How Are You Holding Up?
His baggage made it to the carousel just before midnight. Standing in the car rental office (empty, muted TV/VCR combo) by 12:20. He had left Los Angeles in Technicolor sunshine and was not prepared for the moonscape of the parking lot, stillness under white streetlights.
Five minutes to figure out the car. He knew there was no actual key for this thing—just a smooth plastic egg of a fob—but then what? The attendant had gestured vaguely before jogging back inside.
It turned out you started the damn thing by pushing a button. Like some sort of toy.
Finally out on the Toll Road, he let the engine open up toward the city, anxious to get settled but unsure about sleep. The muscle memory of local driving kicked in—when to begin merging left, just how fast to take the cloverleaf off-ramp for 66. It all arose mechanically when needed.
He was relieved that not too much had changed in this part of town. Although the row houses and stout office buildings remained the same, he noticed the bold lettering on the street signs (VIRGINIA AVE NW, MASSACHUSETTS AVE NW, et al) had been replaced with smaller mixed-case type. It didn’t seem right. Details off in a dream.
Something about it felt cushioned. Sapped.
(Class trip to the National Zoo. 1991 or so. Everyone wearing fluorescent colors. Wandering off, further down the slope. Reaching the perimeter of the grounds. Watching an emaciated wolf pacing his chain-link enclosure. Head down, walking back and forth. Back and forth. Vacant stare. Something inherently not right. A violation of spirit. Heartbreaking if he thought about it too long, so he didn’t.)
After a series of turns, purely reflexive, he reached a stoplight near Dupont Circle.
The drive from Dulles was largely solitary but here, streets teemed with cars. Ubers idled, murmuring exhaust, taking in stumbling passengers. Smudgy crowds wavered in silhouette behind the fogged plate glass of bar windows. When did this area become hip again? He contemplated parking, stopping in somewhere for a glass of wine.
But that was the old behavior. Impulsive and precarious. One glass of wine could be the original plan. What if, however, a woman sat beside him? What if someone mentioned any number of promising topics: area housing prices, which airline had the best domestic First Class, who really bungled the O.J. Simpson trial? Anything could get the snowball rolling.
Memories of being the last at the bar, head hung, kept him driving onward.
(A night around here in 1998, springtime. Had just finished AP exams. Endless promise. When it was still a mostly gay neighborhood, a decade past its prime. All those athletic bodies mingling during the Reagan era long dead. The city had molded slowly for many years but there was an air of hope. He and Sean slurping away at watery rum and Cokes, too naive to order something more discerning. Too oblivious to realize they were in one of the last good meat markets, that every guy in the place was giving them a skeptical once-over. Just trying to get drunk as fast as possible. Plotting about girls. Burning through a shared pack of Parliament Lights. Laughing.)
He felt a piercing sensation turning onto his childhood street. Seeing it unfurl toward the darkness of Rock Creek Park. Like a family member, really. He had considered getting its name tattooed, perhaps on his lower leg. Drunk thoughts in the early part of a session, when nostalgia and goodwill overwhelm. There was a new home, near the corner at Linnean Avenue, very boxy and made with what looked like composite materials. Like something you’d buy from IKEA if they sold houses. Otherwise, everything else appeared reassuringly intact.
When to apply the brake and just how much came naturally. Just enough slow-down so as not to scrape the undercarriage. Onto the driveway, the crunch of gravel exactly as he’d remembered it—just the first rumbles and it was unmistakable where he was. Like notes, a song known by heart all his life.
It made him smile instinctively before the reality of the present came sweeping back.
Just him for the time being. The other arrivals would be scattered, some could only get tickets that involved inconvenient connections through Dallas or Chicago or Charlotte. One was coming from London.
It won’t feel right, sleeping there alone, he thought. Should have gotten a hotel. Should have bought a bottle of whiskey. Well, all of the places were closed at this hour. It wasn’t like Los Angeles, where he could pop into Walgreens at midnight for a handle of Chivas Regal.
