Philip Shelley

I didn’t see Willett again for over a year. Then one September afternoon I was walking through Washington Square and there she was: sitting on a bench on the eastern edge of the park, reading a paperback and smoking a cigarette. She had on a light blue skirt and white top, with a cashmere cardigan that matched the skirt. Her hair was held back with a white plastic headband and at her feet were two or three large Barney's shopping bags. I almost didn’t recognize her as I walked by because she was wearing eyeglasses—a very stylish pair with cat’s eye frames. Except for maybe sunglasses, I had never seen Willett with glasses before. An old-lady chain was attached to the two earpieces; it dangled behind her head and around her neck.

I stopped in front of the bench, standing over her. “Since when do you wear glasses?” I asked.

Willett looked up from her reading and squinted into the sun. “I was wondering when you were going to turn up,” she said.

“I guess the time is now. What’s going on?”

She closed her book and patted the bench. I sat down beside her.

“Not much,” she said with a half-shrug. “A little shopping, a little reading. Dave will be coming home from New Haven tonight. I’m thinking about actually cooking him dinner.”

“Aren’t you a good little housewife.”

“Not really.”

She took a last drag from her cigarette and flicked the butt onto the paved walkway.

“So how’s it going?” I asked.

“You mean with Dave? I don’t know,” said Willett. “I keep trying to be good: I cut way back on the drinking, and I got a regular job doing publicity at the Public, and I’m really trying to be supportive, you know? I go to all his stupid stuff and look nice and smile at everybody and don’t make a scene. But something always comes up. Like this summer, I got drunk and fucked my yoga instructor, and Dave got all bent out of shape about it. He’s very jealous!”

“I hate to take his side, but that’s kind of understandable.”

“Yeah, but can’t he see how hard I’ve been trying? I don’t see him fucking trying.”

“I don’t understand your marriage. Why don’t you just leave him already?”

“No, you don’t get it…”

“That’s what I just said.”

“Dave’s like…like he could never be mean to me, you know? No matter what I do, I’m pretty sure he’ll always take care of me.”

“What’s the point of that?” I asked.

“Nobody’s upside is worth their downside,” she said.

“What does that even mean?”

“It means giving your heart to another person is a losing proposition. The thing to do is to find a manageable situation from which to operate. Preferably someone reasonably good-looking so you can stand having them slobber all over you…a little money doesn’t hurt…a decent amount of ambition…”

“That is so fucking superficial,” I said.

“Please,” said Willett, “It’s exactly the opposite.”

“How?” I asked.

“Michael. If you put your faith in something, you will be disappointed. If you give your heart to something, you will be devastated. That’s the way it works. These are inevitabilities.“

I realized that I had been listening to her rather blithely, simply enjoying, as I always did, her physical presence and the sound of her voice. But suddenly the meaning of her words leapt out at me and I felt indignant. What she was saying couldn’t be true, could it? I wanted to argue, “What about us?” But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. The more I thought about it, the more I had to admit that I agreed with her.

“Give me a cigarette,” I said.

Willett shook out two cigarettes, lit them both simultaneously, and then stuck one of the lit cigarettes in my mouth. We watched little kids running around in the fenced-off playground across from the bench. I picked up the book Willett had been reading, The Death of Adam by Marilynne Robinson, and regarded the cover.

“How is it?” I asked.

“Essays,” said Willett. “Nonfiction.”

“About the Bible?”

“Not really…”

“What then?”

“I’m not finished yet or anything, but I think it’s about not accepting received wisdom. You know, like, if a million people all think the same thing, that’s not a reason to believe it. That’s a reason to be skeptical. You have to grapple with the thing itself and make up your own mind.”

“Grapple with what thing?” I asked, flipping through the pages.

“Well, she goes through all these culturally foundational texts that no one reads anymore, and we think we know what they mean, you know, as a society, but if you actually go and read them, maybe you find out they say something completely different.”

“Like which texts?”

“I dunno. She does Darwin, Calvin…” Willett trailed off. She removed her glasses and let them drop onto her chest. The top two buttons of her blouse were undone, and I could see the dip of her collar bone.

“How do you deal with the past?” she said, abruptly changing her tack. “With memory, I mean. Collective memories. Personal memories. I guess that’s really what it’s about. So much of what we take for evidence of the past is just a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox. Who even knows what we’re looking at?”

She tapped her ash, then, smiling, looked right at me. “Sometimes I think I would take a pliers and hack out my own brain if it would give me a moment’s peace.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I laughed. We both leaned forward, elbows on our knees, and directed our attention to the ground. Then Willett picked up her head again.

“Besides,” she said, “it’s not like you’re some paragon of depth.”

“What?” I said.

“I know the girls you hang out with. Margaret? You really think you’d have spent a year and a half with Margaret fucking Callaghan if she didn’t look like that? And what about me, Michael? You keep hanging around with me because of my winning personality?”

-Philip Shelley