How to Align the Stars

Chapter Two

Heron

I have to tell you something.”

Heron paused 13 Going on 30 and told Bea about finding the ring in Charlie’s socks. It had been a week and she thought she might burst if she didn’t tell someone, but she didn’t want it to get back to Charlie that she knew. Maggie would promise to keep it a secret but hung out with so many of the same people as Charlie, she might let something slip inadvertently. Movie night with Bea, just the two of them, was the perfect opportunity to get it off her chest. Anyway, in most ways Bea was her closest friend, despite the age difference.

Bea blinked, taking a long moment to speak. “Oh, Heron, are you sure that’s what it was? You said you only got a quick look.”

“It’s pretty hard to mistake a diamond ring, Bea.”

Bea took her feet off the coffee table and sat up straighter. “Oh. Okay. Wow. And you’ll say yes if he asks you?”

“Of course I will. What else would I say?”

“I don’t know, ‘Let’s wait a couple of years, I love you but I’m not sure I should marry my first serious boyfriend, if it’s right now it will still be right later?’”

Heron refilled her glass from the pitcher of sangria sitting on the coffee table in front of them. “First of all, Charlie isn’t my first serious boyfriend. Remember Dave? You called our decision to break up when he left for college in Seattle ‘mature and sensible.’ Second, if it’s going to be right later, then it’s right now.” She twisted the afghan in her hands. She needed Bea to see how much better it would be for her when everything was settled with Charlie, after promises were made and she could relax and start looking forward to the future. “And third, well, can’t you just be happy for me, Bea? Isn’t this what every little girl dreams of, a perfect happily ever after?”

Bea answered only by scrunching up her face.

“Come on. You showed me all those Disney movies when I was little and said you loved them when you were my age. Didn’t you want your own handsome prince to sweep you off your feet?”

When Heron was a teenager, they’d switched to rom-coms. She had once asked what the appeal was for Bea, with her cynicism about things like love at first sight. Bea said she spent so much time thinking about the grand machinations of the universe, sometimes it was nice to watch something lighthearted, silly, and guaranteed to have a happy ending. Understandable, but Heron wondered if her cousin might be a closet romantic after all. No one watches Sleepless in Seattle that many times if they don’t believe in love.

Bea shrugged. “Maybe I saw myself in those stories when I was very young. But pretty soon it became clear that everyone thought I had more in common with the hippo from Fantasia.”

“Bea. That’s not true. You’re lovely and smart and anyone would be lucky to have you.”

“It is, and it’s fine. That hippo is doing great. She’s happy. She has a flourishing ballet career. And you know, I did date quite a bit in grad school.”

“You never told me.”

“It wasn’t worth mentioning. Mostly guys who were happy to fool around but didn’t seem to want to be seen out with me. There was one guy in my doctoral program who clearly just wanted to pair up with someone who’d help keep his notes in order. Honestly, who needs it? Herschel is all the male energy I need around here.” Bea turned to scratch the chin of the burly orange tabby sprawled across the back of the couch.

Her cousin said things like this often, but this house must feel empty sometimes with Bea and the cat as the only occupants. Next year, when Heron wasn’t around for evenings like this, wouldn’t Bea be terribly lonely? It sounded like she’d run into a few duds, but that wasn’t a reason to stop trying. She’d stopped fretting about her dad since he’d fallen for Toni, and she never worried about her mother, but Bea was another story. Bea was so formidable, but she had a tender side few besides Heron ever saw. She needed someone who made her as happy as Charlie made Heron.

Bea pressed play. They watched a few more minutes of the movie before she gestured at Mark Ruffalo’s character and said, “Look at this smug jackass, for instance. Totally stuck in perpetual adolescence. Not even movie boyfriends are worth the trouble.”

“Huh. He looks a bit like Professor Addison.”

“‘Professor’ Addison. Yeah, he does. Right down to the hipster t-shirt.” Bea snorted. “Speaking of perpetual adolescents.”

“I like him.”

“You don’t know him the way I do.” Bea’s eyebrows lowered, darkening her expression. She’d been snarky about Ben ever since he started working at the library. Heron knew Bea and Ben had been students together and she’d always had the impression there was a deeper history, but her cousin had never elaborated. Now that Heron knew Bea had been cagey about her romantic history, a possible explanation occurred to her.

“Bea! You didn’t have, like, a thing with Ben Addison. Did you?”

Bea’s eruption of laughter drowned out the movie, but there was a bitter edge to it. “A thing? No. Absolutely not. Far from it. Why would you think that?”