That had gotten him into trouble too many times. The ease of it all.
He parked the silver sedan by the turn-in, under the leaning basketball hoop (last used during the Clinton presidency) and was surprised but not entirely bothered to find the front door unlocked.
Seventy emails and two pots of coffee later, day faded in. Still not tired. Still on Pacific time, body clock assuming another late night. Morning light slinked down the drywall, pale and thin like a woman’s slip.
He always enjoyed this time, an opposite Magic Hour. Stillness, silence, soft beauty. LinkedIn gurus touted it as the most productive part of the day. But in LA, it lacked this serenity. He would already be hearing traffic helicopters, the swishing of cars on the 10, distant wails of ambulance sirens.
Here was different. In the stillness, one could picture primordial Washington, mid-Atlantic swampland that existed for eons before government took root. Endless forests and sudden cliffs, gorges bottomed with millions of dead leaves.
He stepped carefully into the dewy grass of the backyard, the feeling on bare feet at once reminiscent and yet mildly repulsive, as if this were something he’d abandoned years prior, a bad habit he’d vowed long ago to break.
Distant snoring as a truck downshifted on Connecticut Avenue. Who else is awake, he wondered. He remembered a saying, “every morning is a gift,” and felt his heart sink. His mother would have no more bright mornings.
(Lunchtime, 1992. Nascent independence. Walking to a friend’s house. More instinctive navigation: off the bus onto Georgia Avenue, crossing quickly at the light, up past the liquor store to make a left onto Shepherd Street, two long blocks to go. Always staying on the left side. The left side just felt safer.
It had been a bright, hot day. A Saturday. Endless promise. People crowded the avenue window-shopping or standing around in no hurry. Little boys broke out of small clusters to play-fight in sudden bursts. Overdressed old ladies, decades behind it all, ambled along. Confused at what everything had become. Cars glided by spewing the carnival sounds of Go-Go. Everything felt a few degrees short of melting.
Nervous, he’d been eager to make it to the familiar burgundy front door. A kid in math class had been jumped just blocks from here. Stomped him out, no reason. Had his jaw wired shut for three months. Made a joke in the sun-dappled cafeteria about finally appreciating straws, or something like that. The only memory of that particular classmate. Couldn’t even place his name.
At the corner of Kansas Avenue and Shepherd, he hadn’t looked both ways. Stepped into the street and almost immediately collided with a long, black sedan.
The driver seemed distant yet close enough to note the details: young, muscular, wavy Caesar. Gold earring. Looking him over as if inspecting something in a jewelry case. Slow motion. Raising the gun (matte, black) milliseconds from aligning it with his forehead.
But something benevolent had clicked into place. Chuckling, he placed the gun into the center console, mouthed something under his breath, took one last hard stare. Drove off.)
He walked over to a small grove of desiccated ferns, straw-colored and hanging limply. The bricks lining the planter had lost alignment over the years, jutted out, crooked and uneven. There was a funk to the air here as if the dirt itself were awakening. He had played so often in this yard, its simple geography committed to memory. When you’re lower to the ground, not everything seems imposing and vast. There could be a surprising intimacy to the most mundane places.
Perking up at the sudden crunch of gravel, he knew it could only be her.
The Volvo’s daytime running lights wobbled up the drive, the station wagon looking like some sort of modern toaster oven on wheels.
Their embrace was rigid, terrible. Like an attorney saying goodbye in a prison visiting room. But the feeling of another human body helped here, injected life into what otherwise felt trapped under glass.
“You get in alright?”
“Yeah, fine.”
“How was the flight?”
“Fine. Empty.”
“I want you to know...” She seemed to almost squint, looking up at him.
“You don’t need to—”
“Yes. Sorry.” She touched his arm.
“I appreciate you being here.”
They walked to her car, she clicked the trunk open. Soon they transitioned into the small talk that had become their routine these days, these months, these years—but it was a welcome digression.
