The Great Perhaps (31 page)

“School,” Madeline says with a shrug. “Then grad school.”

“And what about role models? Your parents, for example. Certainly as a child, perhaps as a teenager, you saw them as dominant influences as well.”

Madeline, eyes wide, feels herself begin to smile. “The males weren’t there to teach them the dance.”

“The dominant males were not around to establish order. Or to pass on their knowledge.”

“Wow.”

“Wow, indeed,” Dr. Hillary says. “So…”

“So if I return the older, dominant males…”

“Then I think you have a very interesting study on your hands.”

“Thank you, Dr. Hillary.”

Madeline shakes his hand and sprints back downstairs to the research labs.

One by one, Madeline reintroduces the red-tagged males back into the experiment’s population. There is no noticeable difference at first. One of the older males flies around, searching for a roost. It squabbles a little with a yellow-tag male, using its larger size to force the smaller bird out of its large box. Madeline makes a note of this and wonders what this sort of thing might say about the world of human beings.

K. At lunch, smoking in the front seat of her lab assistant Laura’s car, she does not make eye contact with Eric.
He is acting strange anyway, all nervous and twitchy. When they finish their smoke break, heading back inside the poorly lit research facility, Madeline leans beside Eric and says, “I need to talk to you for a minute.” Eric looks shocked. He pushes his glasses farther up his nose and nods as Laura strolls back to their lab module. Madeline does not know what to say, only that she has to say something. She clears her throat, then shifts her weight from foot to foot, then simply says, “Eric, I don’t know if you were unsure or not, but I’m married.”

Eric nods, running a hand through his uncombed hair, sighing. “Okay, I know, I mean…I really apologize. It was just one of those things.”

“Yeah, you just can’t do that because you think it’s okay. Because it’s not.”

“I’m sorry, really.”

“Just don’t do that again. Ever.”

“Sure, okay, I just…well, sure. I’m sorry.”

Madeline nods, marching off, the sound of her shoes against the concrete floor sure and steady. She smiles a little to herself as she walks away, a little proud maybe, a little more certain than she has been in some time.

L. Before she heads home that evening, Madeline checks on the birds once more.
Two of the three reintroduced males have found nests. The third, a broad, granite-colored fellow with a slightly hooked beak, is too busy chasing a passel of newly introduced females, which Madeline finds pathetically charming.

M. In the Volvo, on the way home from work, Madeline begins to cry.
But it’s okay, it’s the good kind of crying. As she’s searching for a CD to pop into the player, NPR plays a report about Private Daniel Harkins, the soldier in Baghdad, who was captured and who has been held captive for nearly three weeks. He has been released. Madeline turns up the radio and the professional monotone of the NPR reporter repeats, “Private First Class Daniel Harkins has been released from his captors in the capital city of Baghdad. He’s being flown to a medical facility in Germany, where he’ll be given time to recover from his traumatic experience before returning home to North Carolina…” The report then goes on to mention that fifty people have been killed by a car bomb in Basra. Madeline switches off the radio as she pulls the Volvo into the garage. In the dark, with the automatic garage door sliding down, she frowns at herself for being so weepy.

N. On Monday night, nothing all that interesting happens.
Madeline and Jonathan sit on the couch and watch a special on the worst storms of the century. While they’re watching TV, Madeline keeps sneaking glances at her husband, making sure he’s okay. He’s taken his antiseizure medication, that much is obvious. She looks at him again and smiles. She does think he’s still kind of handsome, maybe a little too serious, a little too self-involved, but he really is pretty nice-looking. She holds his hand and it feels okay, it feels like it means something. And then, without lifting his eyes from the television set, he does something pretty terrific. He squeezes her hand once, then again, a secret code, just to let her know that he knows she is there, that at that particular moment, he is thinking of her and her only.

O. At work the next day, the covey of pigeons is perfectly silent.
There are no dead birds. The red-tagged dominant males each roost in their own corner of the pen. When some of the less dominant males, the yellow-tags, begin to fuss, one of the red-tags always swoops down and begins squawking. Madeline makes a note of this in her book but isn’t sure what it means exactly.

