Second Thoughts About the Fourth Dimension (sample)
The train back to the city was very rarely late, and Harper felt unfair begrudging it a ten-minute slip in the schedule. Things happened, plans fell out of sync, it wasn’t anyone’s fault; she refused to think it was anyone’s fault. At least someone had said something about it, which was important. There’d been a piercing ding and a mishmash of pre-recorded words, with numbers and place names slotted in like Mad Libs. Five to ten minutes late, said the recording. Five to ten minutes late, she could handle. She’d still make Brooklyn in time, more or less. She just didn’t like being cold, and it was cold out, for October, winter-cold well before she was ready. Her unprotected ankles caught the wind that played around the hem of her midnight blue skirt, the longish one that made her feel like an adult. The little station building wasn’t open that night, or maybe any nights—she didn’t know how it worked, she didn’t go back to Scarsdale all that often. The meeting (there was no other word for it) she’d had with her parents had proven productive. Some real progress was made on centerpiece negotiations. Harper’s sister’s daughter was “just thrilled” to be a flower girl, reported Harper’s sister. A couple of gifts had already arrived from eager relatives watching the burgeoning registry—Harper’d scribbled herself a reminder that she and Sean should crank thank-you notes out as soon as, et cetera. Their building wasn’t the safest place to leave a package, so they’d chosen her parents’ house to receive all the gifts. Which he’d been more than fine with. Sean was fine with everything. “Here’s a fun piece of trivia,” he’d once told her. “The difference between a ‘present’ and a ‘gift’ is that a present is presented. You can’t send a present. You can only send a gift.” It was one of an unending stream of strange neutral facts he liked to drop. He shared them during wedding conversations because he thought it made the tension go away. Harper hugged her soft body and faced north, into the wind, awaiting the yellow-cream light of the oncoming train. For a moment, she tried not to overhear the chatter of two nannies—Jamaican, she guessed, knowing well she might be wrong—and the lilting dialogues of children in their care. The young voices carried. Before long she was paying attention in shame. She couldn’t help but want to hear, of course; she liked to eavesdrop, she felt she was a writer. She blogged.
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