Virtue, page 22
What could one person do? I knew already that something was better than nothing but also already anticipated that the something would often feel just so small and feckless as to make the lure of nothingness come alive.
Back then, in 2017, I’d signed up for a daily action newsletter, but the emails piled up unread in my inbox, each one telling me to call my representatives, whom I never called. On my infrequent forays into Twitter I’d retweet the righteous stuff until doing this came to feel pathetic. Then I’d stop and go back to Maine, where I already was.
I hadn’t thought much about Zara, or really anyone else who was elsewhere, in a long time. Later, I’d play back in my mind that conversation she and I had had in the car, testing it for its fault lines and for what I’d missed, wondering if there was something I could have said. Could I have known—shouldn’t I have known—in those hideously accelerated months, during the early phase of a speed-up that today seems like it’s never relented, how fast things could escalate, degenerate, irreparably fall apart?
* * *
—
Paula was always going on about how healing the ocean was. Up until around my final weeks in Maine, I’d thought this was just wafty bobo nonsense—just one of those things people say, like “be in the moment.” But the Sunday after the square dance, I left Paula and Jason on shore and swam out into the ocean as far as I could push myself. No swimming champ like Paula, but I was nevertheless competent, even if seaweed and murky depths freaked me out. Besides, I also trusted that, if anything happened, either one of them would save me—would rush out, Baywatch-style, to rescue me in the waves. Which would be mortifying and also wonderful.
Anyway, I pawed out beyond the waves, ducking below the rushing breakers with eyes screwed shut, to the place before they broke, where the sea was colder and dark blue, and where I could just stay in the rise and fall, the swell and drop, my legs kicking in the depths, the bottom somewhere untouchable below. Then I lay back as though into someone’s arms, blinking at the sky and feeling seawater seeping through my hair, crowning me, tickling up to my brow while my arms and legs moved indistinctly.
I guess I entered a kind of dream state. I don’t know how the formula entered my head but I found myself thinking or maybe hoping these words: Where there is bad, there’s an equal good. Two or three times I repeated the words silently, in the swell of the water, as if they were a mantra I knew from somewhere.
When I finally swam back to shore and my feet found the solid sand of the bottom—firmer than flesh and sooner than I thought—it was somehow a shock that there I was stumbling out through the drag of the waves to see Paula in her huge floppy hat, smiling at me from the picnic rug, reclined on an elbow, appraising me as I made my way out of the surf, my stomach sucked in.
“You’re a Scorpio,” she said, as I drew into earshot. “Of course you love water!”
I grabbed a towel and dutifully asked what her sign was. In this moment I was a bifurcated self, because outwardly I was asking an idle question on a beach while inside I was yearning after, or at least toward, the incommunicable part—a vast moral sense that had suggested itself in the sea.
Astrology, which I thought of as a mass fantasy of powerlessness and abdication, was having a moment. I guess people wanted to clutch a little solace from a fiction that told you that everything was spun in the stars, a preordained pattern of personality and fate in which there were no accidents, only things as they should be. In other words, we were all just waggling puppets with the hand of the cosmos shoved up inside us.
“Leo!” she exulted. “I’m, like, the most Leoish Leo ever.”
Blond and leonine, Paula, Panthera leo, queen of her pride.
“Oh my god, have you ever had your chart done?” Paula rolled toward me to lie on her side, head supported by her hand like a fifties pinup, throwing in a couple of Barbie-toed leg lifts to pastiche the pose. I laughed no and drew the towel around me, suddenly chilly. When I’d wiped the salt from my sunglasses and put them back on, the world was once again dialed down to sepia.
“We should do it! It’s so fun. It gets really precise. You plot it all out, then, seriously, I swear you realize all this stuff about yourself . . . like, it actually all makes sense.”
I both didn’t believe in it and simultaneously feared what it would tell me.
“Stars,” announced Jason, deadpan, from beside Paula, prone, his arms cactused up into right angles, his face smooshed into the towel. “They’re just like us.”
“Oh please, even historical materialists need a little irrationality in their lives!”
She turned back to me and asked what time of day I was born. I had no idea.
“You’re hopeless! As bad as Jason! Find out! Ask your mom!”
“Okay,” I said. “Okay, I’ll ask.”
And maybe she believed me, even as I thought: I’m the sign that loses a little love for someone who believes in signs.
18
My mother called before I managed to call her. Jason was with the kids; I was reading; Paula was sketching, which she did all the time and as naturally as a kid humming to herself. My favorites were the quick vignettes she drew on torn envelope corners or whatever was at hand, charming little throwaway renderings of people and animals that bristled with life. I wish I’d stolen one or two to keep.
When the landline sounded, Paula and I looked at each other in surprise.
“Ooh!” Paula hopped up and ran toward the hallway. Theatrically: “A ringing phone!”
She picked up the receiver and issued a curious, slightly wondrous “Hello?”
I studied Paula’s face and voice as she bloomed into warmth at the person on the other end.
“No, thank you for letting us steal him this summer!”
Oh no. Another pause. Now I was laser-focused on Paula, who gave a little rueful laugh into the receiver.
