Atmosphere: A Love Story By Taylor Jenkins Reid - 37

That fall, Frances took up ballet, and Barbara and Daniel began throwing Sunday night get-togethers for the neighborhood at Daniel’s house.

Which was why this Sunday afternoon, Joan and Barbara were at the grocery store across from the children’s ballet center, picking up cocktail mixers and ice.

“You know, Daniel and I just decided that as exhausting as it is to host so many people, we have to make a point to do this every week,” Barbara said to Joan in the beverage aisle. “It’s come to mean a lot to the neighbors.”

Joan smiled and nodded. Barbara was already rewriting her place in the world, but Joan had to admit that she was touched to see that Frances had made a friend on the block.

Joan grabbed the grapefruit juice Barbara had asked for and put it in the cart as Barbara picked up bottles of soda. “It’s so funny because a lot of the neighbors are angling for an invite to the wedding, but we’ve had to say it’s a little late for that!”

“Oh,” Joan said, rearranging things in the cart so the bottles didn’t roll. “I meant to tell you that I haven’t gotten my invitation yet.”

Barbara pushed the cart forward. “Sorry about that. The invitations are very expensive, and I didn’t think you needed one because I talk to you every day.”

“Oh,” Joan said. “All right.”

“You’ll need to be at the church at noon for makeup. I put you down for the chicken, not the fish, because you hate halibut . . .”

“Thank you.”

“And you don’t have a guest, obviously. Just you.”

“I can’t bring a guest?” Joan said. “I’m the maid of honor.”

Barbara cocked her head at Joan. “You haven’t been on a date in twenty years.”

Joan stared at her. “I’m not allowed to want company?”

“Who would you bring?” Barbara laughed as she grabbed a bag of ice. “You’re just going to sit with Mom and Dad all night.”

Barbara put the ice in the cart and started walking to the register. Joan followed her, each step growing heavier.

“I am not just going to sit with Mom and Dad all night,” Joan said.

“Do you have any male friends?”

“I have friends, Barb. What do you take me for?”

“You have a man you want to bring to my wedding?”

“Yes, maybe,” Joan said. “Or I could bring a girlfriend. Someone to have fun with.”

“You want to bring a woman as your date?”

Joan felt her shoulders tense, her gut turn.

“What you’re asking is not only preposterous, it’s also tacky,” Barbara said. She walked up to the cash register and then leaned in and whispered to Joan: “You do realize bringing a woman as your date will make you look like a . . . you know . . .”

Barbara smiled as if this was hilarious, and then turned her attention to the cart. She unloaded the groceries onto the conveyor belt and made small talk with the cashier.

Joan simply stood there, staring at her, wondering how it was so easy for Barbara to stick a knife in someone and then carry on with the mundanity of her day. She did not move until Barbara stared back at her with all the groceries packed in bags and in the cart. “Joan, what are you doing? Let’s go.”

They picked up Frances from ballet. Joan could not look at her sister the entire way home.

When they got back to Daniel’s house, Frances ran into the family room to watch TV. Daniel was in the kitchen, grabbing things for the grill.

“Good trip?” he said.

“We got everything we went for,” Barbara said. “But somebody got a little touchy about not having a guest at the wedding.”

Daniel looked at Joan and then at Barbara. “What do you mean?”

“We don’t need to talk about this,” Joan said.

“You’re the maid of honor,” Daniel said. “Of course you can bring a guest.”

“It’s fine,” Joan said.

“But she doesn’t have a date,” Barbara said. “She has never had a date to a single wedding. She used to ask me to go as her date . . . and, listen, I’ll be busy.” Barbara laughed.

“Barb is right about that,” said Joan.

“She was asking to bring a girlfriend,” Barbara said to him, as if this was the funniest thing in the world.

“A woman who is my friend, but it’s not important, really. Let’s drop the subject.”

Daniel looked at Barbara and nodded toward the dining room. “Can I talk to you in the other room?” he said.

Barbara looked shocked as the two of them went into the other room. Joan put away the ice.

When they came back in, Barbara had a fake smile on her face.

“Joan, we would love for you to invite whomever you would like to our wedding,” Barbara said. “As your guest.”

Daniel walked by Joan and put his hand ever so briefly on her shoulder.

Joan was confused. Because while the change of pace was nice, this person standing in front of her wasn’t really Barbara.

“Well, um, thank you,” Joan said.

“I think I forget sometimes,” Barbara said. “That your life is different than mine. It must be very hard seeing so many happy couples while you are on your own. You deserve to have a great night.”

Never mind. She was still Barbara.

On the drive home, despite knowing it was an absurd fantasy, Joan kept picturing Vanessa asking her to dance at Barbara’s wedding.

