Page 84 of Atmosphere

“You’ve never wanted to…” Joan asked. “Introduce someone to your mother?”

Vanessa scoffed.“No.”

“Well, certainly you’ve met an old girlfriend’s family…”

Vanessa considered the question. “I’m not really sure I’ve ever called someone my girlfriend. It feels…like something people do in high school?”

“Right,” Joan said, unable to look at her. She nodded. “Sure.”

“I mean, I’ve…” Vanessa sighed. “I’ve just always had relationships like what we have now. I never pictured myself as someonewho meets somebody’s niece. It’s not like we’re in a situation where I can come to a Sunday dinner and try to win over your family.”

“I know that,” Joan said, her jaw tight. But she wasn’t sure if she did know that.

“But,” Vanessa said. “I’ve also never felt about someone the way I feel about you.”

Joan tried to hold back a smile. Vanessa could melt her so swiftly.

“I’m not asking you to meet Barbara,” Joan said, finally. “Or my parents. I know that is different. But I have a life, and there are parts of it I want to share with you. Don’t act like that makes me cuckoo.”

Vanessa smiled and closed the space between them, putting her hands on the counter on either side of Joan. “Am I acting like you’re cuckoo?”

Joan laughed and dodged Vanessa’s kiss. “A little!”

Vanessa missed Joan’s mouth and kissed her neck instead. “Well, I don’t think you’re cuckoo,” she said.

“So you’ll meet Frances at some point,” Joan said, giving a firm nod. “Wonderful.”

Vanessa laughed and pressed herself against Joan’s body. She buried her face by Joan’s ear.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Joan said. “Just because you’re chickening out doesn’t mean I don’t still have to go.” She kissed Vanessa on the mouth. “I’m getting dressed and leaving, and you will just have to miss me.”

Vanessa hung her head and groaned, as if it physically pained her for Joan to leave. “Can’t you stay five minutes longer? Please?”

“No,” Joan said. She could not wipe the smile off her face.

Winter 1982

It was eleven o’clock atnight and Vanessa and Joan were at Joan’s apartment, lying on the floor, listening to records. Tonight, Vanessa said, was about Joan learning to fall in love with David Bowie.

“If you love me, you have to love this one thing I love,” Vanessa said. “I can’t be flexible about it at all.”

“I told you I likeHunky Dory.”

“Of course you likeHunky Dory! I couldn’t be with a woman who didn’t likeHunky Dory! But you still have a lot to learn. Starting with the entire Berlin Trilogy.”

Joan laughed. “Okay, but I didn’t act this way when you told me you’d never listened toLadies of the Canyon.”

“And I listened to every Joni Mitchell album you have, did I not?”

Joan nodded. “Yes, you did. Go ahead and play it.”

“Thank you.”

This was how they spent a lot of their nights together—with an ease and comfort Joan had never known alongside another person.

Whether they were seeing one of Vanessa’s favorite black-and-white movies at an old theater miles outside of town, or the two ofthem were reading their books together on the couch, or Joan had convinced Vanessa to watch the evening news with her, it was always with a peacefulness that Joan had never experienced.

It was late January, and they had been together for almost six months, but Joan didn’t want to mention it. She didn’t want to feel like she was counting the days, even though she was. And she didn’t want to feel like this could ever end, even though she understood that some love affairs did. Or, rather, that all of them did, eventually. Just the act of falling in love was to agree to a broken heart.

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