“I don’t know. Just asking, gosh. Let’s keep watching the movie.” Heron picked up the remote and rewound the bit they’d missed.

But she did know what had given her the idea. It was abundantly clear to Heron that Bea had strong feelings about Ben Addison. When his name came up, she always had a biting comment. She wouldn’t behave that way if she were simply ambivalent toward him. If Heron could get to the bottom of what, exactly, those feelings were, and get Bea to admit to it, maybe Bea would back off from being so judgmental about Charlie. Besides, on the off chance there was some fondness buried under all the vitriol, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to try to tease it out.

Bea

Bea considered Heron’s question as she got ready for bed. The truth was, there had been a time, years ago, when she did have feelings for Ben Addison. Maybe she should have been more open with Heron about her history with him, but every time she considered explaining it, she shied away. Bea talked a good game about self-acceptance, but a small piece of her was embarrassed it had happened at all—and that it hurt her badly enough to still want to avoid the person responsible. She’d also withheld the information to protect Heron. Her cousin’s sensitivity and capacity for empathy were some of her best qualities, but Bea knew she would be upset and there was just no reason to unnecessarily distress her.

Up until their senior year, Bea’d been under the impression that she got along fine with Ben and his fraternity brothers. Her sorority often paired with the SODs for social events, and Bea had been in several classes with Ben because they were both history minors. He was funny and cute in a scruffy way, driven and smart, a straight-A student and president of the fraternity, but also artsy and acerbic. Bea found this combination of qualities intriguing.

As they studied together for a test on gender in ancient Greece, she even thought he’d been flirting with her a little. She’d been harshly disabused of the notion when Trish Elm, the president of her sorority and a pearl-clutching go-getter she’d never especially liked, flung Bea’s dorm room door open while she napped off an all-nighter and declared, “I’m so sorry about all of this, Bea, you must be absolutely crushed. Don’t worry, I’ve already demanded a formal apology.”

Bea rubbed the daytime sleep out of her eyes. “What?”

Trish thrust a bright yellow photocopy of the SOD’s monthly newsletter under Bea’s nose. The photocopied letter was often illustrated with little doodles. On the calendar, next to an event scheduled with Bea’s sorority, there was a cartoon of a cow in a dress among a pile of beer cans and pizza slices, with the caption, “Maybe you can drink her cute, but you can’t drink her skinny.” The cow wore cat-eye glasses with stars in the corners, just like Bea’s.

At the sorority’s next chapter meeting, Ben stood in front of the group to deliver a vague, wooden apology read from an index card while Bea, burning with humiliation, willed the powder-blue carpet to open and swallow her. It seemed each pair of eyes in the room effortfully looked anywhere but at her. She felt the harsh glare of their attention anyway, and it was awful.

It wasn’t the first or last time someone had tried to make Bea feel bad about her body, but it was the most public. She would never forget what it felt like to be the object of everyone’s rubbernecking pity. Although she knew she’d be able to dredge up enough cold courtesy to work with Ben, she could never forgive him for being the cause. She could be civil, but forgiveness wasn’t on the table.

By Sunday evening, when Bea left to pick Heron up for family dinner, she’d put Ben and the committee assignment temporarily out of her mind. She wanted to talk to Heron about her next steps after senior year: grad school applications, internships, career paths. Heron had been withdrawn all summer. Charlie spent school breaks back east with his family, and she tended to get edgy when they were separated, but this time had been worse than usual. Now that he was back, Heron was coming out of her funk and Bea didn’t want to wait much longer to talk about post-graduation plans. The drive out to the vineyard would be the perfect opportunity.

She’d been making this drive on Sundays for many years now. When Bea was an undergrad, her Uncle Len and his first wife, Felicia, would occasionally invite her out to their place—at that time just a simple farmhouse—for dinner and to sample Len’s first batches of wine. Even though she was at the farm often to babysit preschool-aged Heron, the dinners were a nice gesture, giving Bea a break from dining hall food.

When she’d returned to Millet after grad school, Sunday dinners became a weekly event, only it was Bea who handled the food, turning up with a pot of soup or a lasagna. It had only been a few months since Felicia’s departure, and even though no one had died the house had taken on a funereal aura of shocked sadness. Bea felt obligated to make sure Len and Heron were eating something resembling a real meal at least once a week. It seemed important to get them sitting down together at their own table.

They’d continued the tradition after Heron enrolled at Messiman. At first it was the three of them, but then Heron started inviting the winery’s new chef, Toni, to join them, telling Bea that she missed her mom, but she’d picked up on a spark and didn’t want her dad to be alone. Since Toni and Len’s wedding a year ago, it had been the four of them gathered around the table with good wine and better food.

