“I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,” she sighed. “It’s not something I normally talk about on a first date. One day I’d like to get up the guts to use it in an exhibit.”
I wanted to say something supportive. It seemed like she needed that. But I was caught up on the word “date.” And besides, I was still skeptical. “So, you’re telling me that if some random stranger walked in here right now and sat next to us, you could look at him and tell me what he’s feeling?”
“Not necessarily. But maybe. Usually I have to touch the person. I have to open myself up to them. And it doesn’t work with everyone. Rae, for instance. It’s one of the reasons we work so well together. Energetically, she never gets in my way.” Again, she waited for me to say something, and when I didn’t she said, “You must think I’m a freak.”
I shook my head. The truth was, whether her condition was real or not, it actually made me feel closer to her, not farther away. I had my own idiosyncratic issues to deal with, and limitations were aspects of her character that I could actually relate to.
“Movies and TV?” I said. “You still can’t watch those?”
“Not much.”
“What about live music?”
“I love live music, but concerts can be tough for me because when there’s music involved, emotions are intensified, and the more intense they are, the easier it is to feel them. In general, I try to avoid crowds. You wouldn’t believe how much sadness people carry around. In a large group that can be overwhelming.”
“Hence the early-bird special.”
“Hence.”
The waiter brought over a dish of roasted vegetables sprinkled with local goat cheese and honey, and as I reached for a carrot, a question dawned on me, one that made me instantly uncomfortable.
“What about me?” I mumbled. “Can you feel what I feel?”
October took a bite of cheese, then caught my eyes, paused there for a moment, and nodded slowly. “Pretty sure I could if I tried.”
I shook my head—I think I’d meant for that gesture to be imperceptible, but October saw it, and took it as a challenge.
“You don’t believe me,” she said, not a question but a declaration.
“It’s not that I don’t believe you, it’s just that it sounds impossible.”
“Give me your hand.”
I wiped my fingers off on my napkin and slid my hand across the table. October reached over and rested her palm flat on my forearm. Then she scooted to the edge of her seat, extended her leg, and pressed her right calf into my left one.
She closed her eyes, and her breath stretched out like taffy on a long, slow inhale and an even longer, slower exhale. I watched her closely and could see her tiny ribcage and chest moving up and down rhythmically, six seconds in and eight seconds out.
There was an intense heat in her touch. I felt my heartbeat quicken, and I fought against becoming aroused. I hadn’t had that kind of reaction to a woman in a long time, and as I looked across the table, I had this silly, adolescent vision of making a playlist of my favorite songs and playing it for October on a long drive up the coast.
After about a minute October lifted her hand, opened her eyes, and sat back in her chair. Then she took out her phone and showed me a short video of her second Living Exhibit, Solitary, in which she had aimed to exist without art. She’d spent two weeks locked in a tiny, gray studio apartment in an art gallery, where a two-way-mirrored wall allowed museum visitors to see what was going on inside the room and gave the viewer the impression of watching a human diorama come to life.
October lived alone and in silence inside that box for fourteen days. She had no music, no television, no books, no pencils, no paint, no color, no scents, and saw no other humans. She didn’t even cook her own food, because she believes cooking is an art too. By the end of the video her big eyes were dull and her usually vibrant face was pallid and drawn. She looked like half a person.
“I felt like a ghost,” she said, “like I didn’t exist.”
I got nauseous thinking about it. That was how I felt almost every day.
I looked away, drank the rest of the wine in my glass, and poured myself some more.
“Joe . . .” October said.
I shook my head. Shut down. Reverted to the lamest possible version of myself as I stabbed a piece of squash with my fork and wished I were somewhere else.
I could feel October staring at me, and after a while she said, “You know what hit me the hardest once I left that room? The smells. As soon as I walked outside, all these odors struck me—trash, gasoline, food, the Bay, the perfumes and scents of people walking by. I swore I could even smell the eucalyptus trees in the park, and they were over a mile away. It was like I’d developed some kind of superhuman sense of smell. When I got back to Mill Valley, it was even more intense. I’d only lived here for a couple of months at that point, and you know, this town smells like heaven anyway, but it really smells like heaven if you’ve been in limbo for two weeks. I remember getting out of the car and walking to the biggest redwood in the yard. You know the one between the house and the garage?”
I nodded. I could see that tree from my bed.
“I threw my arms around it and just inhaled.” Her eyes filled with tears, and she used her napkin to dab at the corners. “Sorry. I haven’t thought about that in a long time.”
She took a sip of wine as Brad/Al dropped a mini loaf of bread
