Miranda in Retrograde

4. September

SEPTEMBER

You promise you’re not leaving because of me?” I ask my aunt. “Because Daphne knows someone who’s looking to sublet their studio in the Lower East Side. I don’t want to run you out of your home.”

Lillian applies a swipe of shockingly bright pink lipstick, then pats my cheek. “Darling girl, I love you more than anything in this world, and that includes that dear, nerdy lump that you call a father and I call a brother. But that’s still not enough to compel me to stick around these parts once the weather starts to turn. I’d be heading to Palm Beach whether or not you needed a place to stay.”

And I do need a place to stay.

The university had let me continue leasing my on-campus apartment through the summer term, but since I won’t be an active lecturer this academic year, I’d had to move out.

Not that I’d wanted to stay. I’d stopped feeling like I belonged there the second I learned of the tenure board’s decision. Everything I’d been focused on suddenly became irrelevant.

When Lillian had heard, she’d insisted I move into the Cottage, since it coincided with her annual migration to Florida and would otherwise be empty.

“And besides”—she gives my cheek another tap before checking her lipstick in the entryway mirror—“I rather like knowing someone is here to take care of the plants.”

Lillian lifts an eyebrow and meets my gaze in the reflection. “You will take care of the plants. And the fairies.”

I can’t tell if she’s kidding or not about the fairies. I doubt it, so I nod, balancing the stack of paper where she’s written instructions on plant care in her slanted, looping penmanship. “I’ve seen academic papers less detailed,” I remark as I rifle through them. “I can’t possibly mess this up.”

“Good. And don’t forget the plants on the roof. They’re my favorites.”

I frown. “Then why put them on the roof? I didn’t even know you ever went to the roof.”

She fluffs her hair and gives an enigmatic smile that makes me think even if she tells me, I won’t understand it.

I’m guessing something to do with fairies or elves.

“I wish you didn’t have to go so soon. It would have been nice to be roomies for a while.”

“Sorry, darling. The grande dames live alone, and never in the cold.”

I don’t know anything about grand dames, but I do know seasons. “It’s not even autumn yet.”

“True. But Judith will be furious if I don’t bear witness to her eightieth birthday extravaganza tomorrow. It’s on a boat, which seems like a mistake with a bunch of senior citizens, and thus I can’t miss it.”

She turns back to me. “Though I confess I would rather like to see what wild Miranda looks like. I want to hear daily updates.”

“I don’t know about wild Miranda. I haven’t really started the Horoscope Project yet, but so far the craziest thing it’s suggested is that I try a new cuisine.”

The Horoscope Project is what I’m calling my yearlong commitment to living like an astrologist instead of a scientist.

Naming the endeavor had made it feel more real. And opting for the generic project instead of hypothesis or experiment felt like a gratifying middle finger to the knowledge-based world that betrayed me.

My aunt is studying me. “Have you called that boy yet?”

“He is in his thirties, Lillian. With a kid of his own.”

She waggles a finger. “Don’t try to distract me because you’re being a chicken.”

“I’m… waiting for the right time. I had to grade final exams and papers, I was moving, I was—” I break off.

“Making excuses? It’s been almost two weeks since you called me all gooey-voiced after almost becoming roadkill.”

“That’s beautiful ,” I say. “I had no idea you were such a poet. And I’ll call him. When my horoscope says I should.”

“Oh no you don’t.” She shakes her head. “You’re not going to use astrology the same way you did science.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”

“It means that I don’t want to see you shift one set of rules for another set of rules, all so you can keep yourself safe and tidy. You’d be missing the whole point.”

“Which is?” I ask, curious for her take.

Instead of answering the question, she gets a slightly wistful look on her face. “Do you remember summers when you were a girl? I had that big house I rented up in the Hudson Valley, and you and your brothers would come stay with me for a couple months.”

“Sure, of course. I loved those days.”

“You loved those nights ,” she amends. “You spent every clear evening flat on your back in the grass, staring up at the sky. You loved it.”

“Well, of course. I’ve wanted to be an astronomer since I was nine.”

