We Are Unprepared Read Free Page A

to the browning at the end. We were playing Frisbee in shorts, for Christ’s sake.
    Weather was the primary topic of discussion in the Northeast Kingdom that summer—even more so than usual—because it was all so wrong. Everyone was nervous: the farmers, the maple sugarers, the people who relied on ski tourism, the ice fishermen and the hockey fans. Pia talked a lot about a global-warming government cover-up, but I was the one in our household who truly mourned the changing Vermont climate. I had grown up there (technically, I grew up in Rutland, a sturdier, postindustrial town in central Vermont). Every milestone of my life was tied in some way to New England weather; and every romantic vision I had for our new life relied on the weather being right. Some part of me understood this to be unrealistic, but I wasn’t ready to accept that.
    When the sun finally disappeared and our toes started to chill in our flip-flops, we sent August home and Pia and I went inside to make dinner. I loved making dinner together. It was an activity that could lay the groundwork for hours of sexually charged companionship. It wasn’t just sex—though that almost always came later—but also wine and storytelling and laughter and touching. Those nights always felt to me like scenes from a movie. I envisioned someone watching us through a window, not hearing exactly what we were saying, but being impressed by the ease and tenderness of our home life. It was the shade of domesticity that I liked marriage in.
    Pia browned fat chunks of bacon in a pan that would soon be joined by split brussels sprouts and a drizzle of maple syrup, an addicting recipe she had acquired from the little girl who ran the farm stand down the road. These were the details we relished but worked hard to seem cool about when we breathlessly relayed them to our friends back in Brooklyn. We buy our sprouts from a farm girl down the road! That’s where we get our eggs, too—you have never eaten eggs until you’ve had just-laid eggs. I can’t believe we ever bought our meat vacuum-sealed at the grocery store. Just-butchered and free-range is the way to go. It’s just the way life is here... The narrative we’d created about our life in Vermont was almost as important as the experience itself.
    I massaged salt and pepper into a local sirloin and carried it out the back screen door to place over high flames on the grill. Pia joined me minutes later, slipping a hand around my waist and lifting her pinot noir to my lips. I took a sip before leaning down to kiss her hard. I loved that I was almost a full head taller than her. Being tall and broad was my best physical feature. Without expending much effort on appearance, I projected the illusion of general fitness, even as my stomach softened slightly and my dark, groomed beard sprouted grays. I drew most of my confidence with women from my size, which worked fine for Pia, who liked to be enveloped by someone larger than herself. On cue, she melted into my chest and then pushed me away, darting back inside to tend to her sauté pans.
    * * *
    â€œI want to change the world,” I once said to Pia during a marathon late-night session of drinking, fooling around and philosophizing early in our courtship. We were on our second bottle of wine and both feeling drunk.
    â€œNo, you don’t.” She laughed.
    â€œI do!”
    â€œNo, people who want to change the world go on disaster relief missions in Haiti and deliver vaccines to babies in Africa. You just want to be outside and feel like less of a yuppie dick.”
    I considered this correction as I studied the pattern of the blanket beneath us. We were sitting on the floor in our tiny Brooklyn living room having a sort of indoor picnic.
    â€œIt’s okay,” Pia went on. “I’m the same. I’m too selfish to do something truly good, but I think choosing to live a life that doesn’t make the world worse