“And Jessie is… still in LA.” Flat intonation. She’d always had a clinical way of addressing the more delicate questions. It sounded like a vet asking about the cat’s pissing problem.
“She’s still in LA. Moving to Seattle in a month, I think. They are.”
Clinical nods.
“She’s pregnant, you know? Five months. I don’t know if you saw on Facebook, or if you two are even—”
“Wow.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Not exactly great timing. I mean, it’s not… Not great timing to learn something like that now. Obviously she should be thrilled.”
She took her roll-aboard from his hand eagerly, waving him off.
“How does that… How are you holding up?” That question. Sure to come again and again and again in the coming days.
He looked up and off, as if tracking an imaginary flock.
“It is what it is, you know?” There was a weariness he’d hoped wouldn’t come through. “What can you do about it?” A long pause and he felt as if something beside his brain were feeding him the words. “About any of it.”
“Boy or a girl?”
“Janie,” exasperated. “Why would I—”
“Nope. You’re right. Sorry. Withdrawn.”
They kept walking, toward the birdbath, where the birdbath would have been, now a jagged stump of fractured concrete.
“That was dumb of me,” she said quietly.
The morning sky was blue now, clear. Beautiful. It promised the warmth of a spring afternoon, the kind where everyone in the region went out for lunch, where everyone seemed in a good mood. You could sit back in a restaurant and soak in the polite roar of all the pleasant conversations. Everyone knew winter was over and summer would be full of barbecues, pool parties, Nats games, livelihood.
He made another pot of coffee and they sat at the Formica center island. She tapped on her phone, shook her head while reading something. He stared at a sliver of sunlight on the stand mixer.
Still life.
“If I make partner, then we’re stuck here for sure. Which, I’m beginning to realize, might not be such a bad thing. Oh, look at this asshole emailing me already about this.”
She looked the same as the night they had met, age 13. Same hair, same eyes: clear and bright, light blue, lighter than he always remembered. He found it difficult to listen, though. All of this—all of what was ahead—would require robotic detachment. Better to start practicing.
“Have you eaten?” He half-stood, turning toward the fridge.
“No, I’m not particularly hungry.”
He tried to place the last time they’d eaten together.
“Well, just let me know. I can always rustle something up.” He produced a fake chuckle the worst television actor wouldn’t commit.
She turned on her stool, inflated suddenly, as if remembering a million dollars stashed somewhere. So forced. “Remember in Charlottesville when we used to hit that stupid neon yellow bong and watch the morning news before class? That was like this time of day. Man… God. That was carefree. Although I can’t believe I did all that crap. Seems like ancient history.”
He remembered. Smoke curling through morning sunlight. Birds chirping beyond the sliding patio door.
Endless promise.
“Yeah, I do.” He mustered a smile but felt made of clay.
Those had been nice mornings. But the memory was too distant to provide any suitable warmth.
He wanted to open a bottle of wine, get things started. Attack this day head-on. Old ways of thinking. Course correction. Sometimes the instincts rose to the surface so quickly.
‘The thing about it is,’ he thought. An old coworker used to say this before nearly every sentence. He loved recalling it, the sing-song, Southern twang every time the guy would utter it.
‘The thing about it is,’ he repeated to himself and then paused before completing the thought. ‘Everything gets easier one glass in.’
They sank into the cream-colored sofa. A polite distance apart. Four remotes. It was a guessing game. He examined the faded buttons as she stared into her iPhone.
He had just mistakenly powered on the DVD player when he heard the groaning yawn.
Of course Sean was here. Of course.
He marched down the hall and pushed the guest bedroom door slowly. The dark blue duvet flopped forward.
A hand came up and held in the air. Of course Sean would be here first. Always first, even in this.
