IT FEELS LIKE A MIRACLE that we get to sit here on this rooftop, like we’re part of a secret sky city. The sun is slowly retreating across the buildings, but it’s not dark yet. It will be soon, but for now there’s only an idea of darkness.
Natasha and I are sitting cross-legged against the wall next to the stairwell door. We’re holding hands, and she’s resting her head on my shoulder. Her hair is soft against the side of my face.
“Are you ready for the dinner guest question yet?” I ask.
“You mean who I’d invite?”
“Yup.”
“Ugh, no. You go first,” she says.
“Easy,” I say. “God.”
She raises her head from my shoulder to look at me. “You really believe in God?”
“I do.”
“One guy? In the sky? With superpowers?” Her disbelief isn’t mocking, just investigative.
“Not exactly like that,” I say.
“What, then?”
I squeeze her hand. “You know the way we feel right now? This connection between us that we don’t understand and we don’t want to let go of? That’s God.”
“Holy hell,” she exclaims. “You poet boys are dangerous.”
She pulls my hand into her lap and holds it with both of hers.
I tilt my head back and watch the sky, trying to pick shapes out of the clouds. “Here’s what I think,” I say. “I think we’re all connected, everyone on earth.”
She runs her fingertips over my knuckles. “Even the bad people?”
“Yes. But everyone has at least a little good in them.”
“Not true,” she says.
“Okay,” I concede. “But everyone has done at least one good thing in their lifetime. Do you agree with that?”
She thinks it over and then slowly nods.
I go on. “I think all the good parts of us are connected on some level. The part that shares the last double chocolate chip cookie or donates to charity or gives a dollar to a street musician or becomes a candy striper or cries at Apple commercials or says I love you or I forgive you. I think that’s God. God is the connection of the very best parts of us.”
“And you think that connection has a consciousness?” she asks.
“Yeah, and we call it God.”
She laughs a quiet laugh. “Are you always so—”
“Erudite?” I ask, interrupting.
She laughs louder now. “I was gonna say cheesy.”
“Yes. I’m known far and wide for my cheesiness.”
“I’m kidding,” she says, bumping her shoulder into mine. “I really like that you’ve thought about it.”
And I have too. This is not the first time I’ve had these thoughts, but it’s the first time I’ve really been able to articulate them. Something about being with her makes me my best self.
I pull her hand to my lips and kiss her fingers. “What about you?” I ask. “You don’t believe in God?”
“I like your idea of it. I definitely don’t believe in the fire and brimstone one.”
“But you believe in something?”
She frowns, uncertain. “I really don’t know. I guess I’m more interested in why people feel like they have to believe in God. Why can’t it just be science? Science is wondrous. The night sky? Amazing. The inside of a human cell? Incredible. Something that tells us we’re born bad and that people use to justify all their petty prejudices and awfulness? I dunno. I guess I believe in science. Science is enough.”
“Huh,” I say. Sunlight reflects off the buildings, and the air around us takes on an orange tinge. I feel cocooned even in this wide-open space.
She says, “Did you know that the universe is approximately twenty-seven percent dark matter?”
I did not know that, but of course she does.
“What is dark matter?”
Delight is the only word for the look on her face. She tugs her hand out of mine, rubs her palms together, and settles in to explain.
“Well, scientists aren’t exactly sure, but it’s the difference between an object’s mass and the mass calculated by its gravitational effect.” She raises her eyebrows expectantly, as if she’s said something profound and earth-shattering.
I am profoundly un-earth-shattered.
She sighs. Dramatically.
“Poets,” she mutters, but with a smile. “Those two masses should be the same.” She raises an explanatory finger. “They should be the same, but they’re not, for very large bodies like planets.”
“Oh, that’s interesting,” I say, really meaning it.
“Isn’t it?” She’s beaming at me and I’m really a goner for this girl. “Also, it turns out the visible mass of a galaxy doesn’t have enough gravity to explain why it doesn’t fly apart.”
I shake my head to let her know I don’t understand.
She goes on. “If we calculate the gravitational forces of all the objects we can detect, it’s not enough to keep galaxies and stars in orbit around each other. There has to be more matter that we can’t see. Dark matter.”
“Okay, I get it,” I say.
She gives me skeptical eyes.
“No, really,” I say. “I get it. Dark matter is twenty-seven percent of the universe, you said?”
“Approximately.”
“And it’s the reason why objects don’t hurtle themselves off into deep dark space? It’s what keeps us bound together?”
Her skepticism turns into suspicion. “What is your addled poet brain getting at?”
“You’re gonna hate me.”
“Maybe,” she agrees.
“Dark matter is love. It’s the attracting force.”
“Oh God Jesus no. Yuck. Blech. You’re the worst.”