P. Maybe it actually means dominance is some kind of natural state.
Oh, shit
, she thinks.
What the hell does that mean for the world? What does that mean for the rest of us who really don’t love the idea of being dominated? What if we really don’t want to be part of a dominant empire? What the hell do we do then?
Madeline considers these questions as she drives home from work. She stops at a church two blocks from her house to cast her vote. She does it quickly, punching a hole for the judges based mostly on whether they are female are not, and if there are no female candidates, based on whether they are Democrats or not, and if there are two female Democrats, then she decides based on the way their names sound. After that she quickly heads home.

Q. That Tuesday evening, Madeline sits beside Jonathan and watches the election returns
. Thisbe lies on the floor, working on her math homework, glancing up at the television every so often. Amelia just can’t keep still.

“I’m supposed to be writing something about the election for the school paper, but I can’t watch,” Amelia confesses. “If John Kerry loses, I’m going to totally kill myself. Or move to Canada.” But she takes a seat in the puffy white chair for a while, scrawling some notes to herself in a little yellow notebook, then gets up, then goes and makes some popcorn, then comes back, sitting on the edge of the sofa. Thisbe watches her sister bouncing back and forth around the house and smiles, shaking her head. She turns to her parents and asks, still lying on the floor, “Did both of you guys vote for John Kerry?” Madeline smiles and nods, as does her husband, who also winks.

“Oh,” Thisbe whispers.

“Who would you have voted for, honey?” Madeline asks.

“I dunno. George Bush, I guess.”

Her sister, Amelia, sighs, looking glum. “That is so stupid.”

“What?” Thisbe asks. “It’s my imaginary vote, I can vote for whoever I want to.”

“George Bush is only like the worst president of all time.”

“I don’t think so. I think he just isn’t as good a talker as that other guy.”

“Did you even watch the debates?” Amelia asks suspiciously.

“Yes. We had to watch them in history class.”

“And?”

“I guess I liked the president. The other guy, he was too hard to follow. His answers were too long. It was like he talked too much instead of just saying what he thought.”

Amelia rolls her eyes. “Well, thank God you don’t get to vote.”

Thisbe shrugs her shoulders, returning to her math homework, her left leg rising and falling as she scribbles mathematical figures on lined paper, the world on the television screen before her being quickly transformed by similar equations.

R. Things don’t look so bad for John Kerry at first.
All the New England states vote for him, and the maps, on the different news channels, show a large block of blue as it gradually appears in the northeastern corner of the country. Most of the Midwest and South vote for the incumbent president, and just as quickly, those parts of the map glow bright red.

S. Madeline can’t help getting her hopes up as she watches: Illinois, then Michigan, Wisconsin, then Minnesota, all flash bright blue.

“Wow, this is gonna be close,” Amelia whispers, trying to do the electoral math in her notebook.

“It looks like it,” Jonathan says. “I hope it doesn’t get decided by Florida again.”

“No, Florida is already red.”

“We’ll just have to see what happens,” Jonathan says.

T. By eleven o’clock, almost all of the votes are in. Once again, the country is completely divided: the southern Midwest and the South have voted for the Republican, the Northeast, northern Midwest, and the West have voted for the Democrat.
The entire presidential election hinges on the state of Ohio. Ohio? Why Ohio? Ohio, like the silent, anonymous heart of the nation, located center and to the left, Ohio will, in the end, decide the fate of the country, the world, maybe even the universe. Some reporters mention that there are voters still waiting in line, even at this hour. What can be going through their minds? What kind of questions are they asking themselves as they stand there waiting to decide? Or probably their decision has already been made and, standing there, impatient, waiting to be heard, they stare ahead and wonder why something so simple as punching a hole or marking an X or touching a screen has to be so difficult. Maybe that’s the real question anyway. Why so much concern about the election in the first place, when, in the end, it is only another contest between two Ivy Leaguers? Why does it matter who wins when the results, no matter who is named president, will probably be the same?
Because it does matter
, Madeline thinks. Because among the things the two men share, there is a world of differences, significant, immutable differences. It is not a small, simple, meaningless decision. Madeline, pacing around the kitchen with nervous energy, finally steps outside, wishing she had a cigarette. She walks quietly into the backyard, her bare feet in the grass, looking up at the sky, at the tops of the trees, searching for the strange, indecipherable shape of the cloud-figure, but it has gone for good, Madeline knows, peeking up there once more: there is nothing. Only the moon, and the swaying trees, the telephone lines, the shadows of the garage, the sky full of clouds continuing their movement east.

