Free I see you everywhere by Julia Glass

spent the night in the Trailways shelter across from the ferry slips, then left. “Hysterical. She called me hysterical. What goes on in that mind of hers, what. ” He’d called me, I realized, because he needed calming down. In our family, he calls me the Rational One. My dad’s the Dreamy One, Mom the Colorful One. Clem’s the Wild One—when she’s not the Heartbreaker, the Ballbreaker, the Nemesis, the Bitch on Wheels.
    “I wish I could answer that, Luke. I think we’re friends, but we’re not, well, not exactly soul mates. Historically, we’re kind of like England and France.”
    “But you know her.”
    “Better than you?” I said. “Come on. And what goes on inside her head? Who knows? Something way out, I have to say. Something very Robinson Crusoe.”
    “I wouldn’t idealize anybody so moronically reckless.”
    “If there’s one thing she’s not, Luke, it’s a moron.”
    “Maybe what I need is a moron. To fall in love with a moron.”
    “When she’s scared, she holds everyone at arm’s length. You must know that by now.”
    “Scared?” Luke laughed sardonically, but he was clearly tired, losing Glas_9780375422751_3p_all_r1.qxp 7/2/08 10:21 AM Page 48 48
    Julia Glass
    steam. “You know how you get to a point in a relationship where it feels like you’re lost in this jungle?”
    “Well . . .” Right then, I pined to be that deep into any relationship. I could face lost in the jungle; just show me the jungle.
    “No paths. No compass. Can’t see six inches ahead of you, branches wapping your face, bugs the size of rodents . . . and . . . tigers watching from the trees . . . This I do not need,” he concluded. “Am I crazy, Louisa, like she says?”
    I couldn’t endure much more of his sodden sorrow. I said, “Look, it is you she loves. I shouldn’t say it, but I expect to see you married. Not now, not right away, but . . . she hates to admit it, she has these instincts—she fights it, but it is you, Luke.”
    “She told you that?”
    “If that’s what you want, you just need to be patient.” Listening to myself, I was appalled. She had told me no such thing. To Clem, there is no you in that singular sense. She’s vowed there never will be, though I don’t really believe her.
    For a few seconds Luke was silent. I could hear him relax, breathing in my consolation. Wasn’t I the older one, the wiser one? If only, I thought, if only just once I could feel what it’s like to be inside her skin, to live with such intense abandon. Then I would be the wiser without question. Whatever there was to know, I’d know.
    Like half the population of New York City, I am a struggling artist, and one of the things I was conveniently doing by holing up in the Katzes’
    house was taking a break from the struggle. I’ve begun selling some of my pots—this year I’ve even had commissions, for a few sets of plates and a huge teapot—but I can’t stop wondering what makes me pursue this archaic talent in a city that takes no pity on anything quaint. Yes, there are exceptions like Betty Woodman, who’s managed to turn ceramics into high art by covering walls with great saucy arabesques of terracotta glazed in colors straight out of Matisse. Well, she sort of is Matisse; Glas_9780375422751_3p_all_r1.qxp 7/2/08 10:21 AM Page 49 I See You Everywhere
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    Matisse on steroids, Matisse up to his elbows in mud. She also has a passion that I wonder if I share. Lately when I’m working, I feel as if I’m in a play. I love the city, that much I know, but moving there only seemed to exaggerate my doubts about what I do, which sometimes boils down to making the containers from which people feed themselves. That’s fine, I suppose, but it feels more utilitarian than anything I ever intended to do when I was a reader, a thinker, a girl who recited poetry to her cat. And it doesn’t pay the bills much better than reciting poetry to cats. Fortunately, I have other skills with which to make a living.