Page 111 of Lucky Night

What the fuck were they thinking, putting this poor woman on television? he says. I’m turning it off.

We need to know what’s going on, Nick.

Not from Barbara we don’t. He changes the channel, then turns to face her. So what is this? Are you punishing me about the book thing? You’re upset I pretended I hadn’t read them, but instead of admitting it, you’re trying to make me feel shitty about myself?

No, I’m curious, she says. Could you really have loved your poetry all that much if you abandoned it when—

He throws his hands in the air and walks into the bathroom. The door bangs shut behind him.

She picks up the remote and flips back to CNN.

The chyron reads:Prospects of Rescue Grow Dim as FDNY Struggles to Contain Historic High-Rise Fire.

Eighteen

Empty your mind.

She scooches back on the bed, pulling her feet up and sitting cross-legged. With her elbows she presses down on her knees until she feels the stretch in her inner thighs. That’s good. She presses harder. Focusing on her body. Fingertips propping up her temples. Eyes closed.

Inhale. One, two, three.

Allow thoughts to enter, acknowledge them, then usher them out.

Kindly, firmly show them the door.

Thanks for stopping by, thoughts.

Thank you, but you can…

Thank you…

She’s terrible at this.

She uncrosses her legs and lies flat on her back. Meditation won’t work now, when it’s never worked before. Not even when she subscribed to the app everybody said was foolproof. Sorry, guys—it’s no proof against this fool!

Her thoughts don’t leave. They loiter. The FDNY struggles, it struggles, why is it struggling, please don’t struggle. And now Nick is scared. But it’s no triumph, having a partner in dread. It’s a little sickening, in fact.

She stares up at the blinking smoke detector. She went after himtoo hard about his so-called disappointment. See, there, she still doesn’t take it seriously—so-called—even though it’s obviously a big deal to him. He’s right: she’s upset about the book thing. She wasn’t at first, but the more she thinks about it…all his little jokes, his superiority, foryears.And now he thinks he can praise her, show a little interest, and it’s fine?

But she also genuinely wants to understand. Why didn’t he persevere, instead of renouncing what he wanted in a huff? He doesn’t read his beloved poetry anymore. What a man. He couldn’t just love it, he had to win it, conquer it. Possess it on his terms. And when he didn’t get his way? It reminds her of nothing so much as when she offers the boys a cookie, and they demand two, and she holds firm at one, and they storm off, insisting that if they can’t have two they’ll have none. Nick did that. Rejected one cookie because he couldn’t have two. Hurting only himself, because guys? Nobody gives a shit if you don’t have any cookies.

It’s sad. But also interesting. The kind of thing he’d have examined endlessly, had it been someone else under the microscope. Her, for example. Oh, he’d have had a field day, delving and probing! But she asks a few questions and she’s attacking him?

He needs to get his story straight. Either she’s an extraordinary person or a scheming emotional terrorist. She can’t be both.

Seventeen people are confirmed dead, including three members of a New York One news crew stationed where the majority of the debris hit the ground.

Oh, Juliana! Here she is thinking about her books, and cookies, while people are dead. She needs to move. She jumps off the bed and nearly loses her balance. Easy now. She begins to walk toward the window. Heel, toe, heel. Small, careful steps, the length of her feet. When she gets to the window, she’ll turn and come back the same way.

She watches her feet. She used to have to move like this in danceclass when she was a girl. Her mother had signed her up, hoping to cure her clumsiness. She loved it. The feel of the wood barre, polished by decades of eager little hands. Watching the older girls slip on their candy-pink toe shoes, crisscrossing the satin ribbons up their calves.

She didn’t last long enough to get those shoes. She was a terrible dancer. But she did stop falling on her face so much.

Now she steps. Steps again.

This is her.

She is here.

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