Joan would say yes. And it would be a fast song when they stood up, but by the time they got to the floor, it would have changed to a slow song. So Vanessa would pull Joan close, and they would sway. And Joan would lead. And Vanessa would say something like “I think your parents like me,” and Joan would say, “I think so, too.” And they would know that everything that was happening that day could happen for them, too.

When Joan pulled up to Vanessa’s house, she resolved not to ask her. It was not a smart thing to do. To go to a wedding together. They couldn’t.

But then as they were brushing their teeth, Joan recounted her day to Vanessa, and it just came out.

“You asked to bring me?” Vanessa said, spitting her toothpaste into the sink.

“I didn’t say your name, just asked to bring a friend. It went about as well as you’d expect.”

Vanessa considered this, but did not say anything.

“I’m not asking you to go,” Joan said. “I know we can’t attract that much attention. I also know that meeting my family isn’t high on your list of priorities, and I completely understand it.”

Vanessa wiped her face with a hand towel and then turned and leaned against the counter.

“I do sometimes wonder,” Vanessa said. “What your mother is like.”

Joan laughed. “She’s not one to really wonder about, honestly. She’s pretty . . . expected. A little vanilla, even—but in a very, very nice way.”

“Oh, if anyone ever said that about me, I’d murder them.”

“Yes, I know, but my mother would not be offended by me saying that. And that should tell you everything.”

“Well, now I have to meet this milquetoast woman.”

“I didn’t say she was milquetoast! She’s just a person who does what society expects of her in a way that makes it look easy. I don’t think she’s milquetoast at all.”

“Well, I’m still curious. About her and your math-teacher dad.”

Joan laughed.

“I think we should go,” Vanessa said.

Joan looked at her. “Are you serious?”

“Do I think it’s a particularly smart thing to do? No, I don’t,” she said. Then her eyes lit up. “But, fuck your sister. And I want to.”

Joan laughed. She could not quite wrap her head around the moment in front of her.

“Frances will be there for a lot of the night, too, right?” Vanessa asked.

“Yeah,” Joan said. “She will be.”

“So even better. She can dance standing on my feet.”

“I don’t know,” Joan said. “She’s got some pretty great moves herself.”

“Great,” Vanessa said. “I’ll dance on hers, then.”

Vanessa walked toward the bed, turned the blanket down.

“You aren’t worried what people will think?” Joan asked as they got into bed. “The two of us there together?”

Vanessa turned out the light and Joan moved toward the center of the bed. Vanessa’s arm was tucked in the crook of Joan’s neck.

“Plenty of women bring friends to weddings,” Vanessa said. “It’s not like we’re going to slow dance with your head on my shoulder.”

Joan did not say anything for a moment. And then: “It’s not fair,” she said, finally. “That part is not fair.”

“No, honey,” Vanessa said. “It isn’t.”

Later, before they fell asleep, Joan said, “Happiness is so hard to come by. I don’t understand why anyone would begrudge anyone else for managing to find some of it.”

“That’s because you’re too good for the world you love so much,” Vanessa said.

Frances was the flower girl. Daniel’s friend Robert held the rings. Vanessa wore the one dress she owned. It was a navy blue shift that she wore under a blazer, with a pair of loafers.

Joan stood at Barbara’s side, quietly holding her and Barbara’s flowers. When the preacher was speaking about love not being boastful, Joan’s heart seized. She looked at Vanessa in the second-to-last row, and smiled as she caught her gaze.

As Daniel and Barbara made their vows, Joan smiled at Vanessa, hoping that Vanessa understood what Joan’s smile was trying to say.

I would promise you all of this, too.

During the reception, Joan sat next to Vanessa at the table. Frances was on her other side. Joan’s parents were across from them. As the waiters came around with wine, Joan saw her father kiss her mother on the temple. How had she not seen it before? Been taken in by it? Her parents’ love story.

“Introducing,” the bandleader said, “Mr. and Mrs. Davenport!”

Barbara and Daniel came out, and Joan could see that Barbara had changed from her princess-style wedding dress into a sleeker long-sleeved lace gown.

“Mom looks beautiful,” Frances said.

“Yes, she does,” Joan said.

“You two look so much alike,” Vanessa whispered into Joan’s ear. Joan’s chest flushed.

Barbara beamed as she stood at the center of the dance floor with Daniel. She had landed one of the most notable bachelors in town, she’d been able to quit her job and become a housewife, she was getting the big house, the country club membership. Of course she was happy.

This was Barbara’s low-Earth orbit, Joan realized.

But just as Daniel pulled Barbara toward him, Joan saw something else pass across Barbara’s face. It was a look she’d never seen in Barb before, but it was easy enough to recognize: she loved him. Daniel smiled as he put his cheek to hers, and Joan could see that he loved her, too.

Joan closed her eyes, flooded with joy. She looked at Vanessa, who clearly could see it, too.

“I hate him,” Frances said.