She shakes her head. “No. That’s the Wikipedia version of Dr. Miranda Reed’s story. And it’s the story you’ve told yourself, no doubt fed subtly to you by your parents around the time they started sending you to summer science camp instead of my place.”

“Oh, Lillian.” I reach for her hand. “I’m sorry. I never realized that you must have felt—”

“Posh.” She waves this away impatiently. “It has nothing to do with me. I took on quite the virile paramour the first summer you quit coming to visit. This is about you, darling. You don’t remember, or don’t want to remember, but it wasn’t until you were twelve that you declared you wanted to be an astronomer. I remember because I pitched in to help with that expensive telescope for your twelfth birthday.”

I frown. “I don’t understand. If I was obsessed with the night sky before that…”

“You were obsessed, but not with cosmetic microwave background and dark matter.”

“ Cosmic ,” I correct. “Cosmic microwave background.”

She lets out a dramatic sigh but refuses to be distracted from her point. “Don’t forget who you were before you decided you wanted to add all those fancy doctor s to your name.”

“Who was I?” I ask, genuinely curious, as Lillian heads toward the front door.

“A girl who believed that the stars were magic , that the moon held secrets, and who the universe had a plan for. And no,” she adds, giving me a pointed look over her shoulder. “That plan wasn’t tenure. You wanted to be a rock star.”

A few hours after Lillian’s departure, the movers arrive with my boxes. Luckily, as far as moves go, this one’s not terribly overwhelming.

Since Cottage One is already furnished, I had most of my furniture put into a storage unit just down the road. Same with all of my kitchen stuff, since Lillian has all of that as well. She’d generously suggested that I could move her stuff out while I was here, to make it feel like my own place. But I realized I’m not even sure what my own place would look like. Or rather, I do . It would look a lot like the drab little one-bedroom on-campus apartment that I’d lived in for six years, yet somehow failed to leave a mark on of any kind.

I’d always meant to make some sort of effort to settle in. To hire a decorator, or at the very least, hit up Pinterest for some DIY inspiration. Hell, even a generic image framed on the wall would have been something. Instead, the poor space had been a house, but never a home. You would know that someone lived there—there was a couch, coffee table. Kitchen table, chairs, bed. But any insight about the person? The furniture had been neutral, the walls bare. Even the stacks of books, which had been everywhere, had been tucked tidily into corners, not displayed or laid out on the coffee table with any sort of pride or enthusiasm.

That had been both the hardest and the most satisfying part of the moving process. Stacking my dozens of academic books and papers into boxes, taping them up, and then banishing them along with my boring furniture to storage.

Practically speaking, it had been necessary, given that Lillian’s place—and personal style—is basically the opposite of my own. Lillian likes to call herself a maximalist, which is a euphemistic way of saying she’s a borderline hoarder. Every corner has a quirky lamp, funky statue, or well-loved houseplant. Every shelf is covered in gnome figurines, snow globes, or little trinkets she’s collected from trips and friends over the years.

But while there’d been no physical room for my books, I realized I didn’t want to make mental room for them, either. Or maybe I did want to, and that had made it all the more necessary to put them out of reach. If I wanted to uncover a new Miranda, a Miranda who is more than facts and intellect, I needed to make room for a new kind of knowledge. Academia has been my haven, my books my security blanket. So away they’d gone until the end of the Horoscope Project.

Which, on that note…

I go to the front door, where Lillian has placed my packages that arrived the day before. I guess I’ll have to make room for some books after all, but not ones about quantum particles. Daphne had put together an astrology for beginners reading list for me, and I’d dutifully ordered every last one. I’m just beginning to take them out of their boxes when the phone I’ve shoved into the back pocket of my jeans buzzes.

I pull it out, and—I’m not proud of this—I very nearly silence the thing and put it right back into my pocket.

Instead, I take a breath, find the nearest bottle of wine, and…

“Hi, Mom!”

She lets out a tiny, disappointed sigh, as though I didn’t quite nail my greeting. It was probably too enthusiastic.

“Miranda. I’m surprised you picked up. Isn’t today moving day?”

“Why do you say that in the same tone that someone might say D-day ?” I ask, even though I already know.

