As the Crow Flies, page 31
Gwen looked at her oddly. “Sure, Sam. I’ll wait for you by the bar.”
Irene uncovered the plates, and Samantha balanced one in each in hand. Loosey rose when she heard Samantha’s approach and excitedly stepped in place at the smell of food coming. “Hey, girls, I’ve got dinner.”
As soon as Samantha put her foot on the first step, Blue stood and took a step backward. Another step had the Scottie backing up more, until her rump hit the front door and she showed her teeth. “Okay, okay, take it easy. It’s food. You make it very hard for me to like you, you know.” Samantha didn’t dare take another step. She bent and slid one plate to Loosey, who dug right in. Samantha gave the other plate a good shove in Blue’s direction. Halfway to the tent she glanced back to see them both eating. That Scottie wasn’t making it easy for Samantha to win her over.
Gwen was in the middle of a crowd, laughing and talking as Samantha approached her. She reached out a hand to her and raised the other to one of the two bartenders. “What’s your pleasure, darling?”
Samantha eyed the long line of top-shelf liquor. “Patrón and pineapple juice, if he has it?”
“I do,” he said, and when she had her drink in hand, Gwen slipped her arm around her waist and began introductions. Samantha didn’t expect to remember many names by the end of the night, but she tried to commit to memory at least those of Gwen’s cousins and close friends. With the music so loud, it was hard to converse without yelling, but she did her best to make small talk and was thankful when Bette Midler’s “Do You Want to Dance” came on and Gwen whisked her away to the dance floor.
“You look radiant,” Samantha said as they danced.
“I was just thinking the same of you.”
“Do you think we’ve radiated one another?” Samantha grinned.
“That and then some.”
Samantha pulled her close, and they instinctively found a steady rhythm, a perfect fit.
Just before the song ended, a woman dancing waved an arm in the air.
“That’s Carol,” Gwen said, “my best friend, the yin to my yang.”
“A philosopher, too?”
“Yes. She teaches aesthetics. Her husband, Serge, is an art historian. And the two young women dancing with them are from the environmental studies department. We attended their wedding last year.”
Carol looked to be Gwen’s age, attractive and full-figured with dyed black hair and crystal-blue eyes. There was something stylishly bohemian about the abundance of jewelry, the flowing floral skirt, the colorful scarf wrapped around the neck of her black, sleeveless top. Even if Samantha hadn’t known she lived in Manhattan, she would have pegged her for someone from the city. A stack of bangle bracelets jangled on her wrist as she and Serge danced their way over, and Sam was quick to note the rings on her thumbs as she let go of her husband and took Samantha’s hands in hers. With her brilliant smile and eyes that sparkled with intelligence and energy, Samantha imagined Carol easily capturing the attention of college students in a lecture hall.
Carol raised her voice over the music. “I was disappointed when this one here dumped me for you,” she said, gesturing with her chin at Gwen, “but now I understand completely. I would have dumped me for you, too.”
Samantha laughed at the compliment and squeezed her hands. “I’m sorry I became a game changer. It wasn’t planned.”
Serge stuck his hand out in greeting, and they let go of each other. He smelled faintly, and not unpleasantly, of expensive cologne and pipe tobacco, and his closely trimmed beard and long salt-and-pepper hair gave him a professorial, almost European flair. The couple from the environmental studies department was dancing their way closer, both sporting short blond hair and a healthy, outdoorsy look. Samantha pictured them hiking on the weekends in search of precious life forms that went unnoticed under the feet of reckless families traipsing through the woods. And not far behind were Liz and Phillip and Isabel and Carlos, talking and laughing more than they were dancing.
“Liz says Rosa’s son is gay,” Samantha whispered to Gwen.
“Ya think?”
“Ha! That’s just what Liz said.”
“But we don’t mention anything to Rosa. God forbid. She has it in her head that Carlos will open a veterinary practice close to home and marry a nice Latina girl who will run the office and make plenty of grandchildren,” she said as the DJ lowered the volume and asked everyone to start moving to their dinner tables.
