Beyond the Point(64)
There were other interesting trends too. She’d learned that most men hadn’t seen the back of their heads in years. While women had mastered the physics of double mirrors to check that their hair looked perfect, men never took the time. They simply combed their hair until they liked the view from the front, then went on with their morning routine. Once, Dani’s subject had noticed her playing back video footage. He grabbed her camera and pulled it in close to stare at his own bald spot.
“Wait, is that me?” he’d asked, touching the back of his head, as if to confirm the truth.
“Aw,” Dani had said, patting his shoulder. “Maybe it’s time to get into hats.”
Dani had gotten pretty good at consoling men about hair loss. She’d gotten pretty good at a lot of things actually. Packing a carry-on bag that could pass through security with ease. Walking through airport terminals with a BlackBerry in one hand and a latte in the other, without losing the dexterity to push her four-wheeled suitcase in front of her. She’d grown used to ignoring the stares of men who found the presence of a young black woman in first class so disconcerting. With the amount of miles she’d racked up, she’d earned her position at the front of the cabin.
Sadly, the list of cities she’d traveled to in the last year didn’t include the two places she’d hoped to visit: Fort Bragg, to see Hannah and Avery, and Fort Hood, to see Locke. Apparently E & G didn’t believe it was necessary to interview America’s military population, which made little sense to Dani, since men in the military were required to shave. It was just another way that her life felt separate from that of her college friends.
Dani had assumed that after college, her bonds of friendship would remain the same. But things were shifting. She could feel the seismic waves, like emotional plate tectonics. It had been weeks since any of them had replied to their dwindling e-mail chain, and a few months earlier, when Dani had made a conscious effort to call Hannah on her birthday, the conversation centered on the one thing that they couldn’t seem to avoid. Schedules.
“Well, I was supposed to be with Tim this weekend,” Hannah had said. “But you’ve seen the news.”
“Sure,” Dani had replied, though she wasn’t sure what Hurricane Katrina had to do with Hannah’s weekend plans. “It’s awful.”
“They sent Tim’s unit,” Hannah had explained. “He’s literally there, fishing people out of their houses.”
“Like a true disciple,” Dani had said, trying to crack a joke. “A fisher of men.”
Hannah had laughed, but had chased that with a sigh. Dani couldn’t imagine surviving a long-distance relationship, let alone a long-distance marriage, but Hannah had a way of smiling through pain that put even Dani’s endurance to shame. Of course, most of Dani’s pain was physical. Maybe it was easier to tolerate pain if it only existed in your heart.
“It wouldn’t matter that much if I had any friends around here,” Hannah had said.
“What about Avery?”
“What about her? We had a plan to meet up for lunch last week and I sat there for an hour waiting.”
“She never showed up?” Dani had asked, incredulous. “Did you call her?”
“I texted. She never texted me back. I have a weird feeling about this new guy she’s dating.”
“Something must be going on,” Dani had said, trying to knock some sense into Hannah. “That’s not normal.”
“Ha! Normal? What’s that word mean again?”
Dani had felt utterly helpless over the line. At one time, she was the glue that held their group together, but they were loosening and she had no control over it. In a way, that fact made Dani more uncomfortable than the arthritis in her hips. In college, they’d tackled countless challenges together. But with all this distance between them, nothing felt right.
Things with Locke had changed, too. They still talked on the phone every few weeks, exchanging stories about their jobs, laughing about old times, and swapping workout regimens, which Dani couldn’t bring herself to admit she wasn’t actually completing. As she walked around the streets of Boston, her limp only slightly hidden, Dani thought of Locke. If he ever came to visit, he’d like the open-mic poetry night she’d found in the Back Bay. And she’d take him to Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, where they would plant their feet on soil where more than a thousand slaves were buried, discussing the confusing history of this misguided, imperfect nation that they both loved and he still served.
But those dreams had died when Locke let it slip that he’d taken a local girl out on a date.
“Amanda,” Dani had reported to Wendy Bennett over the phone. Lately, it seemed Wendy was the only person who reliably called her back. “Apparently she’s a kindergarten teacher.”
“Oh, Dani,” Wendy had said. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine. I doubt it’s anything serious. Just took me by surprise, is all.”
“Life has a way of doing that, doesn’t it?”
AS DANI TOOK notes on her clipboard, she noticed the date and felt accosted by shock. For her entire life, the rhythms of the academic year had marked the passing of time, like posts upon which you could hang the fabric of life. October used to come with football games and full notebooks and midterms. Breaking time into manageable academic chunks must have slowed it down, Dani thought, because out of college, the calendar had become a ruthless conveyor belt ushering her onward, crushing months like cans. In the real world, fall was no longer a beginning. It was just the middle, like everything else.