Free Rockaway by Tara Ison

I’m hiring a surrogate.” She heard Emily sigh. “Then I can run off and hang out with you somewhere. Frolic in the ocean.”
    â€œThere aren’t any sharks in the water around here, right?”
    â€œI don’t think so, that far north.”
    â€œWhat about jellyfish?”
    â€œThey’re no big deal.”
    â€œRiptides?”
    â€œOh my God, listen to you. Don’t worry, they put up a red flag if it’s dangerous. Elijah, honey, come here. You want some nunu?” Sarah heard snaps, the fumbling with a strap.
    â€œYou still have milk?” Sarah asked.
    â€œA little. It’s more a comfort thing for him. And every time I nurse, I do Kegels.”
    â€œYou’re going to have vaginal walls of steel.”
    â€œWonderful. Hey, are you still into that guy?”
    â€œWhat guy?” She was startled, for a moment, thinking of Marty.
    â€œThat young guy you were dating. The kid. Dean?”
    â€œDavid. Did my saying ‘vaginal walls of steel’ make you think of him?”
    â€œI did vicariously enjoy those stories of yours.”
    â€œThat’s all over, sorry. We ended it when I left.”
    â€œWell, maybe the timing was off.”
    â€œNah. It was just a fling.”
    â€œSo, the big question, now.”
    â€œYeah, yeah.”
    â€œYou ready?”
    â€œGo ahead.”
    â€œAre you painting?”
    â€œYes, of course. I mean, I started a painting,” Sarah said. She glanced at the barely-begun canvas on her easel, at all the other canvases leaning against the walls of her room, still empty and inscrutable. “I started,” she repeated. Shelifted her new Isabey brush, inspected to see if it was fully clean, fully dry. “But it’s just sitting there. It’s barely a start, really. Maybe it’s nothing.”
    This is flat, Sarah , her professor used to say. Look at the flaw in your composition. The lack of perspective. You need to work on the illusion of depth!
    â€œWell, you just turned your life completely upside down for this. That can be pretty paralyzing. And there’s a lot at stake. But look, you’ve started! That’s the hardest part. Diving in.”
    â€œI know.” She set her brush down. “I have hope. I’m keeping the faith.”
    â€œI can’t wait to see it. I’m so really really glad you’re doing this, finally.”
    â€œMe, too.”
    â€œIt’s what you’re supposed to be doing.”
    â€œWell, thanks.”
    â€œIt doesn’t have to be perfect, you know. You always do that to yourself.
    â€œI know.”
    â€œJust keep going.”
    â€œI will. I am. Okay?” She hears the edge in her voice, adds a casual chuckle.
    â€œI don’t mean to lecture you, I swear. I know I’ve got zero credibility. I haven’t written a poem in six years.”
    â€œYou’ve been busy. You’re busy doing the most important thing in the world.”
    â€œYeah, right.”
    â€œAnd you do it so well,” Sarah said. “Really.” Because everything you do, she thought, you do so well. Everything Emily does is important. Is interesting. She published two books of poetry before she was twenty-eight, she won prizes, scholarships, grants, she traveled, she married a rich and handsome man who gave her those exquisite, obnoxious children with her perfect curls and his solemn, Dutch master face. She makes fennel soup and knows what to do with monkfish, knows how to make chunks of tofu taste like heavy cream. At Halloween she carves Picasso and Modigliani pumpkins. She has done so much, already, effortlessly and perfectly and ahead of schedule. Her life is in Golden Section proportion. Sarah could hear Elijah sucking, gulping, pictured him draped across Emily’s lap, and suddenly thought of that crazed guy taking a sledgehammer to the Pietà in Rome, the lunatic who’d gotten past Vatican security and smashed away