Atmosphere

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

To look up at the nighttime sky is to become a part of a long line of people throughout human history who looked above at that same set of stars. It is to witness time unfolding.

He shook his head. “Don’t thank me for doing the bare minimum,” he said. “It does a disservice to us both.”

She was trying to prove that she could be just like a man to all of them. To Jimmy. To Lydia. Because the world had decided that to be soft was to be weak, even though in Joan’s experience being soft and flexible was always more durable than being hard and brittle. Admitting you were afraid always took more guts than pretending you weren’t. Being willing to make a mistake got you further than never trying. The world had decided that to be fallible was weak. But we are all fallible. The strong ones are the ones who accept it. Joan had let men like Jimmy set the terms. But the terms were false, even to him. He was just as scared as anybody else.

Joan made so much more sense to herself for one crystal-clear moment. Of course men were uninteresting to her. They were fundamentally uninteresting. We are interesting.

“It’s 1981, and I’m done pretending sexist jokes are funny just so men will give me a chance at something I’m probably better at than they are.”

“Because I do not believe there is any original sin in any of us and I cannot sit there and listen to someone say there is. I don’t want to believe in any being who would judge and punish like that. And I’ll pay the price if I’m wrong and God does exist. Because I will not submit to a God like that willingly.”

“Happiness is so hard to come by. I don’t understand why anyone would begrudge anyone else for managing to find some of it.”