The Minor Planets
Disclaimer: Two italics and most quotes are from The Path of Minor Planets, by Andrew Sean Greer. (Highly recommended book, but there are minor plot spoilers in this story.) The three-line llama/literary man quote is by Hillare Belloc. And obviously, I don't really own the title.
A/N: Yeah. Random. One shot. Italics that aren't quotes are "Jess's" writing (it should be clear which is which, I think), and the last line is not one of mine, by the way. Feedback is always very much appreciated!
For Elise, Christie, Leigh, Jin, and Mai. Thank you all for different reasons. ((hugs))
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What's the definition of being in love? he writes.
He erases stray pencil marks and flips through the first chapter again. The tiny margins irritate him, as if they are purposely resisting his thoughts. Who cares what he could think.
"You finished it already?" She doesn't wait for his answer, for any response. "I know…I should have…there hasn't been enough time."
He knows this. He knows, because of how lately, she simply falls asleep in his arms, as they lie in bed, even when he kisses her neck and gently rubs her arm and wants her. He knows, because she doesn't peek over his shoulder anymore to take a few minutes to see what he's writing in her books, and he sees that his own observations (along with life itself) are starting to make less and less sense. They're a blurry, muddled mess in what he likes to call his mind. He knows, because she leans against the kitchen counter, absorbed in the first pages of the book they coincidentally both bought. The corner is digging into her back, one ankle lazily crossed over the other, and though she looks uncomfortable, the expression on her face is one of relief.
A breath of fresh air from all the work (work: something tedious and boring) she does. (He doesn't.)
"'She wished, at times, that she had been born with a duller mind,'" Rory reads aloud. Jess looks up, startled at the reminder of the consistency of their thoughts.
He writes it all down, what he thinks, on paper and pages that will soon be tossed aside; nothing ever comes of it. Her, she simply tells him—and tells others—what she's thinking. Perhaps it is this that makes them different. She needs him to know her. But she knows him only because she needs, for herself, to know him just as well, and (only for her) he is sometimes willing to share.
"'This blundered love affair, for instance; her brain tugged at it relentlessly, a dog with a rag,'" she continues.
Is this supposed to be what everybody thinks when s/he gets hurt? He writes more carelessly than usual. His sharp curves and dark lines aren't exactly beside the section of the page he is referring to.
She'll notice, when she reads this later. Or maybe she won't.
"This is beautiful," she comments.
He grows frustrated with the fact that he can write nothing but occasional ideas, things in the (far too small) margins of books, born purely from sudden inspiration (if it can be called that) than from any special intelligence that, by the way, he knows he has.
And others… He turns the book over, glancing at the author's picture. This guy must be barely his own age.
Some of us are luckier than others.
He changes the subject.
"How much do we owe this month?" he asks her. He is her grounder as well as her pilot. He lets her dream; he draws her back to earth when he gets lost and thinks he'd like her with him.
She doesn't tend to like this, though. She likes to be alone more than she'll admit.
"God, Jess." She gets up and moves to sit on the opposite couch. "One hour of no real life? Please?"
She has too much of it (real life); he has too little, and for them, a balance borders impossible.
"Whatever it fucking is we owe," he bites off, "I have none of it."
"I know you don't!"
It's easy for her to say. Easy to admit that her fiancé does not support them, the two of them. She works, she tires, and she barely has time for passion in any form. Slowly, the fuel dissipates from their engagement—perhaps this marriage is one that will never happen. He hasn't kissed her in days, he realizes. He misses the taste of her, but he tries to convince himself he doesn't want it.
"'The llama is a woolly sort of fleecy hairy goat,'" she quotes, with a hint of a smile.
He wonders where they'll be, soon enough. They are already in a state of carelessness. Already!
If only he had known. When he broke his promise never to be tied down, when he asked her to marry him. If only he'd known!
She returns to her book, squirming in the quiet. "'We strain to hear the future, she would later think; we are deaf to it,'" she reads.
She obviously cannot give up.
She's desperate for a discussion, and he's not (repeat, not) going to give her one.
He opens his own copy of A Path of Minor Planets, turning almost instinctively to the same page. He skims down it, more quickly than even she can, but his eye catches a sentence further down.
"Denise," Kathy said. "It's solved. I have a new man for you."
