We had time for protein snacks at the Energy Stand at the front of the store when Anna left for the restroom.
“What’s it like?” MDash asked.
“What’s what like?” I said.
“You and Anna. Sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”
“You holding up?” Steve Wong asked. “You look exhausted.”
“Well, I did just go faux skydiving.”
MDash threw his uneaten half of a protein bar in the trash. “I used to look at you and think, That guy has figured it all out. He has his sweet little house with a nice backyard, he doesn’t work for anyone but his own self. He could throw away his watch because he never has to be anywhere. To me, you were the America I hope to live in. Now, you kowtow to a boss lady. Alas.”
“Really?” I said. “Alas?”
“Tell him that proverb you told me,” Steve said.
“Something else the village shaman taught you?” I wondered.
“Actually, the village English teacher,” MDash said. “To circle the globe, a ship needs only a sail, a wheel, a compass, and a clock.”
“Wise words in a landlocked nation,” I said. MDash grew up in the sub-Sahara.
“Anna is the compass,” MDash explained. “You are the clock, but you keeping time with her means you’ve become unwound. Your hands are right only twice a day. We’ll never know our longitude.”
“Are you sure Anna isn’t the sail?” I said. “Why can’t I be the wheel and Steve be the compass? I don’t follow this analogy.”
“Let me put this into a language you can understand,” Steve said. “We are like a TV show with diversity casting. African guy, him. Asian guy, me. Mongrel Caucasoid, you. Strong, determined woman, Anna, who would never let a man define her. You and her pairing off is like a story line from season eleven when the network is trying to keep us on the air.”
I looked at MDash. “Are you getting this pop culture metaphor?”
“The gist of it. I have cable.”
“The four of us,” Steve explained, “are a perfect square. You taking to the sheets with Anna is going to misalign our geometry.”
“How?”
“She makes things happen in our lives. Look at us. It’s nearly midnight and we’ve been dangling and rowing and parachuting indoors. Stuff I’d never do on a school night. She’s our catalyst.”
“You’ve used sailboats, TV shows, geometry, and chemistry to point out why I shouldn’t see Anna. And I still don’t buy it.”
“I predict tears,” MDash said. “For you, for Anna, for all of us. Tears shooting out of our eyes.”
“Look,” I said, pushing away a protein brownie that actually tasted like a brownie. “One of these things is going to happen between me and my girlfriend. Yes, girlfriend.” I stole a look at Anna. She was far away chatting with an employee at a counter with a sign over it saying, INVEST IN ADVENTURE! “One. We get married, have kids, and you are their godfathers. Two. We break up in a public display of hurt feelings and recriminations. Both of you will have to choose sides: remain pals with me or go against the established rules of gender and stay friends with the woman. Three. She meets some other guy and dumps me. I become a melancholy loser, and do not say that’s already what I am. Four. She and I part ways, amicably deciding to be friends, as seen on TV. What memories remain are those of pseudo–rock climbing et al. and the finest sex I’ve had in a lifetime. We can handle any of those fates because we are all big boy grown-ups. And admit it—if Anna wanted to make out with you like she does with me you’d be all for it.”
“And you’d be the one predicting tears,” Steve Wong said.
Just then Anna returned, waving a thick and glossy color brochure, a smile on her face. “Hey, guys!” she said. “We are to go to Antarctica!”
“We’ll need the correct gear.” Anna was dipping a fresh Rainbow Tea Company tea bag into a mug of hot water. She was in her running clothes as I was putting on my cross-trainers. “Long johns. Parkas and shells. Fleece pullovers. Waterproof boots. Walking sticks.”
“Gloves,” I added. “Hats.” The trip to Antarctica was three months, many time zones, and thousands of miles away and Anna was already in Full Planning Mode. “Won’t it be summer at the South Pole?” I asked.
“We won’t make it to the pole. To the Antarctic Circle maybe, but only if the weather and sea cooperate. Still gonna be a lot of ice and wind.”
We went outside to do forty-five minutes of stretches on my front lawn, getting our downward dogs and cobras wet from the morning dew. Bing. The timer went off and I bent over, trying to touch my forehead to my kneecaps. Fat chance.
Anna was able to fold herself up like a card table. “You do realize,” she said, “the Apollo astronauts went to Antarctica, to study the volcanoes.” Anna knew of my jones for all things spaceman related. But she didn’t know just how well I knew that stuff.
“They trained in Iceland, young lady. If any astronauts went to the South Pole, it was long after they retired from altering the course of human destiny by cheating death in NASA rocket ships.” Bing. I tried to reach out and grab my ankles, setting my poor calves afire.
“Going to see penguins and whales and science stations,” Anna said. “And B15K.”
“What is B15K?”
“An iceberg the size of Manhattan, so large it’s tracked via satellite. Broke off from the Ross Ice Shelf in 2003 and is independently moving counterclockwise around Antarctica. If the weather holds, we can book a chopper and land on it!”
Bing. That was the final exercise. She took off running. I tried to keep up with her but no way that was going to happen, not with her all pumped up about B15K.
As I trotted by Mr. Moore’s house, he was just getting into his car, a travel mug of coffee in his hand. “That girlfriend of yours ran by a second ago. She was hauling ass.”
After showers and a breakfast of avocado on toasted spelt bread, Anna took that belt sander she bought from Steve Wong and started grinding down my picnic table. I joined her with some sandpaper of my own.
“After you take it down to the grain, you’ll need to repaint this. Do you have paint?” I did. “You should have this done by tonight. Then come to my place. We’ll have dinner and sex.” Fine by me, is how I felt. “I have to go to work now.” Before leaving she pointed out other wooden objects that needed sanding and paint as well—a bench, the back door to my kitchen, and the old shed where I keep my lawn toys and sports equipment. I spent the rest of the day on the work detail.
I was sweaty, dusty, and splattered with paint when Anna texted me.
AnnaGraphicControclass="underline" dinner in 15
I got over to her place in half an hour, but needed a shower before dinner. We ate in the living room—huge bowls of Vietnamese pho—watching two episodes of Our Frozen Earth on Blu-ray. For over three hours we learned all about the chinstrap penguins and crabeater seals that live only in guess which part of our planet.