18

It’s official. That was the longest dinner I’ve suffered through since the green bean fiasco, I realize as we stand outside the restaurant waiting for my car to be pulled around. I wonder if Mia purposefully stretched it out, our time together here—but why would she? The parking lot is almost empty but not quite. There are actually people suffering through a longer dinner than I had. Remarkable.

“The stars are beautiful here,” she says, looking up at the sky. “It’s one of my favorite things about being up here at the lake. The city lights can’t drown them out. They shine full force.” She pulls out her phone, and I watch as she uses her stargazer app to name the constellations. It is such a childish pursuit, but I smile despite myself.

“Oh, look, it’s Orion,” she says, holding her phone screen up in the air so that now all she sees is the screen, not the stars. Ridiculous. “The hunter.” She drops the phone to her side, looks at me, and then looks back up to the sky.

“What’s he hunting?” I ask. The parking lot is eerily quiet, just the two of us. The few diners still left inside the restaurant are barely visible inside, tiny dots of heads through the windows.

“Don’t you remember your Greek mythology? You took that class in college your senior year, didn’t you?”

“Yes, yes I did, but I’m afraid I didn’t pay much attention to the professor,” I say, staring at my wife. I had other things, like Lois, on my mind. But she doesn’t know that.

“Orion is sort of a narcissist, actually. He thinks he’s the greatest hunter in the world, but Zeus’s wife kills him with a scorpion,” she says. “Scorpio hasn’t risen yet, it doesn’t rise until the early-morning hours when Orion goes down.” She isn’t looking at me. She’s still staring up at the sky.

I’m not looking at her either. Not anymore.

“Wow, a shooting star! Did you see that?” she says, slapping my shoulder with her hand. Finally, the valet pulls our car up.

“Sorry for the wait. Somebody had blocked your car in, and I couldn’t find the keys, and sorry,” he says, rushing to open Mia’s door. Meanwhile, Mia is still staring up at the stupid hunter. “Ma’am?”

“Oh, yes, sorry,” she says, sliding into the car. I’m already inside, more than ready to get going. The valet holds the passenger door open, no doubt looking for a tip.

Mia notices and rummages in her purse before handing him a bill. The guy grins and says, “’Night. Thanks.” He slams the car door.

“Big tipper tonight, eh?” I say. I usually appreciate a good tipper. People know you’re somebody if you tip well. I’ve always tipped well. It’s what a man like me should do. Mia, on the other hand, should not be spending money we do not have.

“Poor boy was out of breath,” she says. “Anyway, what a fabulous thing to see a falling star. It blasted right through the middle of Orion’s belt. Too bad you missed it.”

“I saw it,” I say. I am lying but I don’t want to feel left out. During our drive back to the cottage there is one more subject I need to discuss, but I had hoped Mia would have had more to drink by now. That would make her more likely to talk without thinking. Regardless, like most women, she is putty in my capable hands.

“Hey, honey, has your father mentioned anything about your estranged uncle, his brother? The one in Texas?” I ask. I know this is coming out of left field, so I add, “The stars—Lone Star State—helped me remember to ask you.”

“Um, no, we don’t really discuss Uncle Derrick. You know that,” she says. “Why?”

“Oh, nothing. I just thought about him, the other day, at work—well, during a job interview. One of the agency’s biggest clients was based in Texas. Made me think of him,” I say. “Wonder how he’s doing.”

“He’s a drug dealer or something. But he always was a lot of fun at parties when I was little,” Mia says.

I notice she’s holding the side door handle, as if she were anticipating an accident. It’s a pose you’d assume if you knew something was coming at you head-on at any moment.

She adds, “I should reach out to him, find out what he’s up to. You’re right.”

“No, don’t do that. I mean, it’s never a good idea to shake the family tree. And if he’s a drug dealer we don’t want him near our boys,” I say quickly, my heart thudding in my chest. “I just brought him up because of the stars, that’s all.”

“Oh, good point. You just never know. He could be really bad news,” she says. Mia seems to let the subject go, thankfully. We enjoy a comfortable silence for the rest of the drive back to Lakeside. I am thinking about how wonderful it is not to have to get home, pay the babysitter and then coerce the boys to sleep. I am thinking about how peaceful this moment is, just the two of us in a darkened car, silently compatible. It’s like we could be playing Scrabble or another friendly board game and growing old together. Bored game, I think with a smile.

Sure, sometimes I imagine that I could continue on like this, feel content and make myself believe I have enough. Just the two of us, and our boys, blending in with the rest of the people who work boring jobs and then come up here on the weekends and fish for walleye. I’ll become head of advertising for the city magazine, even though they’ll call me Chief Revenue Officer. Mia, tired of working from home for John’s agency, will go into John Larson Advertising’s small office in Hilliard three days a week. She will barely make enough to cover the childcare expenses she’ll incur when in-office meetings are required by clients and run over into school pickup time, but she’ll feel productive. She’ll have lunch with her coworkers—there are only three of them besides John—and the receptionist will tell her that John has a crush on her. She’ll smile at the silly woman and tell her he’s just a friend. She’ll dream about the weekends at the lake.

Meanwhile, at the magazine, I will report to the publisher, a woman with the vision of a mouse. She wants to be the best magazine in the city; it is the only magazine in the city. The publisher has teased her rodent-brown hair—to make it appear fuller—and has had too much Botox, so that her face is frozen in a mask of skewed aging perfection. She barely manages a wink in my direction as she escorts me out of our directors’ meeting and asks me to grab coffee with her. She trails her pastel pink fingernail down the side of my Italian suit jacket as she makes the suggestion. I tell her I’m happily married, but that I’m sure I’ll meet her revenue projections. She tells me she doesn’t care about the revenue. Later, that afternoon, she’ll insist I go to happy hour with the team, just one of her many team members. She’ll keep me in my place.

I shudder, and hope Mia doesn’t notice. I was never made for that kind of linear, predictable and ordinary life. Guys like me don’t grow old peacefully. No, we fight it every step of the way. I suck my stomach in, the only flaw in my otherwise youthful facade. I’m like Orion, shining in the sky. Don’t get too close or I may burn you. As I pull onto our street, I note that our cottage is lit up and glowing, as welcoming as the Boones’, and maybe more so. I didn’t realize we had left so many lights on, but I guess we did.

Beside me, Mia stretches her arms in front of her and then covers her mouth as she yawns. I’ll need to convince her to have another glass of wine or perhaps a cup of tea.

It isn’t bedtime yet.