Untitled

‘She was… she was like Orlando,’ I said. ‘Or, like Orlando as simultaneously man and woman, child and adult. An enigma. A beautiful, ethereal being.’

‘She mistreated you. You deserve better.’

‘But,’ I said. ‘She—’

‘Seriously. Don’t make excuses. She doesn’t deserve you. And she said you looked cornfed?’

‘Yeah, but she said she didn’t know it meant ‘plump’ at the time.’

We paid the bill and walked back through the park. We threw pennies into the fountain and made wishes. For the first time, I didn’t wish for love. I wished for lasting friendship. ‘What did you wish for?’ she asked.

‘If I tell you, it won’t come true.’

‘I follow the school of thought that believes you can tell one person and it will still come true.’

‘Not me,’ I said. ‘I’m hard-core against telling anyone.’

‘I guess so,’ she said.

Over coffees-to-go, we made somewhat vicious bets on who’d be famous first, each betting on the other. We agreed on a long walk, to the lake. I navigated us up Astor, a street of old, beautiful mansions, pointing out to her the two houses I imagined myself living in. ‘It’s good of you to lend your home to somebody less fortunate for the time being,’ she said, playing along.

I picked two orange flowers from a bush for us to tuck behind our ears like movie stars. ‘Whoever’s flower blows off first is going to be famous first,’ she said. It was windy, so we each kept our hands near our ears in case our flowers caught the wind and blew away. Each of us wanted the other to win, out of modesty. Under the tunnel to the beach, at North Avenue, we shrieked and sang playfully to hear our voices echo. At the lake, I ran along the embankment, laughing, ahead of her, then back to her, and then I realized both of our flowers had blown away. ‘We’re both going to be famous!’

‘Yours blew away first,’ she said. ‘I’m sure of it.’

‘No… yours did!’

We eventually agreed our flowers must’ve blown away at the same time, and that meant we’d both make it.

The sun sank, and I pointed, smitten with city lust, at the pink gothic lettering of the Drake Hotel’s lights.

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I want to stay there. It reminds me of Gatsby.’

‘Yes, and the green light over there, on the lake.’

‘Exactly!’

We reached Oak St. beach, unpeopled. It was spotlit by high halogen streetlamps, but the night was foggy, leaving it eerily dim. ‘I feel like I’m on the moon when I come here at night,’ I said. ‘The sand is cratered, the lake dark as though the world drops off.’ We sat in the sand, with cigarettes. I still sipped my cold coffee.

She pushed sand into a head-shaped mound. ‘What is Orlando’s face like?’

‘Sort of oval… big eyes, full lips, a long nose.’

She shaped the mound oval, then sculpted eyes, lips, and a nose according to my specifications. She created eyebrows, which I told her should be full. I exclaimed over how realistic the face was. She shrugged, as though she did this every day.

‘Look at the sky, over there…’ I murmured, pointing over the lake.

‘There’s one pair of seagulls that keeps circling us,’ she said.

‘Do you think it’s the same pair?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

The sky over the lake was black and lined with burgundy clouds.

‘What about Orlando’s hair?’

‘Short and messy,’ I said, watching the seagulls circuit the sky. She was right. The same pair flew over us, round and round. ‘Dark.’

She used darker, wet sand for Orlando’s hair, then dragged a stone through it to create ‘strands.’

‘Ears?’

‘Medium to large.’

I watched her hands, thick and dimpled at the knuckles, gracefully draw ears. Her hair swung over her shoulder and dabbed into sand; she swooped it back. I wished I could watch her do this all the time.

‘What about Orlando’s neck, and shoulders?’ she asked.

‘Sort of a smallish neck and narrow shoulders,’ I said.

She patiently pushed sand, face set in peaceful concentration, lips in their naturally perfect pout.

‘OK, Sophia. Is Orlando a woman? Breasts? Do I get to make big porn star boobs?’

‘Noooooo! Orlando has very small breasts. Almost none. Maybe none. But make tiny ones.’

‘Aw, c’mon.’ She made giant breasts, with cigarettes nipples, then removed them. ‘OK, fine.’ She fitted two half-handfuls of sand to Orlando’s chest, then delicately traced small nipples into them. ‘OK?’

I nodded, shy. ‘You’re right about the seagulls. It’s the same pair.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘Waist?’

‘Sort of boyish.’

The sand Orlando began to look lifelike. S/he was sized like a real person. I lit a cigarette, nervously wondering what would happen when it was finished.

Orlando’s nose crumpled. ‘I don’t think Orlando likes smoke, Sophia.’

