Page 80 of Life Out of Order

“Would you like something to drink?” she asks me.

“Sure. What have you got?”

“Is it too early for wine?”

I shake my head no and smile. “That sounds good.”

Clare says, “Back in a sec,” and walks out the studio door, leaving it open. In the sunshine her red hair is like fire cascading from her head all down her spine. I can see her cross the backyard, walk into the back door of the house, open the fridge and crisscross the kitchen a few times. Then she’s returning with a tray in her hands. She comes in, sets the tray on a little table next to me, uncorks the wine and pours each of us a glass. Clare sits next to me, and we clink glasses and drink in silence for a few minutes.

Most people find it difficult to be in a room and not rush to fill the quiet with talking. When I first sat with Clare in the Ando Gallery I remember thinking how pleasant it was to abide there with her without speaking. As a Quaker, I have always found quiet very restorative; I crave it. There are so many ideas, prayers, emotions and intentions that vibrate more strongly in a quiet room. Now, sitting together here in Clare’s bright little office, sipping cold white wine, after the strange darkness full of mechanical birds, I feel exhilarated. Clare waits for me to gather my thoughts.

“What was that?” I ask her. “I know it has a name, but I can’t quite remember it.”

“It’s a murmuration,” Clare tells me. “This is what it looks like when you aren’t standing in the midst of it.” She retrieves her phone from the drawing table and taps at it. I notice that she types with one index finger, which endears her to me for some reason—usually I find this irritating. Clare hands me the phone. There are some treetops and a lot of sky. Then a swarm of black specks rise up from the trees, forming a diffuse, dark cloud that coalesces into an oval, then a cone, a mushroom . . . I know these are individual birds, but the flock shifts shape so quickly and surely that it seems to be one creature, perhaps a creature of pure geometry, flexing and inverting itself as though constantly changing its mind in mid-thought, midair.

“Why do they do it?” I ask Clare as I hand back her phone.

“Probably there is a predator, maybe a hawk. There’s a whole scientific discipline, flocking behavior, that tries to explain it,” Clare says.

“Why are you making a murmuration?”

“That’s how I’ve been feeling for a long while now,” Clare says. “For the longest time I couldn’t settle—I felt as though I was being harried by something I couldn’t see. I wanted to stand in the center of the thing, to be in the eye of a storm of birds.”

“It’s not very calming, though; it reminds me of those VR environments where you’re standing on top of nothingness in outer space.”

Clare says, “I wasn’t trying to make people feel calm. I wanted to take my blackness and externalize it—I wanted to put it where other people could see it.”

“Hmm. Speaking as someone whose Blackness is on display all the time, are you sure you want to do that?” I mean it as a joke but Clare turns bright red and stares at her lap. “Hey, I didn’t mean anything by that. Don’t worry.” She looks up at me and there is an expression of such worry and vulnerability and naked longing on her face that I reach over and take her hand. Her fingers curl around mine. We sit still, touching hands, looking into each other’s eyes. I feel strange, as though I’ve just seen my soul in a mirror. Clare tilts her head slightly to the left. I tilt mine to the right. She smiles. I place my wineglass on the floor and she does the same. We scoot closer together on the sofa. And then we kiss and I feel I have found my heart’s companion after a long empty time alone.

We sit up, smile shyly at each other’s surprise, adjust clothing. Clare says, “Oh, my,” and I say, “Yeah, I know.” She says, “Should I top up your glass?” I hold it steady as she pours. Clare says, “I don’t usually—” just as I say, “I’ve never—” and we both stop and start again: “Don’t get me wrong—” and “Not that I’m not cool with it—” and then we both fall quiet and Clare says, “Let’s do that again,” and we do.

I stay for another hour, until Clare says, “Ohmygod, the time! I have to pick up Alba, she’s at her grandfather’s having a lesson and he gets crabby if I’m late.”

We walk to our cars together. As I lean in to kiss her goodbye I wonder can I kiss her in public—I hesitate; Clare seems to have the same thought. She says, “I guess we’ll have to figure some things out.” She embraces me and I manage to land a kiss near her ear, leaving a dark red lipstick smear on her cheek. I wipe it off with my fingers and somehow this is the most intimate thing yet; a wild hopefulness befuddles me and I mumble something and walk away.

Clare calls after me, “I’ll phone you tonight!”

I turn and say, “Yes!” with a big smile and we both get into our cars. I watch her in my rearview mirror as she drives away and wonder what I should do with myself in the blank hours until she calls and this is how we begin.

Celia Says

Thursday, April 15, 2010 (Clare is 38, Celia is 47)

Clare: I’m having lunch with Celia Attley at Heaven on Seven, a former cafeteria turned Cajun restaurant on the seventh floor of the Garland Building, near Celia’s office on Wabash. Even though Mardi Gras was two months ago and Easter has come and gone, shiny bead necklaces hang from all the light fixtures. There are so many kinds of hot sauce on the table there’s hardly room for place mats. The room is crowded with tourists and workers, and Celia and I have to shout-talk at each other to be heard. Celia just received her LSW, and she is now licensed in the State of Illinois to practice as a social worker, so we are here to celebrate. The waitress opens the champagne I’ve brought, and we toast Celia’s new status as an official force for the good of Chicago’s children.

“To the next Jane Addams,” I say as we touch glasses.

Celia looks dubious. “I dunno, I’m getting a pretty late start. Though we are both lesbians with back problems, so there’s that.”

I’m not used to seeing Celia in what she calls her “grown-ass woman clothes,” but even when dressed in a navy-blue suit and white silk blouse, she still has touches of her old flamboyant style: her earrings are miniature plastic parrots. We eat gumbo and trade gossip. The place becomes quieter as the lunch crowd leaves. Celia seems to know more than I’ve told her about my recent encounters with Beck, even though Celia’s only met Beck once, at Charisse’s birthday party last week.

Celia says, “Why her? Why not me?”

“Why not you what?” I say, though I know what she’s asking.

“Why are you in love with that Becky Charles? I’m the one who’s been waiting for you all this time.”

“I’m not in love with Beck.”