Tonight was going to be perfect. The air had a late-summer cider wash, golden and crisp. With a week of classes behind them, Heron and Bea were settled into their respective routines but not totally wrapped up in academic stress yet.

Bea pulled up to the curb at the columned hulk of Heron’s apartment building. While she waited, she let herself drift into the dreamy lyrics of her folk-pop playlist. She was yanked out of her musical reverie when both passenger-side doors of her car opened. Charlie plopped into the front next to her and scooted the seat all the way back with all the space-taking confidence of a twenty-two-year-old man, an unruly collection of floppy blonde hair, tanned hairy knees, elbows, and aftershave. Heron climbed into the backseat, laying a garment bag down on the empty half. In the rearview mirror, Bea caught her eye and raised a brow.

At least Heron had the grace to look sheepish. “Sorry. I forgot to tell you Charlie was invited this week.”

“Great!” Bea pushed a bright tone into her voice. “Hi, Charlie.” Charlie’s galumphing presence was going to put a damper on her plan to discuss Heron’s future.

“Hi, Dr. Hayes,” Charlie said with a guileless grin. “I heard you got Dr. Stein’s old office. Congratulations. That must be a nice change.”

Bea rolled her eyes at Charlie’s attempt to suck up. He’d been in her entry-level class two years ago and had visited her old, closet-sized office to ask a question about chemical differentiation. Bea suspected he understood the concept just fine but thought it was a good idea to ingratiate himself with his girlfriend’s family.

“Thanks. It is. I even have room for a coffee maker.” One trait Bea and Charlie shared was a teasing disdain for the caffeinated beverage habits of Heron and Len, who only drank tea (loose leaf if at all possible) and could wax poetic for several minutes at a time about the different flavor profiles of blends which, to Bea, all tasted exactly the same and more like dishwater than something she might want to drink on purpose. At least Charlie liked coffee.

Heron leaned forward and squeezed Charlie’s shoulder. “Charlie’s been great, helping Maggie and me get settled in. He even installed some shelves in the kitchen. And you should see the lights he put up in my window. They make the room look enchanted.”

“It’s just a set of string lights. My parents bought them for their gazebo but then decided they’d rather have something hardwired.” Charlie’s words were humble, but he sounded pleased with himself.

“I’m sure they’re lovely,” Bea said, glancing again at Heron in the rearview mirror. Her elbow was propped on the car door, chin resting in her hand, and she’d rolled the window down half an inch, creating a breeze that ruffled the top of her sable-brown hair.

They were outside of town now, ripples of bronze wheat rushing past the windows, the sun just starting to make its way toward the horizon. Turning under the arch announcing Heron Acres Vineyards, they passed a few cars with Oregon plates on their way out. No doubt last-minute tasters who’d stayed until closing.

Charlie was out of the car before she even engaged the parking brake. “Think your dad’s in the cellars? I want to ask him about some stuff.” Not waiting for an answer, he pecked Heron on the cheek and loped across the gravel lot to the winery building.

Bea caught Heron’s eye across the roof of the car. Heron’s expression was neutral, but there was a grin in her voice. “Could be about anything.”

“Sure it could.” While Heron skipped upstairs clutching her garment bag, Bea went to the kitchen to find Toni, smiling despite her misgivings about Charlie. Heron’s good mood was contagious.

Heron

Heron was at the sewing table in her childhood bedroom when her father came in from the cellars to find her. Aside from the things she’d taken for her apartment, not much about this room had changed for as long as she could remember. The brass daybed was still covered with a quilt her mother had made when she transitioned out of her crib, a broken star pattern in pink and yellow florals, as well as the stuffed animals she couldn’t bear to put away in the closet. The sewing machine, a castoff from her mother, sat at its own table in the corner and the walls were decorated with Audrey Hepburn posters, the remnant of a pre-teen phase. While her friends had been tacking boy bands to their walls, Heron had been thrilled to find a poster from the original release of My Fair Lady.

“Hi, Birdie,” her dad said, tapping on the threshold before he entered. “We’re all having drinks on the patio.”

“Be there in a minute. I just want to finish this hem.”

“Ah. You and your mom, such marvels with sewing.” He hadn’t mentioned her mother in a long time. They usually avoided the subject by unspoken mutual agreement.

“Well. She likes what she’s doing now,” Heron said. For the past few years, Felicia had been working as a seamstress for an upscale Seattle department store.

“I suppose it suits her.”

