The Queen of Hearts(98)
At first they spent quite a long time doing things the hard way. Stone tools: eleven p.m. Domestication of fire: eleven forty-six p.m. Anatomically modern humans rolled in with eight minutes to go, but they kicked around until twenty-eight seconds before midnight before figuring out how to grow food. Once they acquired agriculture, however, the ball began rolling fast: all of recorded history, Sagan said, occupied the last ten seconds of December 31. The kingdom of Israel, the first Olympics: seven seconds until midnight. The life of Christ: five seconds. The fall of Rome: three seconds to go. The American Revolution, the first two World Wars, the Apollo moon landing—in geologic time, they all occur at one second before midnight.
The upshot of all this, to me, was to emphasize how indescribably short and irrelevant the average human life is. But Sagan had managed to describe it; after reading his Cosmic Calendar, I realized I was living in the first fraction of the first second of the new New Year’s Day. Then my life would whiff out after an infinitesimally tiny blip on the timeline.
And if my life was barely perceptible, what of Graham’s? I would at least pass on my genes to the future, but Graham, the only son of an only son, would not. Even before Nick’s reappearance in my life, I still thought of Graham nearly every day and still experienced the physical sensation of shock when he crept unexpectedly into my mind after a lull: that feeling of being kicked in the stomach when memory assaults you anew with loss. And, in my case, guilt.
He had known, somehow, that I’d been unfaithful to him. The week before he died, I’d blown him off for a clandestine hookup with Nick. Graham had planned a picnic in Cherokee Park; we were supposed to meet at noon on Dog Hill so Baxter, Graham’s hyperenthusiastic golden retriever, could run joyously free.
That whole week was the loveliest of the fall. It was still warm enough for shorts, but the air had lost its humidity and everything was sharp, crisp, intensely focused. By the time I finally got to the park, the late-afternoon sun was pouring over the deep hills like liquid gold from a goblet, backlighting the slopes and lawns and forests of the park and turning everything a shade of rosy champagne. I saw them before they saw me: Baxter was racing around in frenetic circles, and Graham was sitting on his old Notre Dame blanket, next to an unpacked basket, his head turned to the side and resting on his knees, which were encircled by his arms. He was very still.
Baxter saw me first. He was overcome with emotion—another human he knew! Here! In paradise!—and he charged toward me but overshot, so he had to skid to a stop and double back. I scratched his ears, which sent him into paroxysms of seizurelike joy.
His owner was calm. Graham wordlessly shifted over on the blanket so I could sit. “I’m sorry I’m so late,” I began, but I stopped when Graham put his head back down on his knees. He still didn’t speak. “Graham?” I said. “What is it?”
He turned to face me. The dying sun caught him full in the face, suffusing his skin with glowing pinks and golds and transforming his hair into a soft halo. Even though his eyes were brown, they were very clear in the sunlight; I thought I could see right through them. The background noise of dogs yelping and trees rustling and the rhythmic feet of the joggers faded into stillness around us. We sat, hushed, in our pool of dimming molten light. He knows, I thought.
“Emma?” he asked.
“Yes?” I turned away, unable to face him.
“Will you keep Baxter for me next week?”
“Of course,” I said, relieved, not thinking to ask why.
“Thanks,” he said, and reached his arm around me. I settled into him, feeling the familiar comfort of his solidity, the softness and scent of his ancient T-shirt as soothing as a baby blanket. He stared ahead, as if at some unfathomable mirage, and then absently kissed the top of my head, his lips granting me a little jewel of absolution. Relief washed over me, even though I knew he knew. And even though I knew I’d probably do it again. I must be crazy, I thought.
It had been inexcusable madness. When I tried to reconstruct, later, what had possessed me to betray the two people I loved the most, it all sounded so diseased and feeble. I’d always been a good girl. I did what people—adults—expected of me, but I was never wholly comfortable in the world of my peers. I was awkward; I never laughed at the right things or said anything funny or enjoyed the easy camaraderie that seemed to come effortlessly to other girls. One-on-one, especially with Zadie, I felt fine, even comfortable and witty sometimes; but with a group, I often floundered. Boys had not flocked to me; they seemed to find something in me off-putting. When Zadie and I walked into a party, within five minutes there would be a swarm of boys around both of us, offering drinks and goofy charm and hopeful energy, but within five minutes more, all of it would subtly shift to Zadie’s direction, so all the eye contact and comments and laughter would exclude me. When Zadie spoke, it was to roars of approval; when I spoke, there was puzzled silence. So I stood alone in the crowd, an ice queen, always reacting a beat too late.
Graham had loved me, but Graham had been a little bit of a misfit too. He’d been a part of our circle, accepted, but he was quiet; he had a thoughtfulness and intensity marking him as different. And his devotion to me had made me uneasy. It seemed unearned. Why would anyone feel that way about me?
Nick, on the other hand, had been the epitome of cool. Everyone knew who he was and accorded him celebrity status. He could render you helpless with laughter and then just as easily turn around and cut you dead with the power of his scorn. People wanted his approval.