“I was walking through the Sheep Meadow in Central Park on a hot Sunday afternoon last August,” recalls Ms. Fisher. “When I looked up into the western sky, I saw this tall, elegant figure wrapped in a glow of brilliant light. I stopped in my tracks, right in the middle of the Sheep Meadow, with people sunbathing all around me, and I said out loud, ‘Yes.’ Yes, for I knew he was coming for me.”
“And he said to me from across the meadow, ‘Phoebe, you are beautiful. You are a beautiful person.’ I felt this enormous’ rush of cold air push against me. I was nearly knocked over, but I managed to nod. I couldn’t speak. But I knew he or she—they don’t have gender in the Pleiades system—wanted to use my body. He wanted me to bring the message of peace and love to our world, and I agreed to lend him my human form. We didn’t have to speak. I knew telepathically. And then I felt another rush of air, but this time it was blazing hot. Later, I realized he had settled himself into my home, my physical body.”
Jennifer shook her head, smiling to herself. She’d clip the article and send it to Eileen Gorman, she decided. Since storming out of the restaurant on Thursday night, Jennifer had been feeling guilty. This would make a nice peace offering, she decided, and a way of getting back in touch with her old friend. She slipped off the stool and went to the stove to boil water for coffee. She heard Tom then in the other room, padding across the floor to the bathroom. She glanced at the clock. It was only eight o’clock. Why was he up so early on a Saturday? He seldom told her his plans, and in the first days of their relationship had tried to make a joke of his secrecy, saying he would let her know “on a need-to-know basis.” She had thought that funny then. But not anymore.
She put the kettle on the stove and then scooped several spoonfuls of fresh coffee beans into the grinder. The little machine roared in the silent kitchen, and it was only after she had dumped the finely ground beans into the coffee filter that she realized Tom had entered the room. He was standing at the counter, glancing through the paper. When he didn’t look up or acknowledge her, she said coolly, “And good morning to you.”
“Good morning,” he answered. “Sorry. I was just checking to see if Giuliani made any statements. There was a rumor in the building yesterday that he was going to announce for the Senate.” He smiled across at her, trying to make amends.
“Well, it would be nice if you just said hello, that’s all.” She poured boiling water onto the filter.
“You know I never have much to say in the morning.”
“I wouldn’t think a simple ‘good morning’ is too much for a big assistant attorney general like yourself.” She added more water.
“Did you see this piece about the new yuppie fad?” Tom asked, as if to change the subject.
“Be careful what you say about yuppies. They’re us.” She glanced over at him. He was wearing only the bottoms of his pajamas and was standing at the counter scratching the thick dark hair on his chest.
“You may be, but I’m not.” He looked up from the newspaper. “Any coffee?”
“In a moment, sire.”
“Just asking, Jennifer. Just asking.” He grabbed the sports section of the Times and went over to the breakfast table, sitting down in the soft wash of pale winter sun to concentrate on the basketball scores.
Jennifer finished making coffee, poured Tom a cup, and added a splash of half-and-half. She carried his cup to the table and placed it down next to him.
“Thanks,” he said.
Jennifer slid down across from him at the table, satisfied for the moment with the taste of coffee and the slight warmth of the winter sun. She studied Tom while he read. She could see only his right profile—his better side, as he liked to say, because when he was still in prep school, his nose had been broken in a lacrosse game and badly reset. This morning his better side was shadowed with an overnight growth of beard. His long black hair tumbled over his forehead and into his eyes; it curled around his ear lobes. He looked like an unmade bed, she thought fondly.
She sipped her coffee and looked out the window at the snowbound Brooklyn Heights street where a few early risers were trudging through the snow. She wondered if this was the right time to tell Tom she wanted either to get married or break off the relationship. Her friend, Margit, had warned her about men like Tom who were afraid of commitment. She knew she couldn’t keep on living half a life with him. And besides, she knew she wanted to have children before it was too late.
“Are you okay?” he asked, glancing up. His cool gray eyes stared at her with the same compassion he might give the train schedule.
“I have no idea,” she answered truthfully, staring at the snow that covered the street like the hard frosting of a day-old wedding cake.
“Your job?” he asked.
Jennifer shook her head. “My life.”
“Your life, huh?” He nodded to the Times column. “Maybe you could use some spiritual guidance, one of these whatever-they-are.”
“Please, Tom, I’m being serious.” She looked straight at him. She was never any good at fooling people.
“You mean, us?”
“Yes, and more.”
“What do you mean, ‘more’?” There was an edge to his voice. At least she had his full attention, which gave her some satisfaction.
“I mean us, my stupid job at the foundation, and this!” She waved at the frozen street. All of it. The neighborhood, Brooklyn Heights, New York City. It hadn’t struck her until that very moment that she was sick of New York, sick of her daily life.
Tom pushed the paper away from him. It was a gesture he always made when he was upset, as if he was clearing his deck for a new problem.
She was afraid now. She was always afraid when she got Tom angry. That was one of the underlying problems in their relationship. She wasn’t honest enough with Tom, for in her heart of hearts she was afraid of losing him, of being without anyone at all.
“Well, what brought this on, this disgust about your life?”
“You know what.”
“For chrissake, Jennifer, I slept with that woman once, and I was a goddamn stupid fool to tell you.”
“You weren’t telling me, Tom, you were bragging. You were showing off, you were being a jerk, and just so you could appear as a stud in front of your stupid friends,” she answered back.
“Don’t go back over that bullshit,” he said softly, turning to his coffee.
“Bullshit yourself!” Jennifer looked away again, out the window at the cold day. She was surprised that she wasn’t crying. She had gotten tougher in the last few years, she realized.
At the Justice Department Christmas party, Tom had gotten drunk and boasted to the other males that he had slept with Helen Taubman, the television anchorwoman, that fall, just when Jennifer had begun dating him seriously.
Jennifer had become dizzy, trying to reach the ladies’ room in the crowded restaurant before she became sick. She had blamed it on the champagne, on the excitement and the warm restaurant, but of course all his friends knew she was lying. Tom’s admission had shocked them all.
“You want to talk about this, Jennifer?” Tom asked. He was focusing his full attention on her, but then she saw him glance at the kitchen clock.
“Are you in a hurry?” she asked, trying to pin him down. “Are you going into the office? What is it? Why the glances at the clock?”
“Jesus, remind me not to cross you again early in the morning.” He spun around and stood up.