Is Kathy…Lane? Is she Lorelai, could she be Paris? (In all honestly, she doesn't fit any of the three.) Why is it that books always seem to refer to them, themselves? Why can't they just be the stories that they are?
He could take comfort in knowing that this "new man" will eventually fade out and disappear from Denise's life. He will leave a mark on others' lives, but not on hers, not so much. While The Guy, the original guy; it is his thought that makes up the last sentence of the book.
The last sentence, though: he still can't decide if it's meant to be a happy ending.
In the story, though, all in the story.
It's always a story, nothing but; flat, blank, dry letters on a sheet of paper.
A story that is begun and never finished. That's written too quickly and read over and subsequently thrown away, banished to the recycle bin, or at least to the back of Jess's My Documents.
She moves toward him awkwardly. "Did you like it?"
The book, she means.
"Yeah."
"Do you think I will?"
"Don't you?"
She shrugs. "But sometimes, I love the beginning…and then…it gets disappointing," she says plaintively.
"It doesn't," he says shortly. He is acutely aware of her, there, right there. He knows her small, pale hand that is creeping across the empty space between them to land on his arm (which is still writing furiously in the margins, nonsense things, as a method of distraction from her. This, she will likely notice later). He knows her trembling lip and glistening eyes that he has so often met with his own, forgetting that it is only in their own little unreality where the two of them are honest equals.
He knows the tears on her cheeks, not there now, but that she hides unsuccessfully so often when everything (so often) begins to look hopeless. He knows the bitter, salty taste of blood in his mouth when he has to tell her, yet again, he hasn't done anything worthwhile.
He thinks it's ridiculously ironic that he who spent years ducking out of notice, from everyone but her, is now fighting (and losing) to get his name in print, or at least his words.
So he can be handed back numbers (numbers!) for his trouble, numbers represented in crisp clean bills that he can share with her; pay off the debt that is the tiny silver band on her middle finger, the one that took eons of torture to pick out. (He's no jewelry guy but she's told him she likes that.)
Her hand tightening on his arm releases him from all his thoughts, but he's not ready to succumb to her allure just yet.
Not now.
She rests her head on his shoulder. "You okay?"
"'And everyone was shouting as they saw the island. They had no wish to know the future,'" he says.
She makes a face at him. "I'm not there yet."
"You still wanna know the future?" He smirks, jerking himself out of the introspective state engagement seems to have invented in him.
"I meant, in the book."
This could all be literal or figurative, he writes in his mind's margin, for later insertion on that page of the book, next to that sentence.
Her face grows serious. She moves, so she's looking directly into his eyes. "Yes, I do. I want to know the future."
He nods. "Okay." She moves closer to him again and he lets her; she runs her hands up and down the back of his frayed jacket.
"You need a new one," she murmurs, teasing. (Numbers! he thinks, annoyed.) "But then, I get this one." She grins.
"Think what you like."
She sighs.
"'The llama is a woolly sort of fleecy hairy goat…'" she repeats.
"'With an indolent expression and an undulating throat,'" he continues, kissing her. "Those crazy English people."
"Crazy," she agrees, softly. "I thought he was French?"
"English. With a curious affinity for rhyme." He unzips her sweater. "Insane." Rory smiles.
"'Like an unsuccessful literary man,'" she finishes.
He waits for the blood to appear in his mouth, when he bites back the anger and his tongue gets in the way. (Rory is a barrier for his frustration, and in his mouth is where it stays until she kisses it away. She tastes it, but she understands, though she never tells him so.)
He licks his lips and kisses her again and tries to feel bitter, and waits.
It doesn't come.
…
She awakens earlier than he does, her face still pressed into his arm, and she tries to lean over without disturbing him. His copy of the book is sitting on the bedside table, still in what could almost be called good condition; he must not be finished with it yet.
She picks it up. Not much is written inside, but the pages he's noticed for some reason have been marked with a slash of pen. Some page near the back is folded over (what, he never dog-ears books!).
Ignoring her own penchant for not knowing the end till she's read up to it, she opens it there.
And she sees what he means, and she knows (knows him), and she agrees, and she melts.
He surreptitiously opens one eye, sees what she's doing, and closes it again.
She'll understand.
I knew you would read this, and I wanted to tell you what I never could say somehow… that you're my life's great love.