“What?” Joan asked.

“He’s such a dork. And I hate him.”

“Frances!” Joan’s mother said, as she shook her head. “My dear, we don’t say such things.”

Vanessa leaned across Joan and whispered to Frances, “Hey, I saw the wedding cake over in the hallway. Do you want to go see if we can get a tiny bit of frosting off it, without anyone noticing?”

“You can’t do that—” Joan said.

Frances was already up and giggling. “Yes!” she said. Vanessa winked at Joan as she and Frances scurried away conspiratorially.

Joan’s mother leaned over to Joan. “I’m worried about her behavior. Barbara said she’s been rude to Daniel.”

Joan shook her head. “I’m sure it’s just an adjustment. It’s hard to have your mom all to yourself your entire life and then watch some guy come in and take her attention.”

Joan’s mother nodded. “Elaine did say her grandson threw tantrums the whole first year after her daughter remarried.”

“Hopefully they’ll all find a little balance as a family sooner than that,” Joan said.

“Vanessa is a delight. Good friend you got there,” Joan’s father said.

Joan swallowed and nodded. She wanted so badly to tell her parents than Vanessa was more than a friend. She wanted to open her mouth and say that lying in bed next to Vanessa at night was the only way Joan knew she’d had a good day. That the touch of her hand in Joan’s made Joan’s heartbeat slow down. That Joan did not know why everyone was so goddamn happy all the time until she met her.

But the Moral Majority was campaigning again for Reagan. Anita Bryant had come through Houston just a handful of years ago to convince voters that people like Joan should not be allowed to be near children. A couple of years ago, Billie Jean King had come out and lost $2 million in endorsements overnight. At that very moment, people all over the country were convinced that AIDS was a punishment for moral failing.

Sure, her parents weren’t from Texas. They were from Pasadena, California, and had gone door-to-door for Kennedy and then Johnson. But Joan knew that they had never known a person like her, at least that they had been aware of. So how could they truly understand this part of Joan at all? Her parents misunderstood her, the same way she’d misunderstood herself for so long.

Joan wanted to tell both of them that they thought she didn’t want to get married, but the truth was that she wanted exactly what Barbara had. She wanted what they had. She wanted what Donna and Hank had. And what every marriage in the whole godforsaken country had.

The right to exist and to love and be proud and happy.

The right to live.

“Yeah, Vanessa is really sweet,” she said.

When Frances and Vanessa came back to the table, Frances seemed to have forgotten all about hating Daniel.

“Couldn’t find the cake,” Vanessa said, smiling. “But we did find a tray of brownies and we snuck one.”

“It was so good!” Frances said.

Joan laughed.

Barbara and Daniel danced all night. Soon Barb’s high heels were off, and her makeup started to smear, and Daniel drunkenly, joyously, put Barb’s garter in his mouth. Which was when Joan and Vanessa volunteered to take Frances to her room at the hotel.

Frances walked on her own across the hotel lobby, and into the elevator. But once they were on the right floor, Vanessa picked Frances up and carried her. Frances was too big for Joan to carry. But she smiled to herself as she watched Frances close her eyes and let Vanessa take her the rest of the way.

Vanessa put Frances down on one of the beds. Joan took Frances’s shoes off and they both put the blankets on top of her.

“I’ll stay with her,” Joan said to Vanessa in a low whisper. Eventually, Joan’s parents were going to sleep in the room with Frances. But Joan didn’t mind waiting for them. “You can head home.”

“No way,” Vanessa said. “I want to stay, too.”

There was a balcony with two chairs and a mottled-glass coffee table. Joan grabbed two beers from the minibar and the two of them went out there. There was no bottle opener.

“I got it,” Vanessa said. She lined the first beer up along the railing of the balcony at an angle and then swiftly, confidently, slammed her hand down and popped the top off, handing Joan the bottle.

“Wow,” Joan said, standing next to her, leaning against the railing. “I feel like I know everything about you, but I didn’t know you could do that.”

Vanessa did it again for hers. “I try to remain a woman of mystery.”

“I don’t need any mystery,” Joan said.

They were quiet for a moment until Vanessa cleared her throat and said, her voice cracking halfway through, “I’m sorry that I can’t give you all this. What they have.”

Joan looked at her.

Vanessa closed her eyes. “I feel like I . . .” She shook her head. “That maybe you could have had more—had an easier life—if I hadn’t convinced you to love me.”

Joan took Vanessa’s hand. “I don’t think you had any say over whether or not I loved you,” Joan said. “I don’t even think I had any say in it. It happened without me even giving myself permission.”

Vanessa looked at her and smiled, but Joan could tell she was serious.

“I would give you anything I could,” Vanessa said. “But I will never be able to give you what your sister has, or what Donna and Hank have.”

“I don’t think that’s necessarily true,” Joan said.