“Sure. Me too. This was the first dress I made on my own, remember?”

Finished, she disengaged it from the machine and held it up for him to see—silvery silk with a trailing botanical pattern in inky indigo thread. Heron had worn it to homecoming her senior year of high school and was transforming it into something she could wear as a more grown-up cocktail dress, shortening the skirt and reworking the bodice. It had been strapless, but the material she removed to make it knee-length had been enough to add cap sleeves with a keyhole back, even after she cut around the grass stains. Heron wondered now if she’d even recognize the girl she’d been when she wore the first version; hiding her pain behind recklessness, tumbling through the night with a boy nothing like Charlie.

“I don’t know anything about dresses, but that looks pretty to me.”

“I thought it would be good for the reunion reception, if you still need me to come help. Charlie says he can help, too.” Events were a new venture for the vineyard; next month they’d be hosting the fifteen-year reunion for Bea’s graduating class.

“Thanks, honey. It’s nice of Charlie to let us put him to work.”

“I think he wants you to see him as part of the family.” Charlie’s earnest insistence on participating in her family business to get on her dad’s good side was so endearing.

“He’s a good kid,” he said, “but I don’t want you to settle down too fast, okay? You know your old Dad isn’t too old-fashioned. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with living together before marriage and I’d rather you take your time to be sure.”

Heron concentrated on zipping the dress into its garment bag so her father wouldn’t see the irritation on her face. “Have you been talking to Bea?”

“A little. We just want you to think things through carefully.”

“Dad. We’ve been together almost three years. You and mom had me by the time mom was my age, and you’d only been together—” Heron stopped talking when she saw her father’s brows draw together abruptly, reminding her this bit of family lore wasn’t a fairy tale anymore. But she and Charlie were nothing like her parents. Charlie was solid, she was constant. They made sense. No one was going to drive him away from her. Besides, Len had Toni now and Felicia seemed happy in the city. Everyone was all squared away; there was nothing to worry about. “Anyway, Charlie and I have been together long enough to know we’re a good match.”

“I know, sweetheart. Don’t get so certain the path you’re on is right that you forget to look around and wonder where the other ones go, okay?”

“Okay.”

They’d had conversations like this before. Her dad was trying to take responsibility for his part in what had happened with her mother. He felt he’d tied Felicia down to a farm and a family too fast, and so when she left it was his fault. Heron supposed she could understand why he saw parallels with her and Charlie, but this was totally different. She knew exactly what she was choosing. Besides, although she could never tell him, she knew Felicia’s reasons for leaving had nothing to do with how quickly they’d married.

Bea

The stars were out in full force by the time they were driving back into Millet. This far away from town, the Milky Way spilled across the sky like cream poured into coffee. Bea never got tired of this. When she bought her house in one of the tree-lined neighborhoods near Messiman, she’d wanted something close to campus for the sake of practicality, but even in a small town the lights were bright enough to obscure fainter stars. There were state-of-the-art telescopes on the roof of the science building, but sometimes she drove out into the surrounding farmland, simply to watch the naked sky. She’d fallen asleep in a random wheat field on more than one occasion.

The row of student houses was quiet, lights on in most of the windows. A few students sat on their porches with laptops. The computers were sleeker, but not much else had changed about Sunday nights since Bea’s time as a student. This street would be a whirl of parties and music on Friday and Saturday, but by Sunday night the red plastic cups were picked up, hangovers nursed, and studies resumed.

She stopped the car in front of the SOD house. “Nice to see you, Charlie. Take care.”

Charlie opened his mouth as if to protest, say he’d be spending the night at Heron’s anyway, but when she gave him her best teacher look, he closed it abruptly and got out of the car. Bea continued down the block and found a parking place across from Heron’s building.

“Do you want to come see my new place?” Heron said.

“Yes! My friend Louise lived in this building our senior year and I bet it looks exactly the same.”

Heron wrinkled her nose. “Probably. I doubt it’s changed since long before your time.” As soon as they hit the foyer, the smell of musty carpet, old paint, and ramen seasoning transported Bea back in time. Heron ushered her up the ornate staircase and into her apartment. The living room was cavernous, tall ceilings with large windows on two sides, and decorative molding around the baseboards. The makeshift student furnishings—some battered seating, a few wire shelves, a card table with folding chairs—were dwarfed by the space.

Heron’s roommate was curled on a papasan chair under a Mary Cassatt print, a highlighter clenched between her teeth as she squinted at a dog-eared copy of Moby Dick.