As the dance floor cleared, Gwen stared at her adoringly. I don’t know where you came from, Samantha Weller, or who sent you, but you do to me what no one’s ever done. The first day we met, you said life was like a game of connect the dots. I wonder whether it’s chance or fate that connects them.”
“Well, one thing is for sure, it was Bertha who connected them. She saved my life…and now she’s led me to the love of my life.”
Gwen’s smile faded and she swallowed hard. “You touch me in a deep place when you say these things.”
“I want to touch all your deep places…and I’m hoping it takes at least twenty years to discover them all.”
Gwen responded with a kiss, the feel of her soft lips stirring vivid memories of their lovemaking and filling her with a sudden and unbearable desire as they left the dance floor hand in hand and made their way into the dining tent.
The air of festivity inside was wonderful. Thousands of tiny white lights wrapped the frame of the tent. Chinese lanterns in an assortment of colors hung over the flowers adorning each table, and dozens of balloons had been set free, their waving ribbons dangling overhead.
It had been thoughtful, not to mention intuitive, of Isabel to seat Liz and Samantha at the family table. Rosa sat at the next table with Eugene, Carlos and Phillip, and four of the Laraway cousins who’d flown in from Florida. Rosa seemed out of character, though—tentative, almost wary as she politely introduced her son and her boyfriend to Samantha. Carlos was a handsome young man, as sweet and soft-spoken as Isabel. Eugene, however, was quite gregarious.
“Buenos!” he said, and took Samantha’s hand in both of his. He was about Rosa’s height and width, bald, with a thick mustache that took on a spidery life of its own when he spoke. He was Spanish-dominant, she quickly realized, but his animated face and mime-like gesticulations made words unnecessary.
Isabel, who was being the perfect hostess, checking on guests and getting them seated, finally collapsed into a chair next to Liz. Gwen kissed the top of Isabel’s head, sat down next to her, and patted the chair beside her. But just as Samantha was just about to sit, a woman next to the environmental studies professors stood up and waved to her. “Sam Weller?”
Samantha stared at the familiar face, trying to place it as the woman came toward her. She was about her age, with similarly short, dark hair and eyes. Suddenly, a vision of the same woman with long hair came to her. “Jen?”
“Yes! Oh my gosh, Sam. What’s it been, fifteen years?”
“At least. How are you?”
“Good. I can’t believe you know the Laraways.”
“And I can’t believe you’re in academia. Last I remember you were earning your MBA.”
“I did. I work in the administration at the university.” Jen gave a broad smile. “How about you? Still hanging around with dead people? Man, I remember those gruesome stories you used to tell us.”
“Actually, I left forensics to pursue a writing career.”
“That’s awesome. What do you write?”
“Gruesome stories.”
Jen laughed. “And you live here in the Berkshires?”
“No. I live alone in Westchester. Are you still on Long Island with…what was her name, Debbie?”
“Debra. Geez. I haven’t thought about her in years. We broke up a long time ago—many girlfriends ago. I’m currently single and living near the university.”
Samantha realized they were in the way of the staff bringing out salads. “Let’s talk more later.”
“Are you ever in the city?” Jen asked.
“Frequently.”
“How about meeting for lunch or dinner? I’d love to catch up.” She looked Samantha up and down. “Do you have a business card?”
“Not on me.” Samantha patted her empty pockets.
“I’ll give you mine after dinner, and I’ll get your number.”
“Okay,” said Sam.
“All right then.” Jen looked at her sideways, made a finger gun, and pointed it at her. “Catch you later, Detective.”
Samantha sat down to salad and what seemed an ongoing academic conversation.
“So then what’s the difference,” Liz was saying to Carol, “between something being beautiful and something being sublime?”
Gwen leaned into Sam and whispered, “Now’s your chance to run. You can stay and participate in the philosophical musings of professors or escape to another table and enjoy a normal conversation about sports, the weather, and how you’re spending your summer vacation.”
