Land Of The Blind

acquired a comfort with herself, with her body; she wore a long, tight print skirt with no sign of her old smart-girl self-consciousness, and watching her walk in it, a man could be forgiven if he thought of trading everything – family, career, self-respect – for one day spent tracing that skirt's gentle roll over hips and thighs, to the calf, where a glimpse of smooth, tanned ankle revealed a simple silver bracelet, a dizzying piece of jewelry that was impossible to ignore, to avoid imagining it as the only thing left on her, gleaming in the light from a bedroom candle.

You may surmise by this description that I had been pining away for Dana during the twelve years that we were apart, but that's not exactly the truth. In general, I don't pine. As I have said, I continued to date, though it's true that Dana had never been far from my thoughts. And it was only at that moment, staring at the vision of Dana Brett outside the restaurant Cyclops (I know… but the food was good), that I understood why I'd dropped my habit of trophy blondes and had gone out of my way to date girls who were approximations of Dana, best-guess estimates of what she would be like now: smart, liberal, funky girls who wore hemp bracelets and crocheted hats and read poetry chapbooks and talked of saving sea mammals. When Ben died I lost the chance to live through his eyes, and while I didn't imagine that I loved Dana during those ten years, I think I did start to live through her eyes, to imagine that my new self might please her, as strange as that may sound. I always thought I would see her again, and part of me wondered if I would feel the way I eventually did feel that afternoon – pained, stricken, for the first time in my life, in love. I wasn't really surprised to feel like that, but I was surprised to find that the surrogates for Dana that I'd been dating were nothing like her, and had no more in common with her than with those sea mammals. For Dana wasn't simply another progressive arty chick. She was, as I said, singular, and no cheap granola knockoff could've captured her combination of natural beauty and self- confidence, all of these disparate elements held in place by the binding heat of her.

She stood on the sidewalk in Belltown and looked far too sophisticated for the funky Cyclops, with its Jell-O- mold exterior, the entire wait staff in black-rimmed glasses and Doc Marten's. I parked and walked down the sidewalk, and when she stepped forward I knew that my life had come back to this point for some reason, that our ten-year orbits had finally circled back around on us because we were meant to be together.

I keep searching for another word, but she was simply beautiful. Beautiful. And I wasn't the only person to think so. Her husband seemed to agree with me.

'Clark,' she said, kissing me on the cheek. 'It's so good to see you! This is Michael Langford, my husband. Michael, this is my good friend Clark Mason.'

He stepped forward and stuck out his hand. He was tall.

I held up my hand and pretended to cough so I wouldn't have to say anything until I could get my wits back. The wind blew dust along the sidewalk, and I pretended to have something in my good eye while I waited for the flush to leave my face.

Inside the restaurant, they sat on one side of a small glass-topped table, holding hands in her glorious lap. I sat on the other side, my hands in my own lap. Dana kept staring at me and smiling.

'I can't believe how different you look,' she said. 'I like it. The rugged look.'

I flicked reflexively at my ponytail, which now reached the middle of my back, and stroked my beard. 'That's what I was going for. The ragged look.'

'You look great,' she said, and I could hear the tone in her voice that said I didn't look great, that I looked pretty awful. And that was when I fell apart, when nine years of progress fell away and I was the boy on the bus again.

The menus came and I snuck a hateful glimpse at Michael as he read the entrees. I hadn't had a chance to take him in, but as I looked I felt myself blush again. He looked a little like me. Not the me in the restaurant that day, the roadie for a Southern rock band, but the me I might have been if I hadn't had the epiphany in Dr. Stanton's class, if Ben hadn't died. And for the first time, staring at them – neat and clean in their NorCal money-light way – I hated my Platonic rebirth, and began to think of it as nothing more than some kind of irrational, extended grief.

Michael Langford had short dark hair, a solid build, and a square jaw. He was tall and athletic, the kind of capable, white American male upon whom this country was built, the kind cast in old World War II movies and westerns, the kind adept at selling big-ticket American items – cars and condos and congressional agendas. The kind I always wanted to be. You recognize your own kind, of course, and I could see this guy was what I had been once, an achiever, a success junkie, a salesman of the first order, a runner for things, a politician – perhaps not in practice, but certainly in bearing. While I was working to make myself the kind of man I thought Dana would love, she fell in love with the kind of man I used to be.

When the waitress came, I had the briefest urge to order a skewer of irony. I looked down at my hands and wondered, What the fuck happened to me?

'What kind of law do you practice, Clark?' asked Michael after we'd ordered.

'For the time being, I'm doing some criminal law,' I said. 'First amendment cases. A lot of pro bono.' I wanted to stop talking, but my tongue was operating freely. 'Illegal searches. Civil rights violations. I recently started a nonprofit legal aid service for homeless children.' Shut up, I told myself. 'And the elderly.' For God's sake. 'And battered women.' I tailed off right around that point, though I may have mentioned orphans and illegal aliens and widows and land mines and slavery reparations.

'Wow,' Michael said.

Dana blushed.

'I'm fielding offers from some big firms in town, though, thinking of going corporate.' I was amazed at the lies that were spewing from my mouth. I couldn't get a job parking cars at a big firm. But these were more than lies. I was drowning, prattling on helplessly, hoping I might say something that would make me feel better. 'I'm also considering international law. Working abroad.' Abroad? I was considering working abroad?

'Really,' Michael said. 'Where?'

I was curious, too. 'Portugal.'

We were all quiet for a moment, as I geared up to talk about the complex Portuguese legal system and the demands there for civil rights lawyers. I prayed for my food to arrive so I could shove it in my mouth and shut myself up, so I could divert myself and stop staring at Dana's piercing eyes, so I could stop lying like a husband at three in the morning. 'So when did you two get married?' I asked desperately.

'Three months ago,' Dana said. 'At a winery north of San Francisco. It was spur of the moment. I didn't even tell my parents.'

'That's great,' I said. 'Three months.' We didn't see each other for twelve years and I missed my chance by three fucking months. I tore at a piece of bread and crumbs shot into the air. 'I'm engaged myself… about to be engaged.'

'Oh, what's her name?' Dana asked.

'You don't know her.' Course, neither did I.

'What does she do?'

'Pilot.'

'For an airline?'

'Mmm.' I chewed on some bread. 'Yeah.'

'What'd you say her name was?'

I chewed and swallowed my bread. 'Megan. She's out of town. Megan.'

'I'd love to meet her sometime.'

'She's out of town.'

Dana smiled. 'It really is great to see you, Clark,' she said again.

'So you both work in computers?' I asked.

'We work for a small finance firm, sort of like an investment bank, but lighter on its feet, committed to emerging tech companies. In fact, that's what we wanted to talk to you about. You see, Clark,' Michael began, as if I were buying a vacuum from him, as if he'd just dumped crumb cake on my carpet to demonstrate the beltless sucking power of the R-690 Clean Machine, 'what we do is function as a kind of a buffer, a go-between for Charlie and-'

Dana touched his arm lightly, and that simple touch filled me with such deep longing and regret that I felt the last part of my new self tear away. 'He's not going to know what Charlie means,' Dana said gently to her husband.

Michael rolled his eyes at himself, like he'd been stupid to imagine that I might know what Charlie was – and even though I had no idea, I couldn't stomach the condescension of having him actually tell me.