“Hi Bea,” Maggie grinned. Like Charlie, Maggie took Bea’s intro-level class as a freshman, but since then had tagged along with Heron to enough of their movie nights to be comfortable on a first-name basis. Bea had always liked Maggie for not treating her too much like a teacher.

“Hey, Maggie. A little light reading?”

Maggie grimaced. “For my thesis. I’m trying to get ahead of it before too many papers are due for my regular classes.”

“Smart.”

Bea followed Heron into a little galley kitchen that seemed to have been carved out of a hallway. “Do you want tea?” Heron was already filling the kettle. Bea shook her head. “Maggie, tea?” Heron called.

“Yes, please.”

Heron busied herself scooping leaves from a tin into the basket of a turquoise teapot, Bea’s Christmas gift to her last year. Bea picked up the tin and read, “Lavender coconut. This sounds more like a body wash than something I would want to ingest.”

Heron laughed. “It’s good. Lavender is a calming herb; you should try it. My mom sent this—she said she found it in a little tea shop in Pike Place Market.”

Of course Felicia had sent a care package. A simple, finite motherly task. But at least it was something. Instead of the snarky comment she wanted to make, Bea gestured at the rest of the kitchen and said, “This isn’t bad for a first apartment. It’s not stylish but it’s everything you need.” Heron hadn’t been kidding about the datedness; the floor was rust-colored linoleum, and the stove and refrigerator were avocado green, but the beige countertops looked new. Heron and Maggie had decorated with vintage pasta and liquor ads. The olives in the martini glass on their vermouth poster picked up the green from the appliances.

She wandered further down the hall, knowing at a glance which room was Heron’s. Six different tarot sets were stacked on top of the bookcase, along with a dish of crystals and semiprecious stones. The shelves were packed with textbooks—Heron was double-majoring in art and sociology, an amount of pressure that made Bea nervous for her, although Heron seemed to be handling the accompanying stress reasonably well. The walls were lined with Cezanne prints Heron had bought freshman year after learning how, because of his focus on balanced composition, Cezanne’s landscapes could create a soothing environment.

Bea felt a surge of love for this sweet, starry-eyed young woman. With sixteen years between them, her affection for Heron hovered somewhere between motherly and sisterly with a dash of friendship thrown in for good measure. Now, the little kid who’d sat on her lap and demanded constant repeat performances of The Rainbow Fish was almost a fully-fledged adult. Maybe, Bea thought with a flicker of distaste, almost a wife.

Something un-Heronly caught her eye on the desk, and Bea picked it up. “LSAT?” she asked, flicking through the workbook.

“That’s Charlie’s. I’m helping him study.”

Bea set the book down. “I hope you’re doing your own studying first.”

“I am.” Heron sank onto the bed, pulling one of the velvet pillows into her lap. “But Charlie learns better when someone is quizzing him. It’s kind of fun. And interesting. I didn’t realize there were so many social science overlaps with legal studies.”

“Sure. But have you thought about what you’re going to do after graduation?” Bea pulled out the desk chair and sat.

“I’ll go wherever Charlie picks for law school. New York if everything goes according to plan. And then, just see what job I can find, study for the GRE?”

“You know there are law schools all over the place, right? Is Charlie willing to be flexible about his plans based on what you want to do? You don’t have to rush into tying yourself down to a dream that isn’t yours.”

Heron threw the pillow down and stood, pacing across the room. “I’m not rushing into anything. Why do people keep saying that? Three years of dating is not rushing in.”

“All I want is for you to have a little time on your own in the real world, Birdie, before you decide the rest of your life.”

Heron turned, squaring her stance. “Not everyone is like you, Bea. I know you love being on your own and that’s great. I admire it. Everybody does. But Charlie helps me believe everything isn’t going to fall apart. I need that. And I’m so lucky I have him.”

Her eyes were bright with frustrated tears, and Bea relented. Heron was right, she hadn’t had a major panic attack since she’d been with Charlie, and considering everything she’d been through in high school, that was something. Bea couldn’t say he hadn’t been good for her. She pulled Heron up into a hug, feeling her take the slow, measured breaths which had become her go-to coping technique.

“Okay, okay. I know, Bird. I know he makes you happy. Just…think about what else you’re going to do next year, all right? Now,” she stepped back and patted Heron on the arm, “do your homework.”

“Goodnight, Bea.”

On her way out, Bea paused on the steps of the apartment building, listening to the muffled music coming from one of Heron’s neighbors, someone’s laugh spilling out of an open window. It had been a long time since she’d been like these kids, everything ahead of her. She loved her life the way it was, but for a moment she wished she could go back and do it all over again with the confidence she had now.