The Emerald Light in the Air Read Free

was angling to spy an opening in her blouse and glimpse a breast. Mary spoke: “How dark will it be?”
    â€œFairly. By act three, the sun will be setting. With any luck, it’ll be a humid night and the fireflies will be out.”
    â€œIt’s going to be beautiful!” exclaimed Sheila.
    I concurred, “That’s right, Sheila. When you make love, you’re doing God’s work on Earth.”
    After that, we sat for a time. The atmosphere became pleasantly uncomfortable. This sensation of a pervasive, shared emotional discomfort may have been helped along by the presence nearby of the foul-smelling oil furnace, hissing and burning, making the air in our little corner feel sickeningly, suffocatingly warm. Finally Billy broke the tension with a homophobic joke. “Reg, will I have to make out with you?”
    â€œIn a manner of speaking, Billy. Lysander, Hermia, Demetrius, and Helena will trade back and forth in a kind of blind, revolving embrace. Erotic possibility, signifying not immorality but immortality, is the real pleasure for unmarried lovers. So we’re going to get it on.”
    â€œLike in my dormitory,” laughed Valentine.
    Later, we all stretched out on the floor and began mapping positions. It was clear that the kids were—how shall I put this?—experienced in some ways and inexperienced in others. Sheila Tannenbaum chuckled when touched; there was little that was pretty about this rangy girl, yet she was coy and therefore sexy. Billy Valentine was not sexy. It annoyed me to watch him grope Mary Victoria Frost. He had no moves, and she, as far as I could tell, didn’t care. I signaled everyone to switch partners, and Mary wrapped her legs around me. I read this as permission to cradle her in my lap. She weighed practically nothing. Was she one of those girls who exist on breakfast cereal and amphetamines? I stuck my face in her hair and breathed in her smells of bath oil and nicotine. Oh, my heart. I laid my head on Mary’s shoulder and watched Billy Valentine straddle Sheila. He appeared to be mauling the girl’s throat—what was he doing, administering a “sleeper” hold?—until Sheila made an athletic move with her legs, scissoring Billy and bringing him hard to the floor. Thump . Quickly, I leaned over and tugged Sheila toward me, in this way getting two girls and scoring a sexual victory over a boy young enough to be my son.
    Billy Valentine sat to the side with his legs crossed and his head down. I had the feeling, watching him, that I was seeing him in an unguarded moment, and in a posture and attitude that expressed an essential state of his being. I was witnessing, it occurred to me, something like pure sadness; and I would’ve bet money that Billy was the child of divorced, probably alcoholic parents. I cuddled the girls and, in a moment of, I suppose, empathy, told him, “You know, Billy, my mother and father got drunk and argued all the time. The truth is, they were terrible to each other. I thought I’d never get over all that, and I guess maybe I never have.”
    For an instant, Billy looked as if he might laugh. But he didn’t laugh. He gazed at me with these big, round eyes that seemed to grow larger and more rounded; and his whole countenance changed, which is to say that, in some way that had more to do with a feeling than an actual look, his expression softened, and he lowered his head.
    â€œPlaces for act two, scene one!” I called out to Danielle and the cast. “We’re going to run the play from Puck’s line to the faerie, ‘Thou speak’st aright; I am that merry wanderer of the night.’ Puck, you’re downstage left, crawling out of your hole.”
    â€œThou speak’st aright. I am that merry. Wanderer of the night,” intoned my sightless Puck.
    â€œWait a minute, Martin. Do the line again, this time as if you hate life. Say this line as if you’re