“Yes, that’s right! But he’s told me all about your creativity, too.”
She sounded truly interested. Paula could be generous like that—deflecting a conversation away from her art toward the other person. She nodded as she listened, all lit up.
“Such a cool idea,” she enthused. “No wonder people love them; I bet they treasure them afterward.”
Oh god. Paula Summers, acclaimed artist, was quizzing my mother on her cake toppers.
“Oh, I know, they never call enough, do they!” she laughed. “I bet mine can’t wait to be rid of me!”
At last, as if she and my mom were old friends who’d had a good catch-up, she said: “Well, I’d better stop hogging you and pass you over to him!”
She beamed as she handed me the phone, stage-whispering: “Love your mom.”
“Hi, honey,” my mom said.
Paula mimed that she’d head out to give me some privacy.
“Hi,” I said.
“Don’t sound so mad I’m calling.”
“What’s up?”
“Did you lose your cell phone?” my mom said.
“No,” I said. I felt about thirteen years old.
“So why are none of my messages going through then?”
I said something about a social media detox.
“Well, just don’t detox your own mom, okay?”
I still didn’t know why she was calling, but I knew I’d sound like a dick if I asked.
“I had such a nice chat with her, your friend.”
“Yeah.”
“She asked all about the business, wanted to hear all about it.”
“Cool.”
“I just made a pair for two gentlemen, actually.”
“I thought you were against gay marriage.” I couldn’t help myself.
“I’ve got nothing against gays, Luke—I’ve never minded people minding their own business. I just don’t want it shoved in my face. Anyway, these two seem like very nice young men; they wrote me a very nice note.”
“Well, as long as they’re nice,” I said sourly.
“Don’t knock nice, buster. Nice makes the world go round. Are you going to tell me manners are politically incorrect now?”
I sighed. I guess she was just calling to make sure I was still alive.
“No, Mom. And sorry I haven’t called.”
I told her I’d been planning on calling her that day, but she made a doubtful noise. It was the truth, that’s what was frustrating. After a little while, with not much more to say, we hung up.
Later that day, Paula’s computer crashed, which seemed to happen pretty frequently. With mingled pride and credulity, she claimed she had a fucked-up electromagnetic energy field that caused watches to stop and phones to freeze.
She came downstairs and into the wide space, holding the laptop open.
“It’s fucked, Luca! It keeps freezing!”
She joked about her feminist failure: give the machine to the man to fix, right? I was actually pretty good at technological troubleshooting, surprising even myself sometimes. The crowning achievement (sole achievement?) of my New Old World career came when Julia announced that the printer was broken. I’d taken a look, seen that the machine needed a new toner cartridge, and replaced it. Julia acted like I’d performed a miracle.
So now Paula was off picking up the boys from sailing school and I had her laptop in my hands. When I got the thing restarted, a document was open on the screen, with the file name diarydoc.recovered. It was right there in my face, I couldn’t help looking.
I scrolled to see how long it was: hundreds of pages. Pages and pages of Paula. Wasn’t this what I most wanted—unfettered access to her? Again, I should have known it was usually terrible to get what you wanted. I should have known, too, that there’s no such thing as unfettered access to anyone’s being.
Glancing at the document, I felt the same way I had at the age of eleven, in Avi Wolf’s basement, when he showed me porn: two slippery girls with belly piercings in a bathtub. A world-shimmering wonder and a beating thump of shame. Most of all, I felt drawn by Paula’s words, like being sucked under by a wave, slow and thudding, as some primal part took over.
Lizard-brained, I started reading.
Beautiful day, we won again, of course (a giant statue of Liberty, but FEMINIZED), sweet Luca’s mind blown by bonfire I think!—and then horrible fight when we got home. Ended w sex this time tho. Same loops of thinking: can’t leave him, can’t fail again, the kids etc. Banal, really. But also, can’t live like this, can’t do this, need more. Or different. Is it worth it? Bronwen saying find a husband who goes on tour for months on end, haha, but I’m not laughing. Just so mad at him. Fake righteous: like giving the kids a good time is political sin or something. Is it a crime to just not want to think about it for a moment, to just want to survive with a little joy??? Isn’t THAT resistance too? He’s suggested couples therapy when we get back and o god I hate the idea of this so much—showing up in front of a stranger like squabbling kids needing a mediator. Fuck a stranger in our marriage.
Fuck a stranger in our marriage. Was the word being used as verb or just as curse? I mean, I knew it was the latter, but still . . .
I read on.
Nicest bday in so long—maybe ever?? Quite magic dinner under the trees, enchanted feeling. Marcus & Bronwen, Lim & Gina, Andrea, Carolina (who brought the choc cake from Dominique Ansel!!!), Arven, all the kids (given up on normal bedtimes this summer, fuck it) & Luca—still with us. So in love with J. Have to tell him. Have to remember to tell him, appreciate him.
