“That’s good of them.”
“Yes, but Mom said she only agreed to it because it meant I’d have to come by every day to walk him and spend time with him. Not that I don’t enjoy spending time with my parents, but it felt like extortion when they agreed to keep him.”
I laughed.
“What about you?” she asked. “Where do you hang your hat?”
“I’m a Jersey boy,” I replied, leaving out the part about me dreaming about moving to Manhattan one day.
By this time, Olivia was nearly finished with her ice cream cone. “Ziggy! Treat!”
He stopped and turned, and she knelt on the path to let him gobble up what was left.
“What a good boy you are,” she said, rubbing the top of his head. She stood again, and we resumed walking. “Before I forget, I should get you to sign that release form.” She handed me Ziggy’s leash so that she could retrieve it from her backpack, along with a pen. “Have a look,” she said. “Read it over carefully, and if you’re okay with it . . .” She held out the pen and gave me a hopeful grin. “I really appreciate this.”
It was a short, one-page document that took me thirty seconds to read and sign. “It looks fine to me.”
“Excellent.” She stuffed everything into her backpack and slung it over her shoulder again, and off we went.
“I have a question for you,” I said.
“Ask away. Oh, Ziggy! Put that down. That’s disgusting.” She darted forward to pull a plastic burger wrapper from his jaws. He growled for a second but surrendered it. “I’m sorry about that. You were saying?”
I got a whiff of her fragrance as she flicked her hair. She smelled clean, like Ivory soap.
“When you were asking me all those questions for your documentary,” I said, “you seemed focused on ghosts and spirits. You asked me if I believed in the afterlife.”
“Yes?”
We were now deep in the wooded area, wandering leisurely beneath the shade of the trees.
“Is that something that interests you?” I asked, genuinely curious. “Is that the real theme of your film?”
She chuckled softly as she walked. “Unlike you, I do try to keep an open mind about all that, and I want my film to leave it up to the audience to decide. But if I’m being perfectly honest, despite the fact that my parents are regular churchgoers, I have to say no, that I don’t think there’s anything else after we go. When we’re dead, we’re dead, and that’s the end. Our bodies become part of the earth again—ashes to ashes, dust to dust—and maybe we’ll fertilize a tree or some grass and that’s how we live on, but I don’t expect to be floating in paradise after I’m gone, however you want to define paradise. Are you shocked?”
“Not at all,” I replied. “There is something earthy about you. Natural, I mean. Feet on the ground.”
She grinned at me. “I think that’s a compliment, I hope?”
“Absolutely.”
“And yet,” she continued, “I like to consider myself to be a spiritual person. When I’m out on the ocean, away from the city lights, I could stargaze for hours. Just sit there and contemplate the miracle of the universe. I confuse myself sometimes.”
We came upon some broken glass on the path, and I took hold of Olivia’s elbow and guided her around it. “Watch yourself.”
She was light on her feet and followed me like a floating feather off to the side. “Thank you.”
The happy, appreciative look in her eye caused something to light up inside me. Or catch fire. She was very beautiful, although it wasn’t just a physical beauty. There was something else—something deeply joyful about her.
I thought of Auntie Lynn in that moment. I recalled my first night in her house in Arizona after she had come to collect me when my father was sent to prison. She had asked if I was too old for bedtime stories because she had something she could read to me if I liked. I replied grumpily that I wasn’t a baby.
“Well, that’s a relief,” she had said. “How about this then?” She pulled an entire box of Mad magazines out from under the bed, and we looked at them together. I went to sleep laughing.
In a flash, I was back in my father’s house in Wisconsin, in the gloomy bedroom where Auntie Lynn had spent the final years of her life. A thick mass of regret spread through my stomach.
Olivia touched my arm. “Are you okay? You look lost in thought.”
“I’m fine,” I replied, pulling myself back from the abyss. “Just thinking about my aunt.”
“The one who died?”
I nodded, and she looked at me as we walked.
“I’m sorry about that,” she said. “She must have been very important to you.”
“She was.” I turned to look at Olivia’s profile. “Have you ever lost someone close to you?”
“No,” she replied. “Just distant relatives that I didn’t know very well. That’s crazy, isn’t it? How lucky am I?”
“Very lucky indeed.”
“I’m sure my luck won’t last forever,” she added, “because death comes to us all. One day, I will probably mourn someone terribly, and for a very long time.” She turned to me. “You must have to deal with that every day in your work.”
“I do. It’s not always easy.”
Olivia, Ziggy, and I found our way through the woods to a secluded section of rock on the edge of the lake. Olivia took Ziggy off the leash, removed her backpack, and withdrew a bright-yellow tennis ball.
“Go get it!” she shouted as she pitched the ball into the water. Ziggy jumped in with abandon and caused a tremendous splash. His excitement helped to distract me from thoughts of Auntie Lynn.
“I hope you’re not in a hurry,” Olivia said to me. “He could do this for hours if I let him.”
We sat on the water’s edge and talked at length about politics and other current events while she threw the ball. She asked how I managed to keep the emotional demands of my work from interfering with my leisure time, and I was forthcoming about the pressures and challenges, without ever mentioning anything to do with Melanie.
I enjoyed Olivia’s questions and her genuine interest in my work, and it excited me that she didn’t try to tell me about any of her own personal problems. Maybe she didn’t have any. She seemed so relaxed. Happy and positive about the future. It was rather miraculous—how a trauma-free life could be so full of lightness and joy. Even Ziggy seemed inspired by Olivia’s positive spirit. He leaped out of the water, dropped the sopping-wet ball in front of her, and waited excitedly for her to pick it up and throw it again. She laughed and smiled with affection every time he dived back into the water, as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
It was past five when she put Ziggy back on the leash and we made our way out of the Ramble to the open paths.
As we walked, I felt strangely as if I were floating in some kind of waking dream, as if this weren’t really my life. It was someone else’s. Again, the fraud. The imposter. I didn’t want these moments with Olivia to come to an end because then I would walk to the nearest subway station, descend the steps, and travel back to my own reality. To Melanie’s apartment. If Melanie had called the office that afternoon, she would most certainly be angry with me because I wasn’t there and I hadn’t told her I would be leaving early. She would want to know where I had been, who I was with. I would be forced to explain myself. What would I say?