Chapter 2
THE brEAD AND WINE
One of the first things I learned about Aster was that he didn’t care about art.
That was odd, for a muse. I would have thought that he’d idolize anything aesthetic or provocative.
If I were to describe a muse before I met Aster, I would have envisioned a poetic young man or woman—equally as beautiful as Aster himself—plucking silky strings on a lyre or speaking in poetic cadences, lounging aesthetically on a windowsill or on a corner of the couch while the artist worked and pointing out a string of hidden mysteries of the universe that blended perfectly with what I wanted to say.
I thought of traditional depictions of Euterpe playing a double flute or Calliope with a stylus and tablet, muse and medium entwined.
Aster preferred standing over lounging. He had a cat’s curiosity, though he avoided asking questions outright as some kind of formality.
He looked more at me than at the rest of our surroundings, and sometimes I suspected that Aster himself was an artist who wished to capture my likeness in a painting or song, but at other times his interests took unexpected turns.
In the evening after his miraculous appearance, I learned that Aster could eat.
At first I believed my muse to be half-imaginary, like a cross between a fairy and a ghost who was only as corporeal as a cloud or a heavy vapor, but his physical prowess became more pronounced, more undeniable, by the hour.
I had selected for myself a baguette and a few toppings from the store for a pair of fresh sandwiches to last the first few days.
I skipped lunch when Aster appeared. I couldn’t think of something as humble as food when an arguable demigod had just beamed himself into the living room, when he didn’t go away and when I had to tell myself over and over that he was real and that any dream like this would have ended by now.
Eventually, my hunger caught up. When I finished distracting myself with Aster’s existence long enough to realize that I had physical needs, I walked into the kitchen and pulled the bread out of its bag, and from the fridge I retrieved a plastic-sealed pack of sliced deli rotisserie chicken and Swiss cheese.
Is this food? asked Aster, following me and standing beside me like a dutiful child.
The question from those phantom lips surprised me so much that I almost closed the silverware drawer without pulling out the dull butter knife I was reaching for. “It’s dinner,” I said.
Dinner? He sounded like he didn’t understand the word, and that confused me. How could someone so well versed in everything else not understand what a simple meal was?
I gave him the most sensible reaction I could.
“Food, you know,” I said. “I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten anything since you first came here this morning.
I kept thinking that maybe we’d break from oggling each other and start working, and then I’d grab lunch in between, but it hasn’t happened, and my stomach is running on empty. ”
He blinked, still wincing at the term “oggling.” This isn’t enough for dinner. What about fruit? Wine?
I opened my mouth and realized that for the first time, my muse had inspired me. He had given me an idea I hadn’t thought of before. “Aster,” I said with a smile. “I like that. We should go out and buy some.”
He rubbed his chin. You don’t have any?
“I didn’t think of it until you gave me the idea just now,” I said.
It surprises me that a girl who claims to know what she wants out of life doesn’t even know what she wants for dinner.
“A girl like me hasn’t thought about dinner at all today,” I said. “I think about writing. And about my future.” And about you, my muse. “Little things like dinner don’t matter.”
You have a remarkably narrow mind, Stella, he said as he opened the wrapper of the bread and pulled out the baguette.
“I’m focused,” I said. “I have to be. I’m barely getting by as a writer as it is. I got through my bachelor’s degree. Got this place for the summer. But I don’t even know where I’m going from here. I might have to get a job teaching or editing if I don’t make another masterpiece.”
Aster sniffed the loaf, focusing on it more than on me. Why do you do it? he asked, not looking up.
“Do what? Writing, or… focusing?”
Your craft. It seems to drain a lot of color from your life. No fruit with your food. No berries, no fragrance infiltrating the air around your table. Do you even know what the evening meal is supposed to be?
I hardly noticed as Aster took a bite from the heel.
Dinner—a medieval term that came from a French term for breaking a fast, returning to the concept of food and eating after a period of abstinence.
An image that evoked nuns in a convent preparing a meal for themselves after receiving communion in the morning.
