The Atlas of Love by Laurie Frankel

Author:Laurie Frankel
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781429964463
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Friday then finally. “One down, four to go,” I assured my students, already exhausted with only one week of summer session and one paper under their belts. Two days off. Two whole days without seeing each other, without seeing me, without having to think about poetry. I was jealous of their (probably fictitious) carefree weekends at mindless jobs followed by lovely summer parties since what loomed for me was a weekend of grading and a picnic on the floor I was getting increasingly nervous about. Anxiety, more than the flu, more than mono, more than a rash, is very contagious. At home, I found Atlas laughing hysterically in a bouncy seat at the edge of the kitchen floor which Katie was cleaning with a toothbrush.

“What happened to casual and laid back?” I asked her.

“Because I am casually, laid backly, effortlessly neat and clean,” she explained, pushing hair out of her eyes with rubber-gloved hands.

“Where did those gloves come from?”

“I am a perfect housekeeper, so I obviously have tons of these stored under the sink.”

“Where did they really come from?”

“I went to the grocery store and spent forty dollars on cleaning products.”

“Very laid back,” I said.

“Shut up,” she said.

Jill and I spent almost as much time as Katie did getting dressed. Jill put Atlas in his tuxedo onesie as a joke only we got. I decided I couldn’t just serve hot dogs and popcorn. It’s not like I’m neurotic or never use a microwave or think I’m above ordering a pizza. I love pizza. But when you invite someone to your house for dinner for the first time, it is polite to actually cook. I fought with Katie for an hour before I convinced her that, though this was her date, it was my kitchen and therefore my decision. We compromised on real food that could nonetheless be eaten in front of the TV. Salmon burgers and salad and raspberry cheesecake bars. And indeed, except Atlas, we all looked appropriately casual in (carefully chosen) jeans and T-shirts and bare feet. Peter showed up similarly clad and, pointedly (which sort of defeats the gesture), ten minutes late. We sat on the floor and ate on our laps, cuddled with Atlas and Uncle Claude, chatted idly about the commercials, the color commentary, the occasional good play. The Mariners and Orioles played a completely ordinary baseball game, just one of 162, too early in the summer for standings to matter yet between two teams who weren’t going anywhere anyway with a boring final score of 5–2. After the game, Jill and I walked the dog for a while. When we came in, Peter and Katie were in such deep conversation they didn’t even look up. We went upstairs without even saying good night.

Six hours later, at five o’clock in the morning, Katie crawled in bed with me. “He said he had a dream,” she whispered, less, I think, because it was five A.M. and more for something like reverence, “where he was in a

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