Keller twists the cork from the corkscrew and lays it on the kitchen table. He fills our glasses. We talk about the APP staff, the other researchers we know. We talk about the next phase of our study, which we’ll begin during this upcoming trip, after the Cormorant drops us off at Petermann. As usual, we don’t talk about us.
But later, when I lead him to the bedroom, he follows as if he’s glad to leave everything else behind. It’s the first time we’ve been together so far north of the equator, so far away from what first brought us together, and even as I feel his hands on my body, as I become immersed in the full presence of his skin, I also feel an absence, as though he is not entirely here, as I suppose he’s never entirely anywhere anymore—as maybe I’m not either.
OVER THE NEXT few days it surprises me every time I see Keller sitting on my couch, one hand balancing a glass on his knee, the other hand scratching the ears of Gatsby, who usually settles down between us when he’s here. I can’t help but envision Keller’s past life—the chaos of dinner with a toddler, bath time, story time. This vision bears less resemblance to the man in front of me than to Nick, or who Nick might’ve been if he’d ever settled down, perhaps who he still is, deep down.
I wonder who the real Keller is—whether he has become who he was always meant to be, or whether he’s simply adapted, like the penguins, out of necessity. And I wonder whether he’d return to the way things used to be if he could, and where that would leave me if he did.
We coexist much the way we do down south, each doing our own work, coming together now and then by day and always at night. Instead of the crew lounge, it’s my kitchen table; instead of sleeping bags on the rocks of Petermann, it’s the lumpy mattress on my queen-size bed. It takes me a while to get used to another presence; I’ll glimpse Keller’s toothbrush and do a double take; I’ll hear a door shut and remember that it’s not just me in the cottage anymore. If I go to bed while Keller is still awake, reading or working on his laptop, I like knowing that, sometime in the night, he’ll slip into bed next to me, and I won’t wake up alone.
One day, he meets me after my afternoon bio lecture, and we walk through the university’s verdant campus, red brick and ivy all around. It had rained while I was in class; water drips off orange-and red-hued leaves, and cyclists spray up mist as they bike past us on the walkways.
I tell Keller about my class, how I’m certain that half the students slept through it.
“No way,” he says. “You’re a natural teacher.”
“One on one, maybe,” I say. “Like with you—that was easy. Not so much in front of a class full of restless freshmen.”
We move aside as a student, walking backward as she gives a tour, heads in our direction. “What was your class like in Boston? Did you enjoy teaching?”
“I did,” he says. “It felt a little like being in a courtroom, only I was talking about things I’m actually excited about.”
“You weren’t passionate about your cases?”
“Yes and no,” he says. “I’ve always been fascinated with the law itself—building an argument, making it sound, thinking about opposing counsel’s next move. It’s like chess. But the corporate cases our firm handled . . .” He trails off. “It was a relief to quit, actually.”
It’s starting to rain—fat, heavy drops that splash up from the shallow puddles on the blacktop. I pull the hood of my rain jacket over my head.
“Where to?” Keller asks.
I think for a moment, the rain splatting against my hood. We’re not far from a pub where I often meet Jill, other colleagues, and grad students from the biology department—but when I think about showing up with Keller, I hesitate. While there are plenty of people on the periphery of my everyday life—the ones who know me as an underpaid adjunct professor who’s constantly flying south to be with penguins—those who know me best are usually the ones I’m with for those few weeks a year. And I’m not quite ready to merge these two worlds.
Keller’s still waiting.
“I know a place,” I say, and we head west on Eleventh Avenue. The restaurant is farther away than I’d remembered, and half an hour later we leave our dripping jackets on a coatrack near the door as we slide into a booth whose vinyl seats are patched with duct tape.
I know it was worth the long, wet walk as Keller looks around, smiling at the brightly colored walls, the long bar with its teal-green barstools, the black-and-white checkered floor. “I love a real diner,” he says when a heavily tattooed server comes by with menus—vegan comfort food—and jelly--jar glasses of water.
We order plates of southern-fried tofu with crinkly fries, coleslaw, vegan mac-and-cheese, and corn bread. I use my napkin to pat dry the ends of my hair, dribbling rain onto the table.
As I reach for another napkin, I notice, next to the ketchup, a little box filled with Trivial Pursuit–style cards. I shuffle through the cards, pulling one out to ask Keller a question from the nature category: The diet of which bird creates its pink plumage?