I laughed. ‘That’s good. Maybe I’ll finally be able to quit.’

She gave the sand creature long arms, big hands, shapely legs with thick thighs, feet the same size as mine. Then she said, ‘What will Orlando be like?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Is she a celebrity basketball player or what?’

‘Orlando loves music…’

Sun drew eighth notes and a treble clef in the sand.

‘Those seagulls are still circling us,' I said. 'Don’t you think that’s weird?’ We turned our faces to watch the birds. A second pair joined when we looked up, flying white against black over us then over the lake then back, then again.

She smiled. ‘What else?’

‘Well, Orlando loves books…’

She scratched out an open book. ‘Maybe the seagulls are magic,’ she said.

‘That’s what I think.’

She gestured for me to tell her something else.

‘Orlando is graceful…’

She formed a bird. I made a pleased sound in my throat; I thought that was a good representation.

‘Orlando is kind and cares for others, even for strangers.’

She made a detailed, scientific heart.

‘Wow! That’s incredible!’ I said. She shrugged.

‘Orlando is forever.’

She etched an infinity sign into the sand.

‘I think that’s all,’ I said. ‘Don’t tell Janet I used the word ‘forever.’’

We evaluated the creature we’d spent the last hour creating together. ‘Now it’s time. I’ll say a spell, and you’ll kiss Orlando, and Orlando will find you.’

‘You think?’

‘Is there any doubt that with this—’ she waved her hand over the sand she had shaped into human form, ‘that with this creation, on this foggy night, with a pair of seagulls circling us, if I put a call out into the universe, it will not be answered?’

It wasn’t doubtful to me at the moment.

She beckoned me close. ‘Now I’m going to say the spell.’

She said a few words, the gist of which were that Orlando should find me, and told me to kiss Orlando. I bent down, a little embarrassed to be doing this in front of her, and kissed sand Orlando with my lips slightly parted, taking in a mouthful of sand.

I laughed, and Orlando’s mouth was destroyed so she fixed it, and I swallowed the sand in my mouth because I thought that increased the validity of our spell.

We laid down in the sand with Orlando between us, and watched the seagulls circle. They still flew in pairs, disappearing into clouds then reappearing. Fog partially obscured distant skyscrapers; the skyline smeared and glittering with condensation. The bright darkness of the city at night. Possibility rose all around me, as improbable and amazing as those skyscrapers, or as finding a friend who would shape a sand Orlando.

And then suddenly the banal realization, ‘I have to pee,’ I said. ‘Badly.’

There was no nearby restroom.
‘

Um,’ I said. ‘I still have my cup. I’m going to go pee by the lake.’

She laughed.

‘Don’t watch!’

‘I won’t,’ she said. ‘Are you sick?’

‘I’m serious!’

I walked to the edge of the lake, stood there as if pondering the great meaning of things, unbuttoned and slid my grande Starbucks cup into my pants. I pondered. Ten minutes later, I relaxed enough to pee, and when I did, it was very rewarding. Finished, I reached into my pants and removed the now half-full Starbucks cup. I threw it into the lake. I buttoned my pants and walked back to her. ‘You just—you just—you just—’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I just peed into a cup, standing up, on the shore of Lake Michigan, and threw it into the lake afterwards. You know what? I didn’t spill one drop.’

She laughed until she cried.

‘Let’s go,’ I said.

We stood up, stared for a while at sand Orlando.

‘We’re friends!’ she said.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘You’re the last person from class I ever thought I’d be friends with. I thought you were so normal and conservative and quiet. Not like a girl who’d pee in a cup standing up at the shore of Lake Michigan. If you’d have asked me at the beginning of the semester, who are you going to be friends with out of this class, I never would have thought it would be you.’

‘Wow.’

‘But see, even I can be drastically wrong,’ she said.

‘I should’ve made a sand person for you,’ I said.

‘Next time. It’s too much to ask the universe for two things on one night.’

When she called after midnight to say she’d been mugged unlocking the door to her apartment, I felt sick. The mugger had gotten her only purse, eight dollars, all of her IDs, and the heavily-marked manuscript of my novel, which she’d wanted to re-read and continue critiquing. She’d shouted after him to drop her other stuff and keep the money, but of course he’d just kept running. She’d already notified the police, who told her not to expect much. She didn’t want me to come over. ‘It doesn’t feel safe out there, right now,’ she said.

I was furious. We’d tried to ask the universe for something; now I couldn’t sleep, trying to understand the universe’s response.