U. “Okay, well, goodnight anyway,” Madeline whispers and steps back inside.

V. At one o’clock in the morning, the news channels all begin to report that the state of Ohio is now red.
By then the girls have both gone to bed. Madeline, sitting beside Jonathan folded up on the couch, flips from channel to channel, hoping to see a different answer, but no, no. From the local networks to the cable channels, each one claims the same thing, their maps all swiftly transformed, the absentee ballots and electoral arithmetic summarily counted, a winner finally announced. A televised photograph of George Bush appears on all the channels, almost all at once, and, flipping through, Madeline feels like a terrible mistake has been made.

“I think that’s it,” Jonathan whispers sleepily.

“Why?” Madeline mutters. “Why? Why did people vote for him?”

Jonathan shakes his head, then sighs. “You can never underestimate the power of fear.”

“Is that what you really think?”

He nods again. “I do.”

Madeline sighs, still staring at the TV. “I guess you’re right. That’s what they did. They tried to frighten people—with the war and terrorists and gay marriage—and it actually worked. It actually worked.”

Jonathan kisses his wife’s forehead and then stands. “Are you ready for bed?”

“I don’t think I can sleep,” she whispers.

“I don’t think so either.” He scratches his beard and then straightens his shirt. “I guess I’ll go do some work for a while.”

“Work?”

“I guess.” He leans over and kisses her lips softly, then her forehead again, and says, “Goodnight.” He stretches then, strolls down the hallway to the den. Madeline flips through the channels for another couple of minutes and then switches off the television. She straightens up the parlor, then the kitchen, putting away some dishes, then leans against the counter, sulking. “Forget this,” she says, marching down the hallway to the den.

W. When Madeline finds Jonathan sitting in the den—the professor scanning a map of the ocean—she slips off her shoes and places her hands over his eyes, standing behind him.

“Hello there,” he says.

“Hello there,” she says.

X. When they begin to kiss, Madeline remembers why she loves her husband in the first place
. It is precisely because he is a mess, because he is a dreamer, because he is afraid. It is because he needs her so badly, that he kisses her so softly: it is because he doesn’t want to lose her. She has almost forgotten how it feels to be touched so gently, to be treated like something surprisingly precious, knowing, in the end, that this other person needs you just to keep on living.

Y. This is a good enough reason to keep kissing.

Z. As they keep on kissing, and kissing, things do not seem all that complicated.

I
T IS
W
EDNESDAY MORNING, IN THE MIDDLE OF THIRD
period, when Amelia realizes her history project is due tomorrow. She has absolutely no idea what she is going to do, only that it will end up being the most mediocre history project of all time, ever. Standing at the front of the classroom, Mr. Anson, her history teacher, declares that each student will be required to present their projects to the class, and they will do so alphabetically, starting tomorrow, Thursday morning. Amelia frowns, her neck beginning to itch, already feeling nauseous. She glances around the room and sees that there is only one boy with a last name that starts with the letter A—Bob Antwerp—and only two kids with the letter B. Amelia closes her eyes, sulking, as Mr. Anson, his brown mustache twitching, reads off her name. “No more than ten minutes for each project, ladies and gentlemen. I want focused, thoughtful responses to the historical issues you’ve decided to explore. Think about how that particular historical issue affects the world you know today.” Amelia considers her awful first attempt, the cruddy movie she made, then her second, the cruddy protest with the cloud costume, and sighs, more hopeless than ever.

