My Last Continent: A Novel(32)

“No,” Sydney says. “But I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Before I can ask what she’s talking about, she introduces me to her boyfriend, a construction manager who draws us into a discussion about LEED-certified building and local politics. I listen, trying not to think about how I’m neglecting the lesson plans for my biology course. Eventually I ease my way out of the conversation and wander across the room.

The house is neat and clean, with Nick’s love of invertebrates on full display; the walls in the living room are covered with photographs and illustrations of bees and butterflies. As much as I dislike parties, I do like the white noise of them, and I always enjoy being in Nick’s house. I love seeing the way he’s merged science with art, and I like the semisocial aspect of being around people, even if not fully engaged with them.

Soon I feel the draft of Nick’s front door opening and closing, the noise level in the room fading slowly as the party winds down. As I turn the corner into the empty hallway, the ambient sounds of people talking and laughing and saying good night are almost like a lullaby.

The first time Nick invited me over, soon after I’d moved into the cottage, I demurred—as I did the second and third times. Finally, to be polite, I went, feeling the whole time as though I were in a dollhouse, as if I were back home, where my mother’s eagle eye would catch every fingerprint I left, every speck of dirt my shoes deposited on the floor. Then one of his friends toppled a glass of wine onto the couch, staining its beige cushion with a large, deep-crimson moon—and Nick simply poured her a fresh glass and tossed a pillow over the stain. Trust me, Gatsby’s done a lot worse to that couch, he said.

That’s when I began to relax—once I noticed the claw marks on the coffee table, the shredded arm of the sofa, the tiny nose prints on the inside of the kitchen window. And over the years, as we’ve grown closer, Nick has become one of the few constants in my life, someone who’s always here when I come home after months away.

Now I wander back into the kitchen, where Nick’s talking to Sydney. Her boyfriend isn’t around, and they don’t see me, and I feel, as I often do in these situations, that I’m not really a part of what’s happening but observing it from a distant place; I’m on the periphery, like something in the background of a photograph that never catches the untrained eye.

When the boyfriend returns, we say our good nights. Nick walks them both to the front door, his hand brushing against my back as he passes by.

I open the dishwasher and begin to run water over the glasses in the sink. A few minutes later, Nick is back, depositing empty beer bottles into the recycle bin in the corner.

“Leave it for the maid!” he says, pouring himself another glass of wine.

“I would, if you actually had a maid.”

He leans over to shut off the water, gently hip-butting me out of the way. I see that he’s used a rubber band to tie his hair—a thick, light-brown mop he never seems to know what to do with—into a little bob at the nape of his neck.

“Come here a second,” I say.

I stand behind him and begin to untangle the dirty rubber band from his hair, as gently as I can. He tilts his head back to help, and I feel the waver of his inebriated body trying hard to stand still. I pull my ponytail holder from my wrist and put it between my teeth, running my hands through his hair, smoothing it out. It’s a little damp from the rain outside, and it smells green, like a forest. I pull the hair back and tie it behind his head again. Then I turn him around to face me. “No more rubber bands,” I tell him. “They tear the shit out of your hair.”

“I’m thinking of cutting it, actually,” Nick says, running his hand along the back of his head.

“Don’t,” I say. “It looks good long.”

“Really?”

“Sure.” His hair, especially when it’s tousled, reminds me of Keller’s.

He looks as if he’s about to ask me something, but he doesn’t. Nick has a sweet face, like a Saint Bernard’s: calm, competent, a little somber. He’s tall and solidly built, and with his year-round suntan, from studying insects up and down the West Coast, he looks more like a rugby player than an entomologist.

As I sneak a couple of glasses into the dishwasher, I say, “That professor friend of yours, Sydney—what have you told her about me?”

“Nothing.”

“She said she’s heard a lot about me.”

“That’s what friends do,” he says. “We talk from time to time.”

“About what?”

“Why you never come to my parties. Despite the fact that I’m an excellent cook and you have nothing but dehydrated camping food in your house.”

“I’m here. Fashionably late, but here.”

“You know what I mean,” he says. “When would I ever see you, if I didn’t drag you over here for food and booze?”

“I’d bring the rent check by eventually.”

“Funny,” he says.

“Oh, you know I’m kidding.”

“Right. Because you pay by direct deposit.”

“It’s not that.”

“It is, though, isn’t it?” He props himself against the counter. “Don’t you ever go out?”

“Sure I do,” I say. “Just the other night, Jill and I went out to Sam Bond’s to grade quizzes.”