I flinched in embarrassment. My muse was supposed to encourage my writing, not criticize it—not criticize me.
Even worse, I had no idea what he wanted me to say.
I had never expected to justify myself before him.
“I only want to make something that matters. Something that people appreciate and that changes their worlds.”
There are many occupations that could do that with a lot less stress.
“I’m not afraid of stress,” I said.
You should be. Stress is a killer. His eyes twinkled, and I realized he was teasing me.
“There’s nothing I’d rather do, besides,” I added, relaxing. “I’m stressed out when I’m not writing.”
Aster tilted his head and studied the bread before him for a moment.
Have you considered baking baguettes? That might be what you need to fill in that awful gap in your life and get your…
creative juices flowing, or however they put it.
He took another bite from the loaf and nodded with full approval.
I felt hot. “No… not like that. I mean… anybody could bake a loaf of bread. But I don’t want to be anybody. I want to rise to the top. I want to be different from everybody else. To matter.”
At first Aster said nothing. He shrugged and pinched at the bread in his hands, admiring its spongy texture.
You want to be different, you say? Your eyes are unique. He took a chunk of baguette in his hand and gave it to me. No two people on Earth have the same eyes. Did you know that?
“But my eyes don’t matter.”
Without your eyes, you would have no vision. I think they matter significantly. Your eyes are especially melancholy. Did you know that?
“Can you just tell me what you think in plain English?”
Aster set down the rest of the loaf and started walking to the door.
“Where are you going?” I asked, calling after him as I hurried to keep up. I imagined that he was already searching for a store where we could buy something he considered more proper.
To the cellar, he said. There’s something I wish to fetch.
I stood still and waited for Aster’s return with crossed arms. I had forgotten this house came with a cellar, since it stood apart from the lighthouse and needed to be accessed from the outside, near the garden behind the garage.
When Aster returned after a minute, he carried a tinted glass bottle in his hands. I glanced at the label. “What’s that?”
Merlot. Open that drawer over there, and you’ll find a bottle opener. You’re going to have a proper evening before we do anything further, Stella. You can’t distinguish yourself any other way.
My breath was whisked away from my lungs.
Aster was treating me to an evening of fine drink.
This wasn’t a duty I would have assigned him.
A part of me felt that I was abusing my fortune in moving forward with pleasure instead of redirection.
I was irresponsible, distracted. Straying.
But I was the pupil in this scenario, not the teacher.
Aster watched me intently as I discovered the wine opener exactly where he had indicated.
I pulled out a pair of wine glasses as well, thin and reflective.
Aster accepted one and filled it halfway, and then he presented the glass to me.
Now take a sip, he said. This is our initiation. This is when we start working together.
I’d only tasted wine a few times before, and had never thought much about it.
This was different. The merlot was rich, dark red and fruity with a light chocolatey aftertaste.
This had not come from a cellar, especially the one here.
I wouldn’t trust any food left behind on this estate beyond the pair of complimentary mints and bagged teas I found near the guest book when I first settled in.
With the remaining half of the baguette, I made two miniature sandwiches, preparing one for Aster and keeping the other for myself.
He led the way to the dining table, a round Amish table with a single pedestal that sat near the stairs with a white doily tablecloth over the top. Our communion was complete.
I didn’t know how much time had passed since my last proper meal at a dinner table.
I had never understood the point of formal dinners.
During my childhood, my family almost always ate supper together.
I had to set down what I wanted to do, delay my plans for the evening, and talk about the weather or changes in the television schedule.
On my own, the habit died as soon as I left my parents’ house.
College certainly could not afford any such luxury as a dining table in a dorm room.
Even if it had, I preferred to busy myself with my own projects.
I had started off on a quest for greatness, and in pursuit of the colored flags that waved at me from the finish line, I had failed to look for value in the journey itself.
When I sat down across from Aster, I brightened with satisfaction. “It’s about the experience, right? About living every moment to its fullest so that I can write better.”
He tilted his head to the side in amusement. Do you think so?
