Chapter Three #3
When my father met Asher, he got all pretend-threatening.
All that You better look after my daughter kind of stuff.
You better treat her right, or you’ll be dealing with me, that sort of thing.
It was supposed to be a joke, but it didn’t seem like one, not really.
It was hard to understand why I suddenly belonged to my father, when I usually wasn’t all that interesting to him, compared to my brothers.
It was about sex, at the end of the day.
Like everything throughout history was. Basically, making sure girls didn’t have it, but boys did have it.
And since the boys had to have it with someone, I guess it meant only certain girls, the wrong girls, the bad ones.
People still thought like this. My father did.
He got all ownership-y about me, my body.
Like what I wore or didn’t wear, what I showed too much of.
It was hard to understand, it really was.
The way we had computers and the internet and AI and were still doing stuff from the Middle Ages.
The whole thing was embarrassing. The idea of bringing a guy around was.
It made me feel guilty and wrong, like I was still a little girl, so I guess it worked.
“My route changed, is all,” I told you. “But seriously, I’m changing it back now.
I can’t believe you ordered those pizzas.
That is so sweet. That is just the sweetest thing.
” My heart was overflowing. Everything seemed unimaginable but possible, universe-huge, a gift.
I hadn’t even looked up at the sky yet, even though there we were, surrounded by people who never forgot to do that, who made a point of doing that.
So, that’s what I did next, and I couldn’t believe it.
Even with my own eyes, the stars were astonishing, a glow-in-the-dark mural of magic, a twinkling carpet above us.
How could we not take them in every single night? Just how? But we didn’t. Don’t.
I try to now. When something unimaginable happens, something tragic, it helps me remember.
“Wow,” I said.
“Yeah,” you answered. “The best, right? This is my regular meetup group? Me and Sandrine’s.
That’s Chester, and Santiago and his son, Norton, and Lily, and Ben, and Rainey…
” You pointed around to the Harley guy, and another man and his little kid, and an old lady, and a college-aged guy, and another woman a little older than Sandrine, all bent over their telescopes or adjusting things.
They were chatting, laughing, calling little bits of advice or information to one another, and I could tell there was some teasing going on.
They really liked each other, is the point.
“Whoa. All these people that you know,” I said.
It seemed astonishing. I mean, I couldn’t imagine this for myself, even if that was what I both longed for and stayed far away from.
So many relationships. My own world had my family and my two best friends, and even that could feel like a lot. Too much on some days.
“The more people, the more…connection?” It was the most you thing to say, ever.
Your defining quality, really. Immediately, I understood we were opposites, at least in that way.
You for sure were going to think I was an alien, hard to understand, ugh.
“It keeps the visits to Dr. QB to a minimum, you know? Plus, look at them!” You flung your arm around to indicate your friends.
“These people are awesome. Each one of them has their own particular astronomy obsession, too. The one thing they’re interested in more than anything else. I love that about them.”
“Sandrine said you were only looking at some dark patch of sky.”
You snorted. “She’s full of shit.”
“Can I see?”
You stepped aside, made a grand, game-show-hostess gesture. I leaned forward, looked into the eyepiece. I couldn’t tell what I was seeing, honestly. It’s wrong to say just stars, but just stars.
“Don’t hate me,” I said.
“If you say, ‘I only see a dark patch of sky…’ ”
“I only see a dark patch of sky.” Mostly, I just said it to see what would happen.
Teasing, like these people were doing with each other, even—it could be so great.
My family was pretty serious. My friends were, too.
It often seemed like we lived in serious and worrying times, compared to lots of the other ones.
You made a monster face and monster hands and let out a long “Aaargh!” of protest.
“Okay, so tell me what I’m looking at. What’s your obsession?”
“The object farthest away from Earth. Human-made object, that is. The first spacecraft to make it into interstellar space—”
“Interstellar?”
But you were one step ahead of me. Another omen, God. “The space beyond the sun. Where the sun’s rays, its magnetism, its forces, no longer have an effect.”
I was trying to pay attention. “Whoa. But, what’s the farthest-away object?”
“Voyager 1. A NASA space probe launched in 1977, to explore the outer solar system, where nothing from our planet has flown before. Along with its sister craft, Voyager 2, which was actually launched first, due to— Stop me. I could go on and on, and I haven’t even gotten to the best part.”
“Wait. You can see it right now? The thing launched in 1977?” I put my eye on the scope again, but I couldn’t find anything resembling a space probe.
“Well, not exactly. It’s over fifteen billion miles from Earth, so…we’re looking in the piece of sky it’s in.”
“The dark patch of sky, but it’s not so dark, really.” There was so much light in that dark. Pinpricks everywhere. I popped my head up again.
“You’re watching Ophiuchus.” You pointed upward. “Serpent-Bearer. Basically, a guy holding a snake?”
“Wow,” I said, but I didn’t really see it.
