Miranda in Retrograde

25. Aquarius Season

AQUARIUS SEASON

Saturn trines Uranus, but you’ll have a hard time seeing things clearly today, darling Gemini. Which is problematic because you’re also feeling spontaneous. Try for a compromise: give in to the spontaneity but keep future you in mind before you make any big leaps. Think temporary tattoo over permanent, painting a room vs. buying a new house.

Oh god, Randy. What am I looking at here?”

I glance over my shoulder at Archer. I’ve been so engrossed in my latest project that I didn’t hear him come in.

“Archer.” I gesture to the fish tank in front of me. “I’d like to introduce you to Andromeda.”

Archer sighs and then comes up beside me, bending to brace both hands on his knees as he stares into the brand-new fish tank, which has a lone fish swimming inside it. “Andromeda. She’s that orange guy hovering by the little castle?”

“Um, you mean Atlantis,” I say. “Obviously.”

“Obviously.” He straightens and gives me a knowing look. “Horoscope?”

I nod. “It says that today was the perfect day for a pet. I mean, it didn’t say that. But I’m getting very good at interpreting this the longer I do it.”

“Uh-huh.” He gives the fish a skeptical look.

“Okay, I know what you’re thinking,” I explain. “As far as pets go, a fish is a little boring. And I initially went to the amphibious category: snake, iguana. The usual suspects.”

Archer slowly lifts a hand to cover his mouth. Nods. “Absolutely. The typical pets.”

“But those require quite a lot of care,” I explain.

“Right, of course. And dog or cat… they didn’t enter the equation?”

“They did,” I say a little wistfully. “I’ve always thought a cat and I would get along well.”

“Okay. So, you’ve always wanted a cat, and yet…” He gestures at the simple fish tank I’d bought earlier this morning. “Goldfish?”

“Well, see, that’s where the horoscope came in. It said I should give in to a spontaneous urge… that was the idea of getting a pet. But to temper the spontaneity by making sure it took future me into consideration.”

Archer continues to look skeptical. “Future you wants a fish?”

“Well, I don’t know.” I sigh. “Not specifically, I guess. But future me will have a very different schedule. Once I go back to real life, I’ll work crazy long hours. It wouldn’t be fair to a cat to be gone all the time.”

Archer tilts his head back slightly. “Real life.”

“Yeah,” I say, giving Andromeda a few flakes of food. “You know. Lecturing, writing, grading papers, the occasional interview.”

“Ah.” He crosses his arms. “So Stanford is officially a go.”

“No,” I say. “Not officially. But they called.”

He nods. “And this is a good thing?”

“Of course it’s a good thing,” I say automatically. “It’s Stanford. And tenure.”

My voice sounds wooden.

“And what about the part where you said you didn’t miss the academia stuff so much?” he asks.

“I think I was just a little nervous and out of practice. Practically speaking, we all have parts of the job that we tolerate so we can do the parts we do like. Right?”

“Randy, that sounds like someone trying to justify the fact that they’re going through the motions for the sake of other people’s expectations.”

“Oh really,” I say, crossing my own arms and facing him. “This from the guy whose current art series is acrylics of Paris? Even though he doesn’t want to do travel pieces right now, and prefers charcoal?”

“I told you, nobody buys charcoal,” he snaps.

“Exactly. And nobody hires a physicist whose academic career has stagnated to be a part of a National Geographic documentary.”

Archer tilts his head. “We fighting, Randy?”

I laugh a little. “Apparently. I think Lillian’s feistiness rubbed off on me while I was in Florida.”

He looks like he wants to say more, but instead he rolls his shoulders as though making a conscious effort to drop the Stanford topic, even though he doesn’t want to.

“How is she? Lillian,” he asks. “How was the trip?”

“She’s great. I had a good time.”

I don’t tell him that the final day after Stanford had called, things had been a little less easy between my aunt and myself. I’d been frustrated by her inability to see that I’m making the smart decision. She’d seemed disappointed that… well, I don’t know, precisely. I just know that every time she looked at me, there was a little bit of sadness.

I glance back at the fish tank. “Do you think I should have gotten Andromeda a friend?”

“You mean like someone to braid her tail fin? Be her designated driver when she’s had too much to drink at Atlantis?”

“No. I mean so she doesn’t get lonely. When I go back to real life.”

“Real life,” he repeats, the easy teasing of his tone vanishing. “That’s the second time you’ve said that in the last five minutes. So all of this”—he gestures around Lillian’s home—“these past few months, this hasn’t been real life?”

“Well.” I swallow, because suddenly I’m getting the same vibrations from him that I did from Lillian. Disappointment.

Except with him, it also seems tinged with disgust.

“I just mean… of course it’s been real,” I clarify. “But also, you know. Temporary.”

He says nothing, and I keep talking.

“These past few months are a blip. A hiccup. A sabbatical, if you will.”

“I see.”

There’s something completely new and unfamiliar in his voice now, and a tightness in his features that I haven’t seen since New Year’s Eve.

“I’m not saying this correctly,” I say desperately. “I’ve made it sound like this time at Lillian’s was some sort of cosmic mistake. What I meant was this has been a really, really nice vacation.”

He says nothing.

“And a big part of what’s made it so nice has been my new friend.”

Still nothing.

“ You , idiot,” I say, exasperated. “ You’re the friend.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“Then why?” I huff, frustrated. “Why do you look like that?”

“Like what? This is my face.”

“No. I mean, yes, your face always looks like it’s carved out of freaking granite, but you’ve put up, like, a wall.”

“What, so you read people now? Not just star charts and nerdy papers?”

“See?” I gesture with a finger up and down. “I’m not even going to get mad at that, because I can see you’re lashing out from behind your wall.”

“I’m not…” He inhales deeply. “You’re so annoying. I’m not lashing out. And there’s no wall.”

“Prove it.”

He rolls his eyes upward. “I’m leaving. Andromeda, very nice to meet you. Miranda, let me know when you quit being weird.”

“Prove it,” I say again. “Prove that you’re not trying to push me away. That we’re still friends .”

I put a slight emphasis on the last word. To remind him that he was the one who set those expectations.

Archer lets out a resigned sigh. “What do you want me to do? Write you a best-friend sonnet? Make you some sort of bracelet? Offer to feed your fish while you’re away like I do your plants?”

“You’ll do that last one anyway,” I say with confidence, trying not to let myself think that that arrangement will only last as long as I’m here at Lillian’s. Just a couple of more months, which suddenly seems like not nearly enough time for… for anything.

“I was thinking a hug,” I say, even though I wasn’t thinking it until just now. It just popped into my head, and I’m surprised by how much I want him to say yes.

“Not really a hugger,” he says, giving me a wary look like he’ll bolt at any time.

“Me neither, historically. Maybe we just need practice.” Acting entirely on instinct and a need I can’t define, I step forward and slip my arms around his waist. Archer stiffens immediately, but a half second later surprises me by relaxing. His arms close around my back.

I’m not sure if he pulls me closer, or I wiggle in of my own accord, but somehow what should have been a brief and simple hug feels more like an embrace that I never want to end. His stomach is firm and warm against my chest, and the way he glides a hand up over my spine, pressing his palm firmly between my shoulder blades, feels almost protective. Possessive .

I don’t know how long the hug lasts. Or who gently shifts away first. But I know that when it’s over, we don’t quite meet each other’s eyes. That that wasn’t a normal hug between friends.

Most poignantly of all, the ache deep in my chest knows that this may not be real life.

But it’s real something .

Something I’m terrified to name.