“Oh, I am good,” I say, laughing hard.
“The absolute worst,” she says, but she leans in and laughs hard along with me.
“I’m totally right,” I say, triumphant. I recapture her hand.
She groans again, but I can tell she’s thinking about it. Maybe she doesn’t disagree as much as she thinks she does.
I scroll through the questions on my phone. “Okay, I have another one. Complete the following sentence: We’re both in this room feeling…”
“Like I have to pee,” she says, smiling.
“You really hate talking about serious things, don’t you?”
“Have you ever had to pee really bad?” she asks. “It’s a serious thing. You could cause serious damage to your bladder by—”
“Do you really have to pee?” I ask.
“No.”
“Answer the question,” I tell her. I’m not letting her joke her way out of this one.
“You first,” she says, sighing.
“Happy, horny, and hopeful.”
“Alliteration. Nice.”
“Your turn, and you have to be sincere,” I tell her.
She sticks her tongue out at me. “Confused. Scared.”
I pull her hand into my lap. “Why are you scared?”
“It’s been a long day. This morning I thought I was being deported. I’ve been gearing myself up for that for two months. Now it looks like I’ll get to stay.”
She turns to look at me. “And then there’s you. I didn’t know you this morning, and now I don’t really remember not knowing you. It’s all a little much. I feel out of control.”
“Why is that so bad?” I ask.
“I like to see things coming. I like to plan ahead.”
And I get it. I really do. We are programmed to plan ahead. It’s part of our rhythm. The sun rises every day and defers to the moon every night. “Like the security guard said, though—planning doesn’t always work.”
“Do you think that’s true? I think mostly you can plan. Mostly things don’t just come out of nowhere and bowl you over.”
“Probably the dinosaurs thought that too, and look what happened to them,” I tease.
Her smile is so broad that I have to touch her face. She turns her face in to my palm and kisses it. “Extinction-level events notwithstanding, I think you can plan ahead,” she says.
“I bowled you over,” I remind her, and she doesn’t deny it.
“Anyway,” I say. “So far you only have two things—confused and scared.”
“All right, all right. I’ll give you what you want and say ‘happy.’ ”
I sigh dramatically. “You could’ve said that one first.”
“I like suspense,” she says.
“No you don’t.”
“You’re right. I hate suspense.”
“Happy because of me?” I ask.
“And not being deported. But mostly you.”
She pulls our joined hands to her lips and kisses mine. I could stay here forever interrupting our talking with kissing, interrupting our kissing with talking.
“When are we doing the staring-into-each-other’s-eyes thing?” I ask.
She rolls the very eyes that I want to stare into. “Later. After your interview,” she says.
“Don’t be scared,” I tease.
“What’s to be scared of? All you’ll see is iris and pupil.”
“The eyes are the windows to the soul,” I counter.
“Stuff and nonsense,” she says.
I check the time on my phone unnecessarily. I know it’s almost time for my interview, but I want to linger out here in sky city some more. “Let’s get in a couple more questions,” I say. “Lightning round. What’s your most treasured memory?”
“The first time I got to eat ice cream in a cone instead of in a cup,” she says with no hesitation.
“How old were you?”
“Four. Chocolate ice cream while wearing an all-white Easter Sunday dress.”
“Whose idea was that?” I ask.
“My father’s,” she says, smiling. “He used to think I was the greatest thing ever.”
“And he doesn’t anymore?”
“No,” she says.
I wait for her to continue, but she moves on: “What’s your memory?”
“We took a family trip to Disney World when I was seven. Charlie really wanted to go on Space Mountain, but my mom thought it’d be too scary for me and she wouldn’t let him go by himself. And neither of my parents wanted to go.”
She tightens her grip on my hands, which is cute since I clearly survived the experience. “So what happened?”
“I convinced my mom that I really wasn’t scared. I told her I’d been looking forward to the ride since forever.”
“But you weren’t?” she asks.
“No. I was scared shitless. I just did it for Charlie.”
She bumps my shoulder and teases. “I already like you. You don’t have to convince me that you’re a saint.”
“That’s the thing. I wasn’t being saintly. I think I knew our relationship wasn’t going to last. I was just trying to convince him I was worth it. It worked too. He told me I was brave and he let me finish all his popcorn.”
I tilt my head back and look up at the clouds. They’re barely moving across the sky.
“Do you think it’s funny that both of our favorite memories are about the people we like the least now?” I ask.
“Maybe that’s why we dislike them,” she says. “The distance between who they were and who they are is so wide, we have no hope of getting them back.”
“Maybe,” I say. “You know what the worst part of that story is?”
“What?”
“I hate roller coasters to this day because of that trip.”
She laughs, and I laugh with her.