Atmosphere

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

And they will not change within our lifetime. We can succeed or fail, get it right or get it wrong, love and lose the ones we love, and still the Summer Triangle will point south. And in that way, I know everything will be some type of okay—as impossible as that can seem sometimes.

Being completely immune to romantic rituals herself, Joan could spot them better than almost anyone. It was true, she had never had a real boyfriend. Had been on only a few dates. She had been kissed, a few times, by Adam Hawkins. And she had not cared for it. She was not offended or grossed out. But it felt, to her, like people were making a very big deal out of what was, essentially, no different from eating a cracker. Of course, she did not discuss this with anyone anymore. Because every time she’d come close, it became clear no one would understand.

Bravery is being unafraid of something other people are afraid of. Courage is being afraid, but strong enough to do it anyway.”

Joan knew that society was changing and some men were changing with it. Some of them now understood that a woman’s career, her life, her passions were just as important as their own. But still, all Joan could think was that it was now just two people cutting off parts of themselves to make themselves fit together. A world of vegetarians cooking meatloaf.

“Barbara is…very delicate. If you so much as look at her the wrong way, she might just say the worst things you can think of. And mean each and every one of them. We all just tiptoe around her. We always have. I am not…I am not honest with her. Maybe ever. I don’t even know what that would look like. And I hate it about myself.” Vanessa

think I just wanted to feel something other than sad,” Vanessa said. Joan did not look away. “Did it work?” Vanessa inhaled. “Yes, that’s the problem. If you find a way to make yourself absolutely terrified, there’s no room for any other feeling.”

Jimmy had been told from a young age that fear and failing and trying and wanting and openness and kindness and sincerity made him weak. And because he had believed it, he’d learned to suppress all of those things.

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

Bravery, Joan suspected, is almost always a lie. Courage is all we have.

Vanessa nodded and said nothing. Joan could not bring herself to look at her. Instead, she looked up again at the sky. She could barely see the shuttle anymore. Success was a white dot getting smaller and smaller.

How to act like she hadn’t just found something everyone else had discovered long ago.

what they had together was a lit candle, and the wind could be fierce.

Joan had given in to Vanessa in a way that still surprised her. Joan had not lost herself to Vanessa, but found herself in her. She had not cut off parts of herself to fit so much as learned to make room for someone other than herself.

Vanessa closed her eyes. “I feel like I…” She shook her head. “That maybe you could have had more—had an easier life—if I hadn’t convinced you to love me.” Joan took Vanessa’s hand. “I don’t think you had any say over whether or not I loved you,” Joan said. “I don’t even think I had any say in it. It happened without me even giving myself permission.”

God, Joan’s entire life she’d been asking that question, hadn’t she? Was she okay? She had been looking around every room she was in to survey the people around her, compare herself to the way she saw them, trying to gauge where she didn’t fit, trying to find where she could. Trying to see if she was okay. And she was. She was. Joan wanted to say something—anything—but there was no air in her throat.

Joan marveled at how easy Barbara’s inner life must be. How entirely undemanding of yourself it was to believe that everything happened to you. And everything was about you. And that your feelings were the only ones that mattered. Worse yet, to afford yourself the role of the victim always—regardless of how grotesquely it required you to twist reality—so that you never had to look in the mirror and admit you were the perpetrator.