They had been sitting upright, legs wrapped around each other, foreheads pressed together on his bed, which was the height of the sill of the opened window. There had been recent rain and three pink blossoms were stuck to the screen. Sweat cooling. It was afterwards, and he was still inside her. Was this the peace of the meditators, the quiet contemplatives, his friends who were religious or who practiced yoga, he wondered, he who could never seem to believe, to clear his mind, try as he might. Yet here he was, as though waking suddenly to discover that he’d been, for quite a while, blissful, worshipful, beside himself. Relieved was what he was, mostly, especially after this past year, the tenure hurdle at work (he’d gotten through it, but he’d wished his teaching evaluations had been stronger—“Mr. H is aloof” or “Tee seems to care more about making us love what he likes than in helping us with our poems” or, worse, “Mr. Handel should never wear sandals”) (a kind of mocking doggerel scrawled across the bottom of the comment form).
And then the wish that his book had done better, gotten more notice. He’d been angry that its beauty, its originality, had not been noticed by someone important, especially since he, Tee, was not temperamentally suited to toting the book around and pushing it on others at public readings and writing conferences. Or to “blogging” about it, which was suddenly de rigeur. He sensed that his editor was a bit miffed about his passivity, and Tee worried about the next manuscript. Would Roger take it? Would there even be a next book? Maybe he should write a memoir. Those were all the rage. Yes, he would do that. A memoir would be a success. But what did he have to say?
He hadn’t written much poetry lately, maybe two poems in all of the past year. He reassured himself that this was normal in the tenure cycle amidst the stress of gathering all of those documents proving one’s worth and then subjecting them to the scrutiny of his peers. Not to mention the teaching, committee work, getting the first book out. These tensions were harder to care about and bear the more marginalized they became in his psychic landscape, his head and heart now obsessively flooded with Em, his desire for her, protecting her devotion to him, his addiction to her loveliness, her body, his wish to be with her always, his jealousies, he couldn’t help them—her successful shows, the glowing reviews of them—in the Times, for God’s sake, Artforum, and the fucking New Yorker.
Perhaps hardest to take were the separations, trips she made to New York galleries with her devoted students, trips to and from DC with her daughter to see Paul, out of town to visit his family. That trip abroad to the Italian artist’s community. Her work. Her work. Her work. It took so much time. The print shop where lately she’d been making exquisite woodcuts, women crouched in the slatted shadows of large upside-down baskets. She’d been adding metals to the prints—gold leaf pressings, glinty fletches in the wicker. Each print she showed Tee ripped through his ribs, they were so lush and so lovely.
Instead of using the time when he was forced to be apart from Em to work, or to see his friends, he’d more and more cut himself off—from the Department, the gym where he sometimes played a round of basketball with some other junior faculty, the occasional lunch or coffee with a colleague. And of course he had no family except the aged, crazy great-aunt by marriage, living off in the boonies. Instead, he listened to his records, walked a lot, and felt very sorry for himself.
“I have something to tell you,” Em was saying (a little warily?, he thought), sitting back, wiping her forehead, eyes silver, onyx lashes, flicker of his own miniscule face and torso mirrored twice, once in each pupil. She blew on his face.
He felt himself slip out of her, saw the imprint of his own forehead, red patch, flushed bindi on her own. Semen puddle on the sheet.
Silence. Then, clearing her throat,
“It seems I’ve won a Dover.”
A beat.
“A Dover?”
“I just found out. They called to tell me. At school.”
This was a lie; she’d really heard a few days ago, but had been waiting for the right time to tell him.
Just found out? Tee was scrambling now, his slowed pulse now racing. Dover, Dover. The Dover. This was one of those big awards —five years, no teaching. A genius grant. Can’t apply for it. Have to be nominated. Lots of money for it, can’t teach while you have it.
He snorted before he could collect himself. By then Em was already standing, moving to the door, flushed, poking buttons at buttonholes, twitching her skirt into place, grabbing up her bag, pushing her feet into her shoes.
“I knew you’d react this way,” she said. “It’s why I didn’t want to tell you.”
Tee was paralyzed with remorse, legs akimbo, abandoned on the bed. He closed his mouth. “What way,” he said.
“The genius part. You’re the genius. I’m just a diddler in acids.”
“Emma!” he’d said, “Emma, Emma, Em. Emma!,” rising off the bed now, crossing the room, holding her against his hammering chest, excuses flooding out of him, his response: just surprise, the suddenness of the news. He praised her, razzed her about being deemed a genius, calling her Curie, Einstein, Aristotle (but really, he was thinking, a “genius”? talented, true, and though she fucked like a goddess, the woman could barely balance a checkbook), and she’d stayed a long while in his arms, reassuring him that nothing would change, she’d still work in the shop, would not be leaving town, that maybe she could use some of the money for him, for them, a book collaboration, maybe a trip they could manage to take somewhere together.
They’d parted on the apartment landing as the lovers they were. But his own heart resisted her news wildly all night, rapidly, weirdly, and he couldn’t sleep. And by the time Em reached her car, she was crying so hard she had to sit on the curb, holding her knees and rocking, as kids from the complex passed by on their skateboards, bicycles, staring, and the pole lamps eventually came on with a electrical crackle overhead.