A
T LUNCH,
Amelia sits alone, gazing down at her vegetable enchilada, wondering how she’s going to come up with an acceptable history project in only a couple of hours. Shit. As she’s contemplating the grotesque food in front of her, William Banning takes a seat across from her and says, “Not too appetizing, huh?”

“It’s the only vegetarian dish they have. It tastes like ass.”

“It’s probably pretty bad for you.”

Amelia nods, sighing again.

“I really liked the piece you gave Mr. Wick this morning, about the election. I liked the part about people voting for Bush because he avoided being too complicated. Like how he just kept repeating the same things over and over again and that’s what people really wanted to hear.’”

Amelia grins, quoting from her column: “‘
People don’t want answers, they want bumper stickers.
’”

“Yeah. That was really sharp.”

“Thanks.”

“I was wondering…you know, the student council has elections coming up. Maybe…would you be interested in like running for something?”

“I don’t think so,” Amelia says with a frown.

“Oh, well, I just wanted to ask. I mean, I’m sure you’re busy with a bunch of other things. I just wanted to…well, thank you for like…not…well…for being cool about the newspaper. I mean like I’m sure somebody else in your position would have probably quit, and you’re the only one writing anything of any value and so, well, I just wanted to say thanks…and if…well, I dunno. Good luck with your…enchilada.”

Amelia, blushing, looks down at the awful assemblage of folded tortilla and cheese. “I have to do a project for my history class,” she mumbles. “It’s due tomorrow and I really don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Whoa,” William says with a smile. “I didn’t think you were one of those people who waited until the last minute to do anything.”

“I’m not,” she says. “I just…I wanted to do something really awesome. But it was like…everything I tried seemed so obvious and dumb.”

“What is your project about?”

“I don’t know. I wanted to do it about communism. And like how capitalism is like ruining everything. I wanted to make a movie but it came out like shit.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t know. I just wanted to get the people in my class to think about being consumers and everything. And like how it’s like affecting all these other things. Like pollution and global warming and all of that. But it just seems too preachy, I guess. Like there was all this voice-over and it was way too obvious.”

“Yeah,” William says with a nod. “I get it.”

“I wanted it to be all arty, you know. Like subtle, but I don’t know how to do that.”

“What if you just showed pictures?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like what if you made a movie without any sound or anything? Or maybe just some music and you just showed pictures.”

“Yeah, I don’t know,” she says, but already the great wheels in her mind have begun turning.

“Well, I’m supposed to be in Latin,” William Banning says. “See you later.”

“’Bye,” Amelia says and doesn’t like how giddy she feels.

A
FTER SCHOOL,
Amelia once more finds her way to the university parking lot, searching for Professor Dobbs. Immediately she sees he is not alone again. There he stands, flirting with a bevy of bright-eyed coeds, answering all their questions with a smile, winking at them, his hands touching their arms and their shoulders and their backs. Fifteen minutes later, Professor Dobbs says goodbye to the last of them. A girl with braces practically gushes as she holds her class notes against her chest, skipping off.

With his arms full of student papers, Professor Dobbs struggles to open the driver’s-side door of the Saab. Amelia, ducking between two parked cars, watches as the young academic accidentally spills his classwork, cursing to himself, dropping his keys beneath the car. “Schadenfreude,” Amelia whispers, nodding to herself, then wonders if that’s the right word for the situation. It doesn’t really matter. She walks over to where Professor Dobbs is kneeling, collecting his fallen papers. When he sees her shoes, he looks up from them to her legs, to her waist, to her chest, to her neck. When he reaches her face, recognizing the disappointed frown, he quickly becomes panicked. He holds the manila file folders against his chest, scrambles for his keys, trying to smile, trying to disappear into his sedan as swiftly as possible.

“Amelia, what a surprise, I didn’t, well, I didn’t see you in class again today and, of course, I was afraid—”

“I’m not in your class,” she whispers.

