Chicago: A Commonplace Novel, Amey Miller

In which Hanna is so overwhelmed by her attraction to Andrew that she forgets to mention it. Once in her hotel room she calls her sister Liz.

I first met Andrew when I came to Chicago for graduate school, at a gathering at the chairman’s house. It was early October, the leaves changing, but still something soft in the air. Professor Powell was grilling steaks outside, we all stood around chatting with our jackets on and hands in our pockets. His house backed into a warren of yards, each one fenced, but the trees were large and graceful, leaning this way and that, blurring the squares of land and fence. Andrew had been at school there a year and seemed quite at home. He lived with his girlfriend Sonya, who had, and still has, I guess, a huge torrent of curly black hair and somewhat languid manners which I thought of as European. Like Andrew, she had been born in Eastern Europe, but raised here. Andrew and Sonya seemed to me like royalty, both understated and sophisticated. I once heard them argue over which one of them got to dress in black because they would look comical if they were too closely matched. So it was a surprise when Andrew and I became friends, we’d drink coffee and talk about music or politics and after I met Sam we would go out as a foursome. For a while I was nervous about the way I talked—silent and then blurting things out without thinking them through, sometimes completely off the subject, but I came to understand that Andrew liked that about me, which was a relief, even if I didn’t know, and still don’t, if that’s the way I want to be. That first night, Professor Powell’s wife brought their two children down in their pajamas to greet everyone, and then took them upstairs. I watched Mrs. Powell then—she had that mother’s air of semi-martyrdom, but laughing and energetic too, friendly, setting out the food, asking us about ourselves. I watched her, I can see her now quite clearly, her black hair pulled back in a knot, dots of pink in her cheeks, her 50’s style belted dress that looked pretty on her full figure. I watched her as if I could imagine at the time that I would end up married to a university professor, chairman of his department, and me the hostess at this kind of gathering. But we don’t have two children, or even one, and I don’t think I am as cheerful as Professor Powell’s wife, although I try to be.