being chased by
thugs or freezing to death in some barn or some of the other stupid shit I get to
deal with. And when I go back, I'm with you. And today was wonderful." She is
smiling, a little. I kiss her.
"How come I always have to wait?"
"Because you have perfect DNA and you aren't being thrown around in time
like a hot potato. Besides, patience is a virtue." Clare is pummel-ing my chest
with her fists, lightly. "Also, you've known me your whole life, whereas I only
meet you when I'm twenty-eight. So I spend all those years before we meet-"
"Fucking other women."
"Well, yeah. But, unbeknownst to me, it's all just practice for when I meet you.
And it's very lonely and weird. If you don't believe me, try it yourself. I'll never
know. It's different when you don't care."
"I don't want anybody else."
"Good."
"Henry just give me a hint. Where do you live? Where do we meet? What
day?"
"One hint. Chicago"
"More."
"Have faith. It's all there, in front of you."
"Are we happy?"
"We are often insane with happiness. We are also very unhappy for reasons
neither of us can do anything about. Like being separated."
"So all the time you're here now you're not with me then?"
"Well, not exactly. I may end up missing only ten minutes. Or ten days.
There's no rule about it. That's what makes it hard, for you. Also, I sometimes
end up in dangerous situations, and I come back to you broken and messed up,
and you worry about me when I'm gone. It's like marrying a policeman." I'm
exhausted. I wonder how old I actually am, in real time. In calendar time I'm
forty-one, but with all this coming and going perhaps I'm really forty-five or -six.
Or maybe I'm thirty-nine. Who knows? There's something I have to tell her; what
was it?
"Clare?"
"Henry."
"When you see me again, remember that I won't know you; don't be upset
when you see me and I treat you like a total stranger, because to me you will be
brand new. And please don't blow my mind with everything all at once. Have
mercy, Clare."
"I will! Oh, Henry stay!"
"Shh. I'll be with you." We lie down again. The exhaustion permeates me and
I will be gone in a minute.
"I love you, Henry. Thank you for.. .my birthday present."
"I love you, Clare. Be good."
I'm gone.
SECRET
Thursday, February 10, 2005 (Clare is 33, Henry is 41)
Clare: It's Thursday afternoon and I'm in the studio making pale yellow kozo
paper. Henry's been gone for almost twenty-four hours now, and as usual I'm
torn between thinking obsessively about when and where he might be and being
pissed at him for not being here and worrying about when he'll be back. It's not
helping my concentration and I'm ruining a lot of sheets; I plop them off the su
and back into the vat. Finally I take a break and pour myself a cup of coffee. It's
cold in the studio, and the water in the vat is supposed to be cold although I have
warmed it a little to save my hands from cracking. I wrap my hands around the
ceramic mug. Steam wafts up. I put my face over it, inhale the moisture and
coffee smell. And then, oh thank you, God, I hear Henry whistling as he comes
up the path through the garden, into the studio. He stomps the snow off his boots
and shrugs off his coat. He's looking marvelous, really happy. My heart is racing
and I take a wild guess: "May 24, 1989?"
" Yes, oh, yes!" Henry scoops me up, wet apron and Wellingtons and all, and
swings me around. Now I'm laughing, we're both laughing. Henry exudes
delight. "Why didn't you tell me? I've been needlessly wondering all these years.
Vixen! Minx!" He's biting my neck and tickling me.
"But you didn't know, so I couldn't tell you."
"Oh. Right. My God, you're amazing." We sit on the grungy old studio couch.
"Can we turn up the heat in here?"
"Sure." Henry jumps up and turns the thermostat higher. The furnace kicks in.
"How long was I gone?"
"Almost a whole day."
Henry sighs. "Was it worth it? A day of anxiety in exchange for a few really
beautiful hours?"
"Yes. That was one of the best days of my life." I am quiet, remembering. I
often invoke the memory of Henry's face above me, surrounded by blue sky, and
the feeling of being permeated by him. I think about it when he's gone and I'm
having trouble sleeping.
"Tell me...."
"Mmmm?" We are wrapped around each other, for warmth, for reassurance.
"What happened after I left?"
"I picked everything up and made myself more or less presentable and went
back up to the house. I got upstairs without running into anyone and I took a
bath. After a while Etta started hammering on the door wanting to know why I
was in the tub in the middle of the day and I had to pretend I was sick. And I
was, in a way...I spent the summer lounging around, sleeping a lot. Reading. I
just kind of rolled up into myself. I spent some time down in the Meadow, sort of
hoping you might show up. I wrote you letters. I burned them. I stopped eating
for a while and Mom dragged me to her therapist and I started eating again. At
the end of August my parents informed me that if I didn't 'perk up' I wouldn't be
going to school that fall, so I immediately perked up because my whole goal in
life was to get out of the house and go to Chicago. And school was a good thing;
it was new, I had an apartment, I loved the city. I had something to think about
besides the fact that I had no idea where you were or how to find you. By the
time I finally did run into you I was doing pretty well; I was into my work, I had
friends, I got asked out quite a bit-"
"Oh?"
"Sure."
"Did you go? Out?"
"Well, yeah. I did. In the spirit of research.. .and because I occasionally got
mad that somewhere out there you were obliviously dating other women. But it
was all a sort of black comedy. I would go out with some perfectly nice pretty
young art boy, and spend the whole evening thinking about how boring and
futile it was and checking my watch. I stopped after five of them because I could
see that I was really pissing these guys off. Someone put the word out at school
that I was a dyke and then I got a wave of girls asking me out."
"I could see you as a lesbian."
"Yeah; behave yourself or I'll convert."
"I've always wanted to be a lesbian." Henry is looking dreamy and
heavy-lidded; not fair when I am wound up and ready to jump on him. He
yawns. "Oh, well, not in this lifetime. Too much surgery."
In my head I hear the voice of Father Compton behind the grille of the
confessional, softly asking me if there's anything else I want to confess. No, I tell
him firmly. No, there isn't. That was a mistake. I was drunk, and it doesn't count.
The good Father sighs, and pushes the curtain across. End of confession. My
penance is to lie to Henry, by omission, as long as we both shall live. I look at
him, happily postprandial, sated with the charms of my younger self, and the
image of Gomez sleeping, Gomez's bedroom in morning light flashes across my
mental theater. It was a mistake, Henry, I tell him silently. I was waiting, and I got
sideswiped, just once. Tell him, says Father Compton, or somebody, in my head.
I can't, I retort. He'll hate me.
"Hey," Henry says gently. "Where are you?"
"Thinking."
"You look so sad."
"Do you worry sometimes that all the really great stuff has already
happened?"
"No. Well, sort of, but in a different way than you mean. I'm still moving
through the time you're reminiscing about, so it's not really gone, for me. I worry
that we aren't paying close attention here 