“Oh.” This information seems to momentarily relieve the young professor, who carelessly tosses his students’ work onto the passenger seat. “Well, I was just hurrying off to a meeting again. It was nice running into you like this but—”

“I want you to know that I think what you did to me was wrong. I’ve thought about it and I think you should know that.”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that, Amelia. I mean, of course you’re entitled to your beliefs and feelings, but both of us are adults and no one forced anything upon anybody.”

“I’ve decided you’re part of the problem,” Amelia says with a frown, her black beret casting a strange shadow over the professor’s feet. “You and everybody like you. Just because you have a little power, you think you can treat people like…things. But you can’t.”

“I’m very sorry you feel that you’ve been mistreated, Amelia. Perhaps I misjudged you. I thought, of course, that you were adult enough to understand the nature of the relationship. If I’ve done anything to—”

“I was standing over there, thinking of maybe fucking up your car or something,” she murmurs. “But now I just feel sorry for you.”

The professor, unsure what else to do or say, nods, then climbs into his vehicle. He starts the car and begins to back out of the lot. Amelia stands there, staring sadly as he goes, before she simply turns away.

W
HEN SHE GETS HOME,
Amelia finds her younger sister in her room again, lying on her bed. She’s too tired and too depressed to even yell at her. She throws down her book bag and mumbles, “Move over,” before crashing onto the mattress.

“Your bed is so much better than mine,” Thisbe says.

“It’s like the same exact bed,” Amelia mutters.

“Well, it feels better.”

“What are you doing in here?”

“I dunno. Just thinking.”

“Why can’t you do that in your own room?”

“I need to ask you a favor.”

“What is it?” Amelia asks.

“It’s kind of crazy.”

“What is it?”

“I need you to go to the retirement home tomorrow with me.”

“Why?”

“I need your help to do something. I can’t…you’re just good at dealing with people.”

“But what do you want me to do?” Amelia asks. Her younger sister turns and whispers her plan in her ear. It is a secret, Thisbe says, then, when she is finished whispering, she climbs out of her older sister’s bed.

T
HE MOVIE
A
MELIA
makes for her history class that night is called
The History of Clouds
. Like William Banning suggested, it’s mostly just single images, some still images, some moving, with a simple sound track over them. Amelia picks a song from an American band with a French-sounding name, Le Tigre, “Cry for Everything Bad That’s Ever Happened,” and edits the images to the instrumental track. The film is pretty simple: it begins with a long, single shot of a cloud, which turns out to be a brightly lit galaxy swirling in the ocean of purple-black space, then cuts to a cloudy shot of earth, closing in farther and farther until there’s an amazing wide shot of a bank of clouds over the Arctic, which she steals from
Koyaanisqatsi
, and then it cuts to some other borrowed footage, of clouds pouring out from a steam train, then a shot of a field of black clouds above an old coal factory, then a series of shots of clouds from various power plants, then the clouds above the Los Angeles skyline, hazy and dim, and then there are several shots of clouds of black and gray above a bombed-out Baghdad before, finally, the short film ends with a shot taken from Amelia’s front yard, staring up through the trees at the sky overhead. When Amelia finishes editing the final sequence, she starts the movie over and watches it again. It’s okay, not great or perfect or anything, nothing too spectacular, but at least it’s something. At least, instead of just repeating the same old stupid history report, instead of doing the same old thing, she has tried to do something serious, something with some kind of meaning.

W
HEN
A
MELIA WAKES UP
Thursday morning, she takes a shower, brushes her hair, gets dressed, eats breakfast, puts her books in her book bag, double-checks that she has the DV tape, then grabs her black jacket and beret. All at once, looking down at the simple circle of fabric, she decides she does not want to wear it. Instead, she brushes her light brown hair once more, then grabs the beret and tosses it into her bottom dresser drawer, placing it on top of all the other mass-produced junk she has collected. She stares at the beret lying there for a moment. Everything is quiet. Everything is still. Everything is perfectly silent. Amelia then closes the dresser drawer and hurries down the stairs, feeling a little unsure without the beret on top of her head, but why not: it’s just for today.