They stared for a moment at each other. Sean still looked so much like his 90s self. Like a late-teen movie star. Maybe the strong jawline had lost a little definition. Maybe some wear and tear under the bottom eyelids. Nothing noticeable. Uncanny. As if none of this were real, just another dream with the details rearranged.
His best friend had been letting himself in, making himself at home, since childhood. Probably around Fourth Grade. That was the summer Sean’s Georgetown professor father ran off with a grad student. It was a sleepover every weekend. His mother told him that Sean needed a little stability while his folks worked some difficult stuff out. He remembered a wiry kid in a YMCA t-shirt, crying as a tan BMW backed down the gravel drive one Friday evening. Bawling, heaving. The memory stuck vividly. It probably always would. They had never, ever talked about it. Contemporary Sean was now heavily tattooed, full sleeves of kaleidoscopic, muted colors from shoulder to wrist. That was a difference that confirmed the here and now.
“When did you get in?”
“Last night. Is it just you?”
“Yeah. No, Janie’s here. She just got here.”
He waited to see what response this would get. Nothing telling. Sean leaned on one elbow and looked around the room, blinking. He stood by the bedside, silent, waiting for the inevitable ‘how are you holding up?’
“Did you make any coffee?”
“Yeah, fresh pot.”
They stared at each other. Sean stretched out both inked arms.
“Well, come give me a fucking hug, man. How are you holding up?”
He leaned down. It didn’t feel forced this time. There was a nice, genuine warmth. Like family.
The first syllable of small talk rose to his lips but she burst past, a comet of Ann Taylor and shrieking surprise. Collapsing onto the bedspread, the two hugged tightly and kissed each other’s cheeks.
“Oh my God! How long have you been here?”
“I got in last night and came straight over.”
“How is the band? Didn’t you guys just get back from somewhere crazy?”
“Australia and New Zealand, yeah.”
Smiling at this reunion through clenched teeth.
“I’ll let you two catch up.” He turned to leave, confident neither had heard.
The sunlight gilded the treetops as he paced the yard. In the chill of morning, he realized he’d neglected to bring a jacket for the trip. It was only a few weeks into spring and the nights would still be cold. The trees remained barren but soon everything would be green. Shocking amounts of foliage. Entire neighborhoods disappeared under leafy canopies. In time, the heat would stifle and bake the long days from sunrise to beyond dinnertime. Nights would sag with humidity, mosquitoes plaguing patios, moths in frenzies under every porch light.
He walked to the perimeter fence, placed a hand on a splintered picket. There was as much uncertainty ahead as he’d ever dealt with. Many important decisions would have to be made in the coming days, weeks, months. Completely new territory but there’d been a lot of that these past couple years.
As he walked along crunching over twigs and dirt, he couldn’t help but keep his ears perked. A small snatch of a moan, maybe. That particular frequency that pierces through.
Any moment now, he thought. Those two have something, a particular situation. God knows who initiated it first? It was so long ago. He remembered the many house parties, always noticing when they crept up the stairs, one trailing the other, hand in hand. Their classmates oblivious, a loud roil of foamy beer, laughter, thudding stereo bass. But he always noticed.
They never lose that primal connection, two like that, he decided. It was always possible they could fall back in. Just give them a room.
He wouldn’t put it past them. Even knowing he was out here, politely waiting. Even during all of this.
But they were no longer young people drunk on Bud Light at house parties, he reasoned. They were speeding toward middle age: homeowners, taxpayers, alumni, leaders.
Pacing. On display. Like that wolf at the National Zoo.
He turned back to the house, determined to prove himself right. Even if he caught them, what would that mean? What would it change? What constituted indignity or offense?
A small, buzzing insect landed on his cheek. He went still. Absolutely no movement, just measured breath. Waited for it to take off, knowing since boyhood that patience was the only solution in a situation like this. Under the bright morning sky, he stood dutifully.
A moment later, he resolved to just keep walking. To get back inside and get on with all of this.
Sometimes if you stand perfectly still, he remembered from experience, they end up stinging you anyway.