Lily, the older lady wearing a flowered sundress and Birkenstocks, lifted her white pouf of head and shouted to you. “Barnard’s, and M-fourteen,” she said. “I got a few resolved stars in my two hundred fifty millimeter.”
“On to the Oort!” you shouted back, raising your fist in the air and waving it around.
Chester snorted loudly, but Lily raised a fist in return. “On to the Oort!”
It was clearly your thing. Some private phrase of yours and Lily’s, same as how Addison and I always shouted, “Choco block!” when we saw yet another one of those new town houses popping up everywhere, since Addison said they look liked bars of chocolate.
A new person was another world to discover, but that whole night was like a world within a world.
You were. All these people, all these connections.
A universe within a world. I knew better than to even ask a person to explain those private jokes, but you actually jumped in and did it anyway.
“The probe is headed for the Oort Cloud. It won’t get there for three hundred years, though. Lily was actually an engineer on Voyager.” Your voice filled with quiet respect. Awe. Lily gave a little wave, and I waved back.
“Huh. Oort Cloud, though?” I still thought the phrase was part of the joke.
“It’s this…what scientists think might be a thick shell, a bubble, surrounding our solar system, made up of trillions of ice objects. It’s named in honor of the Dutch astronomer Jan Oort.”
“I was sure it was a made-up word. I don’t know any of this stuff,” I confessed.
“I can’t even believe you’re here,” you said. “It’s making me so nervous that I’m babbling.”
“You’re not babbling. This is all so cool.” It was. Is. An everlasting is.
“It’s just so wild.” You shook your head. “You and your brother? Here? It’s like a present. Like, how?”
“Like, why?”
“I know, I know,” you marveled. We stood around awkwardly, in the presence of each other and a miracle. Wonder seemed everywhere, suddenly.
“Wait. Your name,” I said finally. “Is that part of why you got interested in this stuff?”
“Nah. Mars stands for Marsden. Not the planet. My dad’s name.
I’m a Junior. He died a few years ago, so maybe I’m a Senior now?
You don’t need to say you’re sorry and look all sad and stuff, because he lived in New Mexico and I didn’t know him very well, and I’m doing okay about it. Are our relatives kissing?”
Jesus.
“Don’t look,” you said while looking.
“How can you not?”
It was true. Everybody was.
“Whoa, chemistry,” you said. It was making me want to kiss you, as if I didn’t already. Then you looked at me, too long again. It was dark, but even in starlight, I could see that we had it, too.
Our gaze broke when I felt a poke on my leg. “Who are you?” It was a little kid, Norton. He looked like he was about five. At least, somewhere between my little three-and-a-half-year-old nephew, Max, and my six-year-old niece, Maya. Norton’s T-shirt featured a shark riding a bike.
“Norty! Get back here! Leave Marsy and his friend alone,” his dad, Santiago, called.
“Marsy?” I asked as he ran back to his dad.
“Norton thinks everyone here has a y at the end of their name, with Daddy, and Lily, and Rainey, and Norty. Right, Chesty?” you yelled to the Harley guy, who beat his chest like a gorilla and gave an ooh, ooh, ooh to go along.
“Hope that’s not a mating cry,” Lily called.
“Hey,” you said, looking only at me now. “You know what I would love?” Me, I thought. I did. I’m not sure if I ever told you that. “Your number!”
“Oh, definitely.” I handed you my phone, and you handed me yours. After you typed it in, my phone felt so happy, I swear.
“Now this is a present, too,” you said, shaking your phone. We just stood there smiling at each other, as if we’d just accomplished something great, and we had.
“Hate to break this up,” said Ben. “But I just felt rain.”
“Me too.” Rainey wiped her cheek.
“One drop, big deal,” Lily said. She undid the flap of her pack at her feet. In seconds, she was unfurling an origami of rain ponchos, one for her, and one for her scope. She peered out from a little hood with a crescent-moon visor.
There was a long, low roll of thunder. A crack and crash in the distance.
“Fuck!” Chester said as he rapidly packed up his gear. “Let’s not be the tallest thing on the mountain.”
“We weren’t supposed to get rain for another hour,” Santiago said. He handed Norton his sweatshirt just before the pit-pats started up, splattering on my forehead.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Maurice said.
Sandrine was already folding up her abandoned scope.
As we raced across the trail to the lot, Maurice and Sandrine ran together, holding hands.
You carried the heaviest of Lily’s bags.
Santiago ran with Norton on his hip as the rain pummeled down and drenched us all.
“Wait!” I called to you across the lot, where you and Sandrine were packing up an old VW. Everyone had scuttled to their own cars. I saw a bolt slash down the sky. “The best part! You said we hadn’t gotten to the best part yet.” Well, we hadn’t, in so many ways. So much was coming.
“The Golden Record!” you shouted back. “Unforgettable.” I didn’t know if you meant that record or that night.
Maurice flung open the doors of the truck. “Jesus Christ, Margaret. Get in before we’re hit by lightning.”
It was pretty clear, though. Both of us had already been struck.