twenty-five

As soon as we got into the light, Dana stopped walking. She stood on the sidewalk, and I stopped as well. Dana looked into my face and reached out and touched my stitches with gentle fingers.

“Oh my God, Tucker,” she said. “You didn’t have this yesterday. What happened?”

“I tripped,” I said.

“You need to be more careful.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Dana’s sniffling had stopped. She developed a purpose to her step as we walked onto Boylston Street and took a left toward Mass Ave.

Boston delivers wildly different neighborhoods within a block of each other. While Newbury Street is a tree-lined shopper’s paradise, Mass Ave is a gritty street with cars and students jostling for position.

A car cut in front of us as we started to cross Mass Ave. The driver yelled, “Watch where you’re going, jerk!”

“Fuck you, asshole!” I yelled back.

Dana said, “So you grew up in Boston?”

“Yeah. How did you know?”

“Feminine intuition.”

We crossed the street without further incident.

I said, “Let me guess. You’re from the Midwest.”

“Born and bred.”

“A corn-fed beauty from Iowa?”

“Kansas.”

“Where in Kansas?”

“Near Dodge City.”

“Dodge City is in Kansas?”

Dana asked, “How could you not know that Dodge City is in Kansas?”

“I grew up in Boston.”

We continued down Mass Ave, past a bum holding a sign. The sign said, “I need a beer and a woman from outer space.” Don’t we all, pal.

Dana grabbed my arm and looked around.

“Oh shit,” she said.

“What?”

“I need to go to the bathroom.” She turned and headed back toward the McDonald’s on the corner of Belvidere Street.

I put my hand on her shoulder to stop her. “God no. You don’t want to go there. Those stalls have their own ecosystem.”

“I really have to go.”

“Come on. I know a better place.”

I led Dana down Mass Ave to the Mary Baker Eddy Library. The library’s reflecting pool and curving glass lobby sprang out of the city like a vision. We entered the lobby, our heels echoing off of the wooden paneling. A large reception desk stood in the center of the lobby, staffed by a cute receptionist reading a textbook.

“Hi,” I said. “We’re just here for the bathrooms.”

She smiled and gestured to the left rear corner of the lobby. The public bathrooms in the Mary Baker Eddy Library are a blessing to all mankind. The restroom lobby had a brown rug and wooden paneling. There was a couch on one wall under a mirror. The men’s room was to the right and the women’s room to the left. Dana hustled into the ladies’ room, while I used the men’s room just to experience the luxury. The room was clean and stylish, with black and white tile and oval mirrors.

While I worked the urinal, I thought about ways to get information from Dana, to gain her trust. She knew more about Kevin than she was letting on. I finished up, washed my hands, and walked back to the front desk, where I bought two tickets from the receptionist.

Dana emerged from the restroom looking energized and relieved.

“Thank you,” she said. “I never realized Boston could have such a beautiful bathroom.”

“It’s the Athens of America, baby. You haven’t seen anything yet.” I gave Dana a ticket. “I thought we should take a little break.”

Dana took the ticket between thumb and forefinger. She said, “What’s this?”

“It’s a ticket to something I’ll bet they don’t have in Kansas.”

“This isn’t a date. Right?”

I smiled and said, “Of course not. That would be silly. I assume a pretty girl like you is seeing someone. Right?”

Dana smiled. “Nice try, Casanova.” The smile vanished. “I should be getting back. Roland will be looking for me.”

“Roland can wait,” I said and extended my palm toward the entrance. Dana took my lead and entered.

The Mary Baker Eddy Library contains one of Boston’s hidden treasures: the Mapparium. We walked past the front desk into the Hall of Ideas, a large marble waiting area with columns and wood paneling. True to its name, the Hall was full of ideas. They swirled along the floor and bubbled out of a quiet fountain in the middle of the lobby.

The doors to the Mapparium were on one side of the room. The other had dark wooden paneling and screens. Letters spun on the floor, projected from somewhere overhead. The letters coalesced into words and sentences that ran along the marble floor toward a screen on the right wall. They crawled up the wall and displayed a quote:

“The highest compact we can make with our fellow is
—Let there be truth between us two forevermore.”

–ralph waldo emerson

Dana was entranced by the quote and absentmindedly touched my arm. I maintained my composure and said, “Did you see the fountain?”

She turned toward the quiet fountain that dominated the center of the hall. Gurgling water rose from the center of its flat, glass disk and ran over the sides. Letters also swirled out of the center. They splashed and played among the ripples and then formed themselves into words and another quote:

“In the adjustment of the new order of things,
we women demand an equal voice; we shall accept nothing less.”

–carrie chapman catt

Dana watched the quote float to the edge of the disk and disappear over the edge, washed away by the silent water.

She laughed. “What did you think of that one?”

“Do I think women should have the vote? I don’t know. I think it distracts them from butter churning,” I said.

Dana said, “Smart ass,” and punched me on the arm, hard. That’s gonna bruise. She asked, “What were you doing in Roland’s office last night?”

Before I could formulate an answer, a young woman walked into the lobby.

“Welcome to the Mary Baker Eddy Library and the Mapparium. We are now going to enter the Mapparium, but before we do … ” She went on to tell us about forbidden photography. Then she led us and an older couple through heavy paneled doors and into the deep blue of the Mapparium. The five of us walked across a bridge that spanned the middle of the earth.

The Mapparium is a three-story glass globe of the world as it looked in 1934. Visitors stand inside the globe and look out at stained glass panels lit from behind. Most of the Mapparium panels are blue ocean. The countries are shades of red, orange, yellow, and green.

Dana spun, trying to gather the entire globe at once. We settled at the center of the world, resting our arms on the wooden railings. Dana’s shoulder touched my arm as our host introduced us to the Mapparium and its history.

A multimedia show started, “Welcome, Bienvenue, Saludos, Willkommen …” We learned about the world in 1934 and the countries that had disappeared and reappeared since that time. I heard some of the show, but Dana’s quiet breathing was distracting me. While she looked at the red Russia, I looked at her and was struck by the way the blue of the ocean offset her blond hair. When we looked down at Australia, I was looking at her ankle and the way she hooked one foot behind the other as she leaned. My eyes wandered the equator and then Dana’s waist and hips. I could see how Kevin would be attracted to her, but I couldn’t see Kevin actually going through with it. My mother once told me that only two people really know what goes on in a marriage.

The older couple left us alone after the show, so I showed Dana the acoustics of the globe. The shape of the glass caused tiny sounds to be focused and amplified across the room. I stood at one end of the bridge and she stood at the other.

I whispered “Hi, toots,” and the sound bounced off the glass. It was amplified in her ears.

She smiled widely and her laughter cascaded around me like a fountain. She whispered, “This is so cool,” and it boomed in my ears.

“I thought you’d like it.”

“Tucker,” she whispered.

“Yes?”

“What were you doing in Roland’s office?”

I asked, “Were you sleeping with Kevin?”

Dana bared her teeth in disgust and shouted, “No!”

The sound nearly knocked me off the platform.

I said, “I’m tired of lies.”

I turned and left Dana standing in the globe.