Up in the Air

“There’s a big plate of raisin cookies in the kitchen.”

“What were you going to say to me?”

“Stop staring. This is my ideal weight. Just hug me, Ryan.”

It’s the part I always forget, and women need it. Her body feels old and stony through her PJ top.

“I think your ideals are a problem,” I say.

“Yes.”

It’s always wise, in my experience, to turn off any nearby TVs or radios when trying to dissipate emotional tension; they have a way of blurting out bad thoughts, of lobbing idea grenades into the room. When I settle in on the sofa with the cookies, the Road Runner has changed places with Porky Pig. Is Julie just dying? A cleaver-wielding farmer is chasing Porky, over whose head looms a panicked thought balloon filled with hams and chops and bacon strips. Could it be any worse?

“I’m sorry about those dogs,” I say.

“It wasn’t them. It’s me. I ruin everything. Have you ever looked inside my car? It’s all old phone bills and spilled McDonald’s Cokes. I can’t catch up with myself. I’m underwater. I promise to do something simple, like walk those dogs, but then I remember another promise I made, and another one on top of that, so I make up a list with boxes and little checkmarks, but before I can finish it my pen runs dry, so I run off to find a pen, and then it’s quitting time. Pretty soon things have piled up so high I have to call in sick to clear my head, and when I come back they’re all angry at me, furious, so instead of buckling down, I run and hide. And it isn’t just work I’m talking about. It’s everything. It’s breathing. It’s sleeping. It’s feelings. Does this make sense?”

“It’s all about managing time.”

“It’s more than that.” She digs a raisin out of a cookie and eats it, the raisin, but leaves the rest untouched. “Anyway, I’m sorry I dragged you up here. You were on business and I screwed you up. Where are you supposed to be tomorrow?”

“Phoenix. I’m meeting my publisher. I hope.”

“Kara told me you were writing something. Wow. A mystery?”

“A business parable.”

“Is it long?” she says. “I like the long ones. So I can really snuggle in, get cozy.”

“Business readers don’t curl up with books.”

Julie rests her head on my knee. I stroke her hair. I’m ashamed to admit that her thinness has its charms, elongating and defining her throat and neck.

“That was the sweetest wedding present,” she says. “Keith opened it by mistake. You really splurged. Who told you we needed one? Mom?”

The gift’s not mine; my sister has it confused with someone else’s. I picked out the luggage set just yesterday and was waiting for my card to be reactivated before I placed the order. And there’s no way for her to know about the stock. Then again, this may be Kara’s work. Her standing assumption is that I’m irresponsible when it comes to my sentimental duties; she probably sent something practical in my name, a microwave or upright vacuum cleaner, and forgot to inform me. She covers for me this way, forging my signature on thoughtful gestures.

I probe. “You needed one?”

“Well, no one needs one. Our grandparents did without them, obviously.”

“What told you it was from me?”

She lifts her head and eyes me at a slant. “Are you okay?”

“A little frazzled. Why?”

“That was such an odd question. Who else would it have been from? Are you still on that medication?”

“That was years ago.”

“So no more seizures?”

“I’ve never had a seizure. That’s like calling every lump a tumor.”

“Fine, then. ‘Fits.’ ”

“That’s even worse,” I say.