Peggy Sue says, “My dad says I got to move out of the house in two years or else. So this is good. I won’t have to find an apartment.”
“I’m serious,” I say. “There’s a meteor.” I stop. There’s a lot of reasons to doubt me.
Liza says, “I’m going skydiving with Justin next weekend.”
I’m not sure if she’s trying to say something relevant here, maybe something about facing death, or if she’s just changing the subject.
I look at Janis and she’s studying me. She has a row of wrinkles between her eyebrows and she’s touching the ring in her lower lip with the point of her tongue, something she does when she’s thinking. “I’m serious,” I say, lowering my voice and leaning toward Janis, like this is just for her.
Peggy Sue says, “Linus, you just have to do this nipple-piercing thing, you and Janis, it is so cool and so romantic.”
All of a sudden I am very aware indeed of my nipples. And my chest as a whole, in light of this mile-and-a-half-wide ball of rock. And the top of my head and the soles of my feet. Something is happening to me and I’m starting to pant.
“What is it?” Janis says, also low, also bending near. I’d like to take her by the arm and walk her away from this table, maybe out into the sun, then I think, No. No. Not outside. Get under the table, for Christ’s sake. But I don’t have the strength for any movement at all at the moment, so I just try to control my breath, like a cowboy trying to jump up into the saddle of a moving horse.
Somewhere nearby a crowd is cheering. It sounds like a big crowd, but the sound is small. I think, That’s how the meteor must look to those scientists. A very big thing but it looks small. And what I’m hearing is a portable radio nearby tuned to the UCLA game. I imagine the crowd all suddenly looking up and they make a great collective gasp.
“Let’s take a little walk,” Janis says.
I try to stand up. It’s okay. One hand braced on the table, then the back of the chair, and my legs are working for the moment. She touches my arm, on a bare place, near my wrist, and her hand is impossibly soft. We move off.
She says, “Is it that you can’t see us together?”
“No. I’m seeing everybody breaking up,” I say.
“You have nothing pierced,” she says. “This would be such a sweet thing for me.”
“Like a virgin,” I say.
“Yes,” she says. “You are.” And she puts her arm around my waist. I feel her bones there, her ulna, or her radius, whichever, what the hell good was all that education anyway, I think, with no world left. And her fragile bones: how simply, how completely, Janis would disappear. And all of us. I stop. We are in the middle of tables. People are all around. My face grows hot again, quickly. This woman smiling. That man dabbing at his mouth with his napkin. What a sad gesture, trying to keep himself clean while his death rushes to him, very near. Any day, perhaps.
“You’re crying,” Janis says.
“I’ve got something in my eye,” I say, and I draw away from her. Her arm slides off me, but something remains, a shadow of her. I stumble on, down a passage, past a pay phone, a woman talking there, whispering into the phone, a man on the other end, no doubt, and they think they will marry and have children but there will be no more children, never again. I push into the men’s room and into a stall and I slip the bolt and I back up against the wall and then I turn and lean my head into the wedge of the corner.
I don’t know all that much about death. My dad’s mother died, but I was very little, maybe about four, and I don’t really remember her. I don’t even remember whatever talk there was about Nana going to heaven to be with God, though there must have been some of that. Yes I do remember something. I grew up in Seattle. My dad works at Boeing. I think I had a picture in my head of Nana flying off to heaven in a 747 made by my dad. Which shows you what a little kid knows. If you’ve earned heaven, you should do better than airline food on the way. And they still had smoking sections back then. And the idea of God depending on my dad to get His souls to Him: no wonder I’m so unprepared for this moment. And there aren’t enough jets in the world for all of us. That’s a thing that makes me push my head harder into this wall. No seats. No room. Sold out.
I’m still crying, I realize. I dig at my eyes with the heels of my hands. I try to think about the bright side. The budget deficit will disappear. The whole national debt will be forgiven. Discrimination will end. All the handguns will fall silent. You don’t have to go out and burn up your days working at meaningless things. You don’t have to slowly drip your days away trying to do nothing. And you and Madonna will share a very intense moment.
I’m not sure I’m doing better, but my eyes are dry. I pull my head out of the corner and it feels like my skull has been compressed. I cover my temples with my palms and I worry, for a moment, that I’ve caused permanent damage to my brain. But that’s another worry that instantly loses its bite.
I go out of the restroom and the pay phone is idle, and I stop there for a moment. I think about who I should call, just in case this happens to be the last day in the life of planet Earth, if the meteor is slipping past the moon even now and due on Earth in four minutes. My mom and dad, for instance. But the last time we talked, we actually got through about a five-minute conversation without an argument, and that would be a nice way to end it. And I think of Janis. I suddenly want to be with her. Even if she won’t believe me, I’ll be beside her when the thing itself, grown white hot from its plunge through the atmosphere, appears in the sky and persuades everyone. I’ll hold her. You knew, she’ll say, and I’ll just hold her closer. I hurry now.
But she’s not there. The table where she was is empty. Justin and Seth are gone too. Suddenly, it feels like death. One moment you’re here and the next you’re not. The meteor will take everyone in the world, but right now it’s Justin and Seth and Liza and Peggy Sue. And Janis. Their sudden absence makes my legs go weak again and I think about falling down. But then I hear my name.
I turn and Janis is standing in the door to the Zima Garden. She motions for me, and I move toward her, a little bit pissed, for some reason. I realize what it is about parents when their child wanders off and then is found and the parents are happy, but mad too. Here. Take this whack. I was afraid you’d been harmed. That whole funny thing.
I get to Janis and she has her head cocked a little to the left. All her rings are visible — the three in her right ear, the two in her right nostril and the one in her lip, off-center to the right. She’s a right-brain person, she always says. Emotional. Well, I’ve reached a point where I put on a suit and tie five days a week, but I’m emotional too.
She says, “Is your eye okay?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Good,” she says, and right away she slides off again. “If you do this thing,” she says, “you can always know who you are even under your dress shirt and suit coat.” She taps me on the left nipple, very lightly.
I snap a little bit. “Back off, Janis. I like my nipple the way it is.”
Her face clouds up and all the rings quake faintly. She turns on her heel and moves off and I follow her. The sun is bright in the garden. More radios are cheering here and there. Our friends have lowered the umbrella at our table and are leaning their heads back, catching rays. Janis plops down and I stop and I look up into the sky, half expecting to see the flame of entry beginning. But there is nothing. Not even a wisp of cloud. So I sit and I reach out right away and touch Janis’s hand. “I’m sorry,” I say. One irony I don’t want is for the meteor to hit while I’m cordial with my parents and arguing with Janis.