“Considering what I write about, I think I’m at the right table.” Sam looked at her, undressing her with her eyes. “Besides, I’m next to you, so I must be in the right seat.”
“Well,” Carol explained, “beauty and sublimity are both aesthetic concepts, of course, but beauty is bound by its object, whereas the sublime is boundless. It’s a quality of astounding greatness, perfection beyond measure, an experience that elevates us to a heightened state of awareness.” She paused. “Take the most prized vase in Gwen’s pottery collection. If I went in the house and broke it, its beauty would be lost because, as I said, beauty is bound by the object.
“But Gwen’s experience of its beauty is sublime. Whether it’s her expert knowledge that allowed her to recognize the creative brilliance and unmatched artistry of that pottery—or who knows, maybe the fact that something so exquisite originated from the soil, from the earth itself—something about it stirred in her a sense of incalculable awe…a feeling of beauty beyond beauty. That is the sublime!”
“Okay, trick question,” Liz said. “Does this mean that a connoisseur of wine or cuisines can taste the sublime?”
“Ah!” Gwen said. “What a good philosophy student you would be. And that’s a yes. The sublime can be found in the physical, the metaphysical, the artistic, spiritual…even technology can be sublime. But to experience it requires higher-level thinking, and one’s senses must be cultivated. For example, I’m not much of a wine drinker, so I probably couldn’t distinguish mediocrity from sublimity. But the wine connoisseur would.”
“And don’t forget nature,” Serge said. “We might climb a mountain and see many forms of beauty on our way up, but when we reach the summit and look down, the scene before us might be so majestic, so awe-inspiring, that at that moment we become aware of an unsurpassed greatness…something greater than ourselves. That’s what the Romantic painters tried to capture on canvas.”
Bill had finished his salad. He was sitting back with his elbow propped on the chair, the back of his fingers pressed to his mouth in a thoughtful pose. “Maybe that’s why people climb Mount Everest—to experience the sublime.”
Samantha nodded. “I think you’re right.”
“And maybe the sublime is so powerful,” he added, “that once it’s experienced, the person wants to feel it again. Maybe that’s why high-risk adventurers become addicted to their sport.”
“Interesting point,” said Carol. “I’ll have to use that in class.”
Sheila cocked her head. “I get what you’re all saying…the sublime is something that lifts us to a higher level of consciousness, to an increased awareness above the normal scope of emotion…but in the field of advertising, we often rely on subliminal seduction, which is to say we appeal to consumers on a lower, subconscious level. If I want to sell a man an expensive sports car he can’t afford, I’ll make sure the ad features a beautiful woman in the passenger seat so that, subliminally, he associates buying the car with attracting a beautiful woman.”
“It worked for me,” Bill said. “The first time I asked Sheila out she was standing in the parking lot of my office. I was late getting back from another appointment that afternoon and late for my meeting with her. I pulled up in a Porsche, apologized for being late, and asked if we could have our meeting over dinner. She looked my car up and down and said yes. Next thing I knew, I had a beautiful woman in the passenger seat.”
Everyone laughed. “That’s not exactly how it happened,” Sheila said, but she laughed along with the others. “What I’m wondering, though, is why the sublime refers to a heightened awareness, while the subliminal refers to a decreased awareness?”
Serge cleared his throat. “Let the historian answer that, if I may,” he said. “It’s a boring story that goes back to the first century, but suffice it to say that both words come from limen, Latin for lintel, which is actually the beam over a doorway that supports the structure above it. So it represents a threshold…and anything at, or above, or below that threshold…in this case, the threshold of consciousness.”
“Hmm…” Sheila steepled her fingers. “Thank you for that, Serge.” She winked at the others and looked at her husband. “And if you must know the truth, Bill…the Porsche did work. Once I saw that car I couldn’t wait to get my hands on your stick shift.”
Cocktail hour had lowered the inhibitions of everyone at the table, and they all laughed out loud—except for Isabel. The sexual innuendo caused her to visibly shrivel in her seat.
