"And what about your ceiling?" my Mom asked the other day.
"It's okay. A little dingy, but probably doesn't need repainting."
"Well we have ceiling paint, it's easy to bring it."
"Yeah, but it also has these glow-in-the-dark stars all over it."
"We can paint over them."
"Hmm... I think they'd peel eventually... I guess I can take them down."
And so over the past few nights I have left my light on for an hour, attracting the moths who have taken over the apartment, then turning it off, standing on my bed, I grope the ceiling to pull down the stars. It's funny, the same thing happens with these stars that happens when you look into the night sky; if I stare at one intently, it suddenly disappears. I resorted to scraping my fingers against the textured ceiling, searching for the flat paper stickers among the cheese grating.
I was sad to take them down. On my first night in the new room I was pleasantly exhausted, looking up at the fake stars, looking at fake constellations. A backwards big dipper, a too-tight Cassiopeia. My father had just mentioned to me how charmed he was that when I was last home, looking up into the starry sky was the first thing I did after emerging from the car at 1:30am. My mother reported to him that I found Cassiopeia right away. My father was impressed with his own teaching skills from way back when.
But the glow-in-the-dark stars have other memories tied to them. During the summer of 2000, when I worked at the YMCA camp, I was almost-dating a guy named Paul, who was the music teacher and had his own cabin/classroom. He was staying with his rather stodgy aunt and uncle that summer, and sought refuge in his little cabin, painting it, decorating it, cleaning the lush carpet. The kids loved that room, its comfy bright softness.
I was a little in love with Paul, with what he might do for me. I thought he could rescue me somehow, with his jazz guitar, his vegetarian enchiladas, his soft-spoken respect. He was careful and confusing with me, making huge efforts to see me outside of camp, then not returning phone calls, then begging me to go on the road with him. During our once-a-week overnight, we'd get the kids sleeping, then the counselors would take shifts to go down to the dwindling bonfire. Paul would play his guitar, I would sing everything I knew. The other counselors would dazedly burn marshmellows and put in requests.
One week I helped Paul bring his two guitars back to his cabin. The carpet was so soft and nice. I couldn't help wishing we could sleep there. The other counselors called it "The Love Shack," and at that moment, with the bright mothy fluorescent light buzzin, the guitars settling into their cases, our hair smokey, fingers ashy, I felt all of the possibilities rushing into me.
"Do you want to see something?" he asked.
"Sure," I said.
He ushered me into the middle of the room and walked over to close the door. Then he turned off the light.
"Look up."
On the low raftered ceiling, he had meticulously placed a hundred or more stars. Many of them made constellations. There were so many, it was dazzling. No one else would know they were here, I thought. No one is here at night. Was he sleeping here? When did he have the time?
"This is amazing, Paulie!" I whispered. Darkness always makes me whisper.
"Thanks." He brushed through the air toward me, stood in front of me as I gazed up. The cabin had good storm doors and blocked all light. There were no windows. The darkness was complete, except for the stars. I could only make out his silhouette against them. He was nearly a foot taller, and I was looking up, wondering if I could somehow find his eyes in the dark. They were blue. They should have glowed.
What did we talk about then? Whatever came out of our mouths was surely nervous bullshit. My whole body was pleading him to kiss me. I felt the entire dialogue; how he'd said he couldn't date anyone right now, how he'd said I was so talented, how I tried to find a closer place to him when we watched movies on his aunt's couch, how he touched my arm so lightly to get my attention, how overwhelming my loneliness could be, how his eyes lit when I sang with him. It all funneled to this point, right here.
Kiss me, jackass.
He cleared his throat. "We should go."
Paul found the door quickly, shakily opened it, let me pass through, careful not to touch.
Standing on my bed last night, my fingers sore from searching out stars, I felt that same juvenile confusion for a moment. Paul and I kissed, eventually, once, on my porch, some night before I had to go back to college after a short break. I never could tell if he did any of it for me - the stars, the enchiladas, the kiss. He always seemed to act out of some higher moral sense of duty that occassionally allowed him to dip down and serve me somehow.
I asked myself, are glow-in-the-dark star stickers juvenile or romantic?
My arms, head, fingertips aching, I decided. Juvenile.
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