THE SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD

by Paul Greenberg

Excerpt--Full story appears in the anthology

Wild East: Stories from the Last Frontier

It was already December, just a week before their departure, when Peter Isaakson realized that he did not feel young enough to move to Paris.  He realized this at the same time he realized that he did not quite know why Isabel had suggested the move in the first place.  

            "Well," she said over her shoulder as she boxed up the last of her closet, "I always thought I could explore another side of myself in Paris."

            "Another side?"

            She smiled a strange smile—stuck halfway, it seemed, between her actress smile and her real smile.  She walked to the futon couch and kissed him.  If he had turned his head only slightly he could have really kissed her and shifted the odd look in her eye back to the bedtime-familiar.  But as they'd been together almost a year, and the radiator was blasting, and he hadn't showered, and she hadn't brushed her teeth, he let her young mouth slide off his face and continue its progress in this new direction. 

            "If I told you something," she said standing up and putting her hands on her hips, "something really hard for me to tell you.  If I asked you to support me in what I'm going to tell you, would you support me, one hundred percent?"

            Peter took an older man's pause before replying, "Yes.  Of course."

            She kissed him once more, reached for a stepladder and climbed into the upper reaches of her closet.  She came down with a suitcase that was octagonal and purple, slightly larger than a hatbox.

            "The truth is," she said, "I haven't been exactly upfront about Paris.  But I missed you during that stupid . . . what was that dumb 70s expression you used?  That 'trial separation'?  Well, whatever, I missed you, okay?  And then when we ran into each other, well, I was just all caught up in being with you again and I didn't wanted to ruin things.

"But now it feels like you're looking at me differently.  I feel like you're really looking for me.  For me, exactly me.  Not some picture of me you put together in your head.  And I've been thinking about it and I realize that I was the one who was being selfish.  How could you find me if I didn't show all of myself to you?  I kept telling you about this space between us, but I never realized that I was the one making it.  Well I'm done hiding.  I know what it's all about now.  And I want to show it to you."

            She opened the suitcase.  "You see, Peter, there's someone inside me who you don't know yet and I've always wanted to let her out."

            She reached into the suitcase and pulled out a bright red wig.  "This is her hair," she said putting on the wig, "these are her shoes," a pair of oversized, floppy shoes was produced, "and this is her nose." 

            She put on the red rubber nose and the shoes and waddled across the room to embrace him. 

            "A clown?"

            "Yes, a clown," she said.  "That's why I asked you to transfer to Paris.  I want to go to clown school."

*          *          *