“Can’t books be sublime?” she blurted out, as if to move the conversation comfortably along. “I find poetry to be sublime.”
“Yes,” Carol said. “Many of the old philosophers believed the sublime could be achieved through rhetoric—through dialogue and the exchange of higher-level thoughts. Have you ever read a book you just couldn’t get into, and at another point in your life you pick up that same book and connect with it on such a deep level that it leaves you somehow transformed?”
All of them, except Bill, who wasn’t much of a reader, shook their heads in agreement.
“And as Isabel points out,” Carol added, “poetry is indeed the rhetoric of passion. When that spark rises from the poet’s soul and ignites the reader’s soul, the result is a sublime union, a spiritual communion between minds at a distance.”
Samantha, who had been listening, finally spoke up. “But like the yin-yang of everything else, doesn’t the sublime have a flip side? Can’t something horrific—a vision or experience that catapults us to a higher level awareness of death, mortality, atrocities—be equally sublime?”
“The terrifying sublime!” Carol and Gwen said in unison.
Gwen smiled over at Samantha, obviously pleased with her contribution. “Kant distinguished between the splendid sublime, which we’ve been talking about, and the terrifying sublime.”
“And not just philosophers,” Serge said, “but many artists think that witnessing death is the ultimate in the terrifying sublime. In fact, a European one has publicly staged animal sacrifices to illustrate the terrifying sublime in the name of art.”
Bill made a face. “Wouldn’t that be the bullfight?”
“Stop.” Isabel put her hands to her ears. “I don’t want to know.”
“Me neither,” Carol said. “Let’s just imagine Bill’s mountaineer approaching the summit of Mount Everest when he loses his lifeline or his bearings in a blizzard and realizes he’ll never reach the summit and never find his way back to camp. Likely, he’ll experience the terrifying sublime.”
Sheila had a long, polished fingernail between her teeth and was studying Samantha intensely. “I get the feeling you’ve experienced the terrifying sublime, Samantha.”
“Ha. On a regular basis for many years, usually with my morning coffee,” she answered.
“Before Samantha began writing,” Gwen explained, “she had a career in forensics.”
Both Sheila and Carol put a hand to their chest. “So you saw…murder victims?” Shelia asked.
“I did. And I will say there’s something terrifying about witnessing the aftermath of a heinous crime…of being greeted by the still-shocked eyes of a victim, even though you know they’re vacant.”
They all gave quiet gasps, but Bill scratched his forehead. “Yet so many people seem to seek out the terrifying sublime—vicariously, at least. Look at all the violence in shows and video games.”
“Well,” Sam said, “I suspect there’s something counterphobic in all that. We like to peek at things that terrify us, and horror movies allow us to do it safely from behind a bowl of popcorn.”
Bill chuckled. “And what about ghosts? Sheila says you write a lot about ghosts. I would think seeing one of those would qualify as the terrifying sublime.”
Samantha nodded. “Or it could be the splendid sublime, don’t you think?”
Bill shrugged. “Casper the friendly ghost might be splendid, but not a poltergeist.”
Sheila gazed at Samantha again. “Considering what you write, and considering your past experience around the newly deceased…have you ever…you know, seen or felt a real-life ghost?”
Sam glanced at Gwen and back to Sheila. “Not to speak of,” she lied.
The mood lightened as dinner was served, and conversation moved to everyone’s plans for the rest of the summer: vacations, new restaurants, must-see exhibits, Liz and Isabel’s cottage renovation, and Bill’s new boat. Everyone at the table was invited out on it. And no sooner had dinner finished than the Latin music began. Eugene, who’d been doing shots of tequila, jumped up and clapped his hands. “Bailemos! Let’s dance!” he shouted, and grabbed Rosa by the hand.
Carlos pulled Isabel along to the dance floor, Phillip came for Liz, and Bill offered Gwen a hand. “May I have this dance, birthday girl?”