I’m fucking fifty! Friends say 49 is harder—the waiting to be 50. I’m optimistic. Thinking of all those women artists who peaked in middle age. Might get really grand in my old age. Mistyped that originally as “gold age.” Ha. My golden age. Like Louise Bourgeois or Carmen Herrera or something. My time is coming! Good time to be an older woman artist, I think—Sylvere says so but he would. Feeling things brewing, wondering if I should go back to NY & work there to be alone. Can’t face the schlep, the noise tho. Wish I could kick everyone out, send THEM back to NYC, have the place to myself. Remind myself it’s always like this, have to find a way. Be ruthless, J just has to deal etc. This is what it is.
No mention of my gift. Just that I was “still with us.” That’s all I was. These days I’d lived with them both, barely recognized here; her days, overlaid on mine, were something else entirely.
Mark and Jilly’s—bigger every year, I swear. J didn’t dance, claimed a pulled hamstring, I called bullshit. Loved watching some girl flirt with him on the sidelines, wet at the sight frankly—little brunette eager as a spaniel, him all polite but stoic, probably dropping the words “my wife” into conversation, the way she would have been crushed by this. Love that he is mine. My man, my husband. He’s running all the time, bit of a six-pack on him.
Mal teased Lannie about some girl. Can’t believe they’re teenagers, really, that all that dating shit is to come. Insane to be the mother of teenagers, to be raising men. Awful awful awful news from Charlottesville. J quite serious about will there come a point when we have to leave. Canada, or whatever. Like, is this actually 1930s Germany. I think it’s duty to stay, to be good Americans etc, see it through. Told him I don’t want the boys knowing about this, they’re too young. Know this is going to be a big fight. I know he thinks it political duty or whatever that they know, we teach them but, fundamental difference: his kids aren’t black. I can’t say this, can’t say “your kids”/“my kids” because he finds this unforgivable—unity in all things, co-parents. Ugh.
Then it stopped. That was the most recent entry. No mention of sitting on the jetty with me, our cigarettes, when we were bad.
I closed out of everything, reset what needed resetting, restarted, then left it on the kitchen table, affixing a Post-it like a mark of distinction: ALL FIXED! The exclamation point seemed necessary—written communication looked surly without one. As an afterthought, I drew a smiley face, too.
* * *
—
The summer was dying and I hadn’t brought enough sweaters.
One morning, unwilling to get out of bed and face the cool of the sea-blasted air, I was lying there beneath the patchwork quilt, when I decided I needed to finally turn on my phone and see what the world at large might be trying to communicate to me.
I stared at my little screen and awaited an influx of texts. Mostly the result was anticlimax: just messages from my mom, now finally delivered, and one from Jen. “Wow Zara’s email ☹ You going? Thoughts pls!”
What email?
Leadenly, I opened my Gmail app, scrolled through all the promotional bullshit until I found it. Subject line: “say her name.” Zara hadn’t bcc’d the recipients, so before I even read the email, I scrolled through the names in the “to” field—dozens and dozens of them, some bylines I recognized. As if she’d sent it to everyone she knew. And then the body of the email, which was just another list of names, spaced out.
Tanisha Anderson
Yvette Smith
Miriam Carey
Shereese Francis
Aiyana Stanley-Jones
Tarika Wilson
Kathryn Johnston
Joyce Quaweay
Alberta Spruill
Sandra Bland
Korryn Gaines
Michelle Lee Shirley
Deborah Danner
Jessica Nelson-Williams
Deresha Armstrong
Kisha Arrone
Mary Truxillo
Laronda Sweatt
India Beaty
Kisha Michael
Sahlah Ridgeway
Janet Wilson
Bettie Jones
Marquesha McMillan
India Kager
Redel Jones
Nuwnah Laroche
Alexia Christian
Mya Hall
Meagan Hockaday
Monique Deckard
Janisha Fonville
Yuvette Henderson
Natasha McKenna
And then, at the bottom of Zara’s email, there came an invitation—it seemed more a summons than an invitation—to a protest at Liberty Island against police killings of unarmed Black women. I clicked Reply, taking care not to hit Reply All. “Hey,” I typed. Then I stopped. The abortive email sat in my draft folder, a one-word email red with provisionality, forever unfinished.
* * *
—
I was lying on a sofa inside one afternoon when I heard Paula’s voice from the kitchen.
“Holy shit!”
Paula loved a scandal, or even a potential scandal—she couldn’t help it—and I could hear the sound of scandal in her voice. Eyes bright, phone in hand, she came into the room, wearing an old button-down striped shirt of Jason’s over her bathing suit.
“Have you read it?”
“Read what?” I said.
“Hooo, boy! Sounds like a bombshell.”
I felt itchy.
“It’s all over Twitter,” she said. “This thing about The New Old World.”
I put down my magazine, and she passed me her phone. It was warm—from her palm, from her body heat—but it felt as if I were holding the hot and dangerous news itself in my hand.
“I want Jason to read it!” She jogged out to the beach to retrieve him.
The name under the headline “Abolish the Literary” was Zara’s. And right away I saw that what I was reading was poised, precise—at several points too smart and recursive in its sentences for me to follow properly. As I read I encountered not so much an exposé as a counterpoint of argument and memoir that broadcast an indictment of white privilege, blindness, hypocrisy, complacency, but also seemed directed at the author herself, as some kind of reckoning.