“I can’t hold your hand as we cross the street,” Vanessa said. “I can’t pull you into the crook of my shoulder when we go to the movies. I can’t ask you if you want to dance.”

Joan nodded.

“I can’t stand up in front of everyone we know and announce how good it feels to love you,” Vanessa said.

When Joan was a kid, she learned that her father’s father had left him when he was a baby. She could not imagine this, being raised without a father. She had asked her father if he had missed him. And her father had said, “You can’t miss something you never had.” It had sounded good at the time. It had a finality to it that she had liked.

But it wasn’t true, was it?

Joan missed what she’d never had every time Donna and Hank arrived for the all-astronauts meeting in the same car on Monday mornings.

“I’ve always known I could never have that,” Vanessa said. “But . . . I hate to think I took that opportunity from you.”

For a moment, Joan couldn’t look at her. But that’s what was so nice about talking about big, deep things outside at night. You just looked up at the stars.

“Why are you saying all of this now?” Joan said.

“Because today, at the wedding, I realized I would marry you,” Vanessa said.

Joan turned to her. My God, who could care about the stars when there was her to look at?

“I would marry you in a second,” Vanessa went on. “I’ve never felt that way about anyone. In my entire life. What am I even doing here? At your sister’s wedding? Meeting your parents? This was a stupid thing to do. To come here. But I . . . want to be a part of your life in every way I can.”

Joan nodded. She opened her mouth to say something and then, at the last moment, thought better of it and, instead, looked around at the trees and the other balconies. And she saw, far to the left, outside a corner room, a man and a woman standing on their balcony. The man was resting his hands on the railing, and the woman was behind him, resting on him. As he’d felt her come up, he’d taken his arm and put it around her and pulled her toward him. Joan wondered if that man felt for that woman half of what she felt for Vanessa.

It cost him nothing. Nothing! It cost him nothing to hold her like that where everyone could see. The man kissed the woman on the top of her head. Had they been together for over two years? Or did they meet last week at a bar?

“I know our life will look different, does look different, than other couples’. But there are plenty of women who make this work.”

Vanessa nodded. “Yeah, but most of them aren’t employed by a government agency in careers that put them in the public eye.”

“No, I know,” Joan said. “I know.”

“I just . . . I don’t want you to think I don’t want all those things. I mean, I didn’t. Ever. Before. But I do now, with you.”

“You do?”

Vanessa looked at her and took her left hand. “I want to live in a little bungalow with you and if the cabinet door started to feel loose, I would tighten it the moment you said something. And I’d make you anything you wanted for breakfast every weekend morning. And I’d take your name, if I could. Or give you mine.”

Joan’s eyes began to water and her mouth began to quiver. What was the point of this? To be told exactly what you couldn’t have?

“I would give you anything,” Vanessa said, “if it wasn’t going to cost us everything.”

“I would never ask it,” Joan said, shaking her head. Her tears began to fall, and she dried them.

“Which is how I know that you’d be worth giving it to,” Vanessa said.

Joan closed her eyes.

“I love you,” Vanessa said. “And I’m sorry.”

“I know,” Joan said. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Vanessa said. “The whole situation is not okay. But . . . I guess I’m saying that I can accept the trade-off. And I want to make sure that you can.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can wake up every single day and choose you, over and over and over again. If you’re in bed next to me, I will take your hand. If you are not, I will go find you. I will spend the rest of my life, if I get that lucky, seeking you out. Not because I promised you or because you’re there. But because I will want to. I will want to be beside you. Every day. Forever.”

“You will?”

Vanessa tucked a strand of Joan’s hair behind her ear. “Every morning, I wake up and I think, ‘God, yes, her.’ ”

Joan smiled and dried her tears.

“If that can be enough for you,” Vanessa said, “it’s yours until the day I die.”

A week later, Joan got a stomach virus and had to call in sick. She forbade Vanessa from coming over because Vanessa was supposed to leave for Cape Canaveral the next day. And so, that night, there was no knock at the door. But her phone did ring.

“There is homemade chicken noodle soup at your doorstep. With crackers, ginger ale, and a cookie,” Vanessa said.

“What?” Joan asked. “Were you just here?”

“I’m at the pay phone.”

Joan stretched the phone cord as close to the window as she could to sneak a glimpse of Vanessa across the street. Vanessa looked toward the window and waved at her.

Joan waved back.

“I have something to tell you,” Vanessa said.

“What?” Joan said.

“Antonio called me in this morning.”

Joan’s eyes went wide. “No! What did he say?”

“STS-LR9. Steve’s my commander. It’s him, Hank, Griff, Lydia, and me. Right after Christmas ’84, six weeks after you.”

“You’re going up into space,” Joan said, smiling.

Vanessa laughed. “I’m going up into space.”

OceanofPDF.com