I curled one foot behind the other under my chair, an antique Windsor chair with a walnut finish. “Of course,” I said. “And I agree with you. Maybe I have been too narrow in my life. You can help me.”
I want to help you, Stella. However, you must indulge me: what do you think I can prevent?
“Prevent?” I asked. “Oh, I don’t know. I didn’t summon you to prevent anything.”
You’re motivated by fear more than anything else. I can tell. What are you afraid of?
I swallowed. “I’m worried that it won’t lead to anything.
That my books will gather dust. That my novels will die before they’re even discovered.
That my greatest poems will fizzle in a niche magazine where the only people who will read them are two professors and an assistant librarian.
” I stopped and sipped my wine, and for a second I was haunted by the curiosity in Aster’s eyes.
“I suppose to be able to create something great, you have to learn to recognize it first.”
Recognize what? Greatness?
For the first time, Aster’s questions made me uncomfortable.
He had a mischievous minx quality that came through whenever I misread him.
In fact, I could believe that he wished to tell me that just now: that I didn’t understand him, and he wanted to see how far he could press me forward before I corrected my own mistake.
I sat back. I placed the wine glass on the lacey tablecloth and looked at my uneaten sandwich on the floral China plate, suddenly not at all hungry and not at all sure what to do.
I can take the rest of that if you’re done with it, said Aster.
“I’m confused,” I said, grabbing the sandwich and preparing to take a bite. “What are we doing? What do you want me to learn?”
Aster glanced at his own plate for a second. I thought we were having dinner. Food, drink. Conversation.
“Stop with that,” I said as soon as I could swallow. “I want answers to this. I want you to be direct. What were you thinking with the wine? What did you want to teach me?”
His eyes lingered over my face for a long moment. I am not a teacher. That’s not what I do. Not intentionally, at least. I think I’d be bad at that. I’d get terribly off track.
Now I shifted in the seat of the Windsor chair, suddenly regretting my outburst. “Then could you just tell me who you are and how any of this is supposed to work?
I apologize if my personality offends you, Aster continued.
I don’t play by the same rules as you. If I did, I suppose I’d be more like you, and our time together would be useless.
So even if I did try to teach you in this way or that, our efforts would collapse.
Anything you tried would only amount to what you’ve already done.
I can only operate on a single moment, a single now.
And if I left that, I would cease to exist. I can’t reach forward or tell you what to do in the future, because all I have access to at the moment is the present. Your present.
“Dinner,” I said.
He nodded. If you’re writing, then I see you writing. If you’re eating, then I see the food. It’s how it’s got to be.
“And what do you see right now?” I asked softly. I leaned forward so that he could get a better look at me if desired.
Aster matched my pose and reached forward with his hands, palms open until I took them in my own. I imagined a phantom warmth in his touch, though the sensation died as soon as I focused on it too much.
I see you across from me. I see your bread, your wine, the sadness in your eyes. I see the way you obstruct yourself from everything you want. You always obstruct yourself.
I pulled back from his touch and looked down, shame coloring my cheeks.
You’re beautiful, Aster concluded, sitting back in his own seat.
Now I was completely stunned. My stomach fluttered.
I wet my lips and shook my head in a blend of confusion and bafflement and a growing sense of adoration.
I wanted to ask him to repeat the sentence so that I could hear it again, so that it would become more real for me and less of something that I questioned.
But instead I raised my sandwich to my mouth and began to eat.
I had never tasted so much flavor in a meal before.
Aster as well appeared to enjoy his, and for the rest of the night we kept our conversation to the topic of what meals we’d pursue in the future, the possibility of going to the beach in the morning and taking a more serious look at my writing to see what there could be improved.
But still, I kept hearing those words in my head until I fell asleep three hours later in my bed. Beautiful. Whatever else Aster told me, he had officially labeled me beautiful, and nothing I did would ever shake that perception.
I didn’t know what our relationship amounted to beyond a frenzied and impossible dream, but now that I had Aster, I could never let him go.