She jumped into his arms. It was a pleasure to be someone’s favorite person again, at least for the moment. “Ready for the slides?”
He wished she didn’t live so far away. He wished he wasn’t so busy. People were making noises about nominating him for secretary, but he could say no, get off the treadmill. He could move to Canada and be close to Christina and Aaron and Bella, finally finish the book. Make one more research trip. He’d like to visit New Guinea again, see how the land of his daughter was faring. Fifty-three years after the meteor storm, and there were still so many questions to answer and so many new things to see.
He carried Bella out into the Virginia heat. Soon he’d have to put her down, but he wanted to carry her as long as he could, as long as she let him. “So,” he said to her. “What’s all this about a disaster at craft time?”
The house was full of strangers. They kept touching his shoulder, leaning down into his face, wishing him happy birthday. Ninety-seven was a ridiculous age to celebrate. Not even a round number. They thought he wouldn’t make it to ninety-eight, much less a hundred. They’d probably been waiting for years for him to kick off, and this premature wake was the admission of their surrender.
A tiny gray-haired woman sat beside him. Christina. “You have to see this,” she said. She held a glass case, and suspended inside it was a glossy black shape flecked with silver. “It’s from the current secretary of agriculture. ‘For forty-five years of service to the nation and the world.’ This one came from Tennessee. You remember telling me about Mimi finding a seed?”
There was an ocean of days he couldn’t remember, but that day he recalled clearly. “Rock hound’s delight,” he said softly.
“What’s that, Dad?”
Ah. The strangers were watching, waiting for a proper response. He cleared his throat and said loudly, “So have those alien bastards shown up yet?”
Everyone laughed.
The afternoon stretched on interminably. Cake, singing, talking, so much talking. He asked for his jacket and a familiar-looking stranger brought it to him, helped him out of his chair. “I have to tell you, sir, your books made me want to be a scientist. The Distant Gardener was the first—”
LT lifted a hand. “Which way is the backyard?” He could still walk on his own. He was proud of that.
Outside, the sky was bright, the air too warm. He didn’t need his coat after all. He stood in a garden, surrounded by towering trees. But whose garden, whose house? It wasn’t his home in Virginia, that was long gone. Not Chicago or Columbus. Was this Tennessee?
Everything moves too fast, he thought, or else barely moves at all.
“Papa?”
A young woman, holding the hand of a little girl. The girl, just three or four years old, held a huge black flower whose petals were edged with scarlet.
“Ciao, Bella!” he said to the girl.
The woman said, “No, Papa, this is Annie. I’m Bella.”
A stab of embarrassment. And wonder. Bella was so old. How had that happened? How had he gotten so far from home? He wanted to do it all over again. He wanted Doran’s shoulder next to him and tiny Christina in his arms. He wanted Carlos on his shoulders at the National Zoo. All of it, all of it again.
“It’s okay, Papa,” Bella said. His tears concerned her. What a small, common thing to worry about.
He inclined his head toward the little girl. “My apologies, Annie. How are you doing this afternoon? Did you fly all the way from California?”
She let go of her mother’s hand and approached him. “I have a flower.”
“Yes, you do.”
“It’s a pretty flower.”
“It certainly is.”
Bella said, “She likes to tell people things.”
The girl offered the flower to him. Up close, the black petals seemed to ripple and shift. Their dark surfaces swirled with traceries of silver that caught the light and spun it prettily. He raised it to his nose and made a show of sniffing it. The little girl laughed.
Words were not required. Sometimes the only way you could tell someone you loved them was to show them something beautiful. Sometimes, he thought, you have to send it from very far away.
“Where did you find this lovely flower?” he asked.
She pointed past his shoulder. He could feel the tower of green behind him. The leaves were about to move.
NOTE: The mnemonic for meteoroids, meteors, and meteorites was written by Andy Duncan and is used with his permission.
Nino Cipri
DEAD AIR
[Beginning of recorded material.]
[Laughter.]
VOICE: Wait, are you actually—
NITA: Time is, uh, 9:42 in the morning, September 22nd, 2013. This is Nita Rosen interviewing subject by the name of—
VOICE: Jesus, I really did not think you were serious.
[Rustling paper.]
NITA: So you thought I made you sign a release as, what, foreplay?
[Laughter.]
VOICE: I was, like, four tequilas deep by the time you walked in and probably at five when you waved that paper in my face. I would’ve signed my soul away to . . . Uh, I didn’t actually sign my soul over, did I?
[Laughter.]
[Rustling paper.]
NITA: Maybe you should read this again. It’s a standard release that says you’re willing to be interviewed and to have this interview used in a published—well, a hopefully published art project. Thing. I’m not sure what it’ll look like exactly.
VOICE: Seriously? Okay. What’s this project about?
NITA: It’s an ethnography of the people I fuck.
[Moment of silence.]
VOICE: Wow. That’s. Okay.
NITA: Scared off yet?
VOICE: Are you gonna play this in front of, like, some crusty old sociology professors?
NITA: It’s art, not sociology. Or it’s, like, sociologically influenced art. If you read the release, there’s a description.
VOICE: “Documenting the erotic discourse of . . .” [Laughs.] This is pretentious as shit.
NITA: Duh. How else am I gonna get funding?
[Laughter.]
VOICE: So if I say no . . .
NITA: I turn the recorder off, make us some breakfast, and shred the release form. Bid you a nice goodbye and maybe ask for your number.
VOICE: Maybe?
NITA: No promises either way.
VOICE: So no pressure.
NITA: That would be unethical.
VOICE: I think most ethics boards would object to an author having sex with her subjects, but what do I know.
NITA: That’s why it’s art and not science. So?
VOICE: . . . All right. Hit me.
NITA: Okay, so time is now 9:44 in the morning, September 22nd, 2013. Do you want to be referred to anonymously, or . . . ?
MADDIE: Maddie. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.
[Laughter.]
NITA: Oh, no, the pleasure was all mine. So, first question, what’s the first thing you noticed about me in the bar last night?
MADDIE: Oh, wow, okay. Um. I think I saw you from the back first, so—
NITA: Was it my ass? I have a great ass.
[Laughter.]
MADDIE: No! I mean, yes, you have a great ass. No, that’s not what I noticed first. It was your shoulders and neck. The way your hair got stuck to the sweat on your neck when you were dancing.
NITA: Oo-kay, that sounds really unsexy, but—
MADDIE: I wanted to bite you. In a good way. Just put my teeth on this tendon right here and . . .
[. . .]
NITA: Mmm. That’s nice. That’s . . . yeah.
MADDIE: Did you have another question?
NITA: [Clears throat.] Why did you come out last night? Were you hoping to get laid?