back in bed by ten. Leif has a schedule too. He sleeps until noon, then goes to his studio until two or three in the morning, leaving only for classes or to grab a snack.
I like my days. I like that I feel productive and energized. Many nights, though, I wake when Leif comes home. I haven’t seen him all day. I watch him disappear into the bathroom and lie awake, listening. We haven’t had sex in weeks, living on different timetables. Moon shadows shroud the room. A car hisses by outside. I listen hard, thinking maybe I hear him masturbating. Years ago I used to do the same thing with my father, lying on the futon in his living room, thinking I heard him and his girlfriend having sex. Like those times, I feel slightly turned on, a voyeur to something I shouldn’t know, but I also feel terribly alone. When he comes to bed, I shift, wanting him to know I’m awake. I hold myself still, hoping he’ll move toward me, hoping we’ll make love, hold each other, anything.
But he turns away from me, asleep.
If things weren’t heading south enough, Dad calls to say he and Nora are splitting up.
“What’s the matter with you?” I yell, furious.
“Jesus Christ, Kerry. It wasn’t just me.”
“Why can’t you make anything work?”
“It’s more complicated than that,” he says. His voice is even, but I can hear his anger. My own anger sits in my throat like a rock. I know what happened. He doesn’t have to tell me. Nora finally had enough. Later, Nora calls.
“You won’t give it another chance?” I ask.
“Honey, your dad’s being good to me, considering. He’s helping me buy an apartment in New York. But we’re not going to be together.”
I shake my head, anger at my father creeping up. As usual he’s spending money to assuage his guilt. Why doesn’t he try to change himself instead?
“We’ll stay in good touch,” Nora tells me. “You’re still my almost daughter.”
But I know that’s unlikely, and when we hang up, I cry.
“What keeps you in the relationship?” It’s our regular weekly session, and Deirdre is asking how things have been with Leif. I haven’t told her yet about my father and Nora. I didn’t realize why I was so mad at him at first, but since the phone call it’s come to me. I’m terrified I’m destined to be like him, happy to have sex but unwilling to go much further. The tree outside is thick with bright green leaves. It’s spring, the time of year I usually feel sexual and alive, when I tend to meet new boys. For the first time I wonder what kind of tree it is. An oak?
Spruce? All this time I’ve come here and I still don’t know.
“What is that out there?” I ask. “An oak tree?”
Deirdre follows my gaze to the tree. She looks doubtful. She thinks I’m evading the question.
“Why do you want to know?” She watches me, waiting.
“I’m tired of it,” I tell her. “I’m sick of spending all my energy trying to get loved.”
An eyebrow raises. “Is that what you’re doing?”
“Isn’t it?” I want her to give me something here. She’s the therapist. Take this away, I want to yell. What was I doing here if she wasn’t going to change things for me?
“Is that why you’re with Leif?” she asks, more questions to answer my questions.
“I don’t know,” I say, annoyed. “Maybe. Yes.”
“And then what?” she asks. “What happens when you get it?”
I shrug. I don’t know what she’s getting at.
“Kerry,” she says. She leans forward, her eyes sharp. “This is where you always are. Trying to get loved. Waiting for something always out of reach.”
Tell me something I don’t know, I think.
“You just said it yourself. You’re missing your life, caught in this place that’s neither here nor there.”
I listen now.
“What is it that keeps you trapped in this place?” she asks. I just look at her, unsure.
The summer before Leif and I will drive out together to Arizona, I go to another writing workshop in New York. This time I feel less anxious about leaving him. I’m excited to throw myself into the writing world again. I have more confidence, too. My story, about a retarded girl who gets gang-raped, was chosen for first prize in my college’s short story contest. I’ve also placed two other stories with small literary magazines. I didn’t get in to Arizona, but I plan to move there anyway, maybe take a class or two from the program, write a lot, and apply again. Leif will be starting his program in the fall. Our relationship isn’t at its best, but it’s secure. We’re moving across the country together. That’s got to count for something.
The first people I meet when I get to the conference are Melissa and Jen, and instantly the three of us become friends. I tell Jen my story about the three Jennifers from high school, and we laugh at our old selves, at the way we cared so much about belonging, even though in many ways I still feel the same way. Within a day of arriving, there’s a boy. His name is Jason. He has dark eyes and messy hair. He smiles shyly when I catch him looking from across the room. He has a girlfriend, whose picture he showed me the first time we spoke, a girl named Leslie with long, curly blond hair. And, of course, I have a boyfriend. But this doesn’t stop me from thinking about him constantly.
At night, when we’re in our rooms I fantasize about him coming to me. I imagine a secret blossoming between us, the attraction too strong to control. During the day I try to time it so we’ll be in the same place, which isn’t easy since he’s a poet and I’m a fiction writer. I go for runs on the forest trails surrounding the campus, knowing he runs too, hoping we’ll have a chance meeting. For the first time since Leif and I got together, my senses feel sharp, heightened. I’m taken with everything—the way the sun dances against tree leaves, the purple irises lining a walking path. Everything appears rich with life, with meaning.
A few times Jason and I actually talk. Each time it goes something like this. Him: “How’s it going?”
Me: “Pretty good. How about you?”
Him: “Good.”
[Ten seconds of uncomfortable silence.]
Me: “You write poetry?”
Him: “Yeah, but I just started. I’m not any good.”
Me: “Oh, I’m sure that’s not true.”
Him: [Looks down at his shuffling feet.]
Me: “I’d love to read some sometime.”
Him: [Nervous laughter.]
[More uncomfortable silence.]
Him: “I better get going.”
Me: “Sure. Me too.”
Jen, who has a class with him, rushes back from her workshop one day to tell me he read a poem called “Temptress.” She tries to recount it, an obscure poem about being pulled somewhere he knows he shouldn’t go. We squeal and jump up and down. To Jen, my crush is meaningless. She knows I have a boyfriend, who will visit in just a week or so. For me my crush is something more. It allows that old anxiety, the pressure in the air that tells me I might get evidence that I’m worth something. This boy might want me, making me matter. All along I thought being loved by one boy would be enough. Love would free me from my desperation. Here I am, though, no different from when I was a teenager. Leif visits near the end of the workshop. We have sex in the small twin bed. Our movements are familiar, always the same. His hand on my breast, mine at his back. Then my leg, his neck. My hand goes to his hair, his mouth to my ear. Our kisses could be diagrammed—
tongue here, bottom lip there. There are no surprises. The day he leaves, we ride down the elevator together so I can walk him to his car. Our plan is to meet in New Jersey, at my father’s apartment, and leave from there for our road trip west.
As we come off the elevator, Jason is there. My heart stops, then picks up tempo. Jason smiles nervously at me and nods at Leif. It is only a moment, but Leif sees it. I can feel the tension as we make our way through the parking lot.
“Do I need to be worried?” he asks when we arrive at his car.
“About what?” I reach for his hand.