Aunt Lillian and my mom are like two magnets with the south poles facing one another. No amount of pushing will ever make them connect. And believe me, I’ve tried.

I get along with my mother, more or less. I get along with Lillian. Which makes me their only common ground.

My mother is a mathematics professor at Harvard. It sounds a little cliché, but her idea of a thrilling night off is a cup of her blueberry tea and a documentary series about code breakers. Lillian, on the other hand, carries a flask in her purse, tucked alongside a pack of cigarillos and her beloved Harlequin romance novel of the month. And she only likes “the good and smutty ones.”

“I understand that your newly unemployed status leaves you essentially homeless. What I can’t understand is why you’d choose to retreat to your aunt’s… realm, rather than come home to Boston where your family can rally around you and help you get back on your feet.”

“I am on my feet, Mom. I’m just taking a sabbatical. A perfectly normal, and encouraged, part of the academic process.”

“A sabbatical is meant to reinvigorate one’s academic rigor, not neglect it completely for some ancient pseudoreligion.”

I’m pouring myself a nice glass of wine, and with that last statement, I give myself an extra splash.

“You talked to Jamie,” I say, resigned.

I have two older brothers: Brian, a chemistry professor at Yale, and Jamie, a microbiologist at Boston College. I adore them both, but I’m a little closer to Jamie in both age and temperament. Brian is a sweetheart deep down; it’s just buried beneath a thick layer of intensity and a fondness for pontificating, especially to his younger sister. Jamie is more personable, and easier to talk to. He’d been the first in my family to break the ice after hearing about my job, and in gratitude, I’d found myself confessing to him about the Horoscope Project.

I’d also asked him not to tell a soul. A request that had apparently been ignored.

“Astrology, Miranda? You yourself have been very vocal about its impossibility.”

“Implausibility,” I say, correcting her. “There’s a difference.”

After a stiff pause, she says, “Yes, dear. I am aware. My point is, we both know that celestial bodies aren’t up there plotting your and my life. I realize you’ve had a setback, but this isn’t the way—”

I interrupt. “Why didn’t you call?”

There’s another pause, this one surprised. “When?”

“After I texted you guys saying that I didn’t get tenure. Why did nobody call? Not for weeks , and even when Jamie set up the group FaceTime on Father’s Day.”

“Well, to your point, it was Father’s Day, dear. I hardly think your dad’s ideal day involved revisiting your… misstep?”

I know it’s coming, but it still stings. “My misstep,” I repeat carefully, taking a tiny sip of wine. “You do realize that I did nothing wrong, right? Other than being more famous than my colleagues?

“And you know what?” I add, warming up to my subject. “Even if I was wrong, even if I was a colossal screwup, you’re my mom .”

“Of course I am!” To her credit, she sounds both surprised and upset that I’m upset. “What is it you needed that I didn’t provide?”

I exhale, because it’s one of those things where if it has to be explained, it misses the point entirely.

“I don’t know, Mom,” I say tiredly. “I guess I was just hoping for… support.”

“Exactly!” Her voice lights up. “That’s what we want to do, honey. It’s why I think you should come home. Your dad and brothers and I can try calling in some favors. I’m sure there are some guest lecturing opportunities…”

My sip of wine is much bigger this time. “Mom. I appreciate that you mean well, but I don’t want to be the family’s sad little charity case. I’m not even sure I want to be around the collegiate world anymore.”

“So you’re going to just… be an eccentric fruitcake?”

I smile, more amused than offended, because my mother sounds more befuddled than anything else, as though she literally cannot understand what I’m trying to do here.

“Mom,” I try to keep my voice gentle. “Have you ever felt a little… flat? Like only one part of your soul is lit up?”

“Well, science has shown us there’s no such thing as a soul, dear.”

Welp. I tried.

“Is this because you’re still single?” she asks. “Because, you know, Brian’s friend Scott is divorced now, and I think he’s looking to start dating again. You always liked Scott.”

I don’t even think I know a Scott.

“I’ll think about it,” I say. “But starting tomorrow, it’ll really depend.”

“On what?”

I grin, a little devil on my shoulder nudging me forward, and I’m suddenly more excited about the year ahead than ever. “My horoscope.”