Page 73 of Atmosphere

Vanessa shook her head. “It’s more about what my mom wants for me. But it’s always about how short my life was. And when I’m in the casket, I realize how little I did on Earth. That I didn’t get a chance to do something with the time I had.”

“Do you think it’s about your father?”

Vanessa shook her head again. “No, what I’m saying is that…Joan, you live in a world where time is on your side. But I don’t live in that world, Joan. You live there alone.”

“What do you mean?”

She inhaled deeply and blew out her next words like cigarette smoke. “I mean, don’t confuse my respect for you with patience.”

Joan felt the heat of Vanessa’s gaze. She understood that the real Vanessa had never looked right at her until now.

The real Joan could not look back. “I don’t think I understand what you are saying.”

“You spend a lot of time pretending you don’t understand what I’m saying.”

Joan looked away. She didn’t know how to be the person she knew she was.

“I don’t have a recurring dream, exactly,” Joan said. “But there is a type of dream that I keep having, ever since I was a teenager.”

“Okay…”

“I’m happy and doing something really simple,” Joan said. “I make dinner. Or I read a book. Or I hang up a picture. It’s always different houses. Sometimes it’s my parents’ old house. One time it was this mansion I saw in a movie. I’m always different ages, doing different things. There’s never anything risky about it, or dramatic. Nothing big happens. I’m just at home. Living my life.”

“But?”

Joan looked Vanessa in the eye, then. Forced herself to not look away. “I’m always alone, Vanessa.”

Vanessa looked down. Their hands were just an inch apart and Joan wanted to move her pinkie, to reach out and touch her. But she couldn’t bring herself to.

“I do understand what you’re telling me,” Joan said. “You won’t wait forever.”

Vanessa shook her head. “No, Jo. You don’t get it at all.”

The amber of Vanessa’s eyes was almost gold when the light hit it. The look of them, especially in this moment, was so complex that they reminded Joan of what her mother always said about her favorite landscape painting, which hung above the dining room table at their house. It “rewarded your attention.” Joan could stare into Vanessa’s eyes for hours and still never tire of all that they held.

“I’m scared Iwillwait forever,” Vanessa said, her voice a whisper. “And it will kill me.”

Joan’s heart began to pound.

“I’m begging you to tell me not to,” Vanessa said. “Please. Tell meI’m wasting my time. Tell me I’m crazy. Put me out of my misery, Joan. Can you do that?”

Joan looked at her. “I can’t tell you that.”

Vanessa stared at her.

“And I don’t want to tell you that.”

Vanessa held her gaze a moment longer and then pushed Joan up against the door and kissed her. Joan put her hands on Vanessa’s face and kissed her back. And, in that second, almost everything Joan had known about herself became untrue.

And everything she never thought she’d want or have was in her arms.

Vanessa tasted like salt. And she smelled the way she always smelled, but richer, the scent thicker. Joan pulled her closer, as hard as she could. For a moment, she worried that she was hurting her, pulling her that tight. But Vanessa sighed. And Joan’s arms went loose as she let go of her weight against the door and sank into her legs in a way she never had before.

Vanessa pulled away then, but Joan pulled her back. And it was partially because Joan was afraid to look at her, to face what she was finally letting herself do. But it was more that she had to have Vanessa’s body against hers, had to feel the weight of her. She wanted to be trapped between Vanessa and the door. To be asked to surrender to her.

Joan let her go, finally. And Vanessa pulled back slightly but did not go far. She looked at Joan, and Joan felt herself blush. Vanessa took her thumb and grazed it across Joan’s jaw. Joan’s muscles melted, and she felt like she could dissolve.

Joan knew then that Donna was not an idiot. And the Beatles were not nonsense. And that there had always been a place for her in this world. She had just been walking past it over and over again, never noticing that there was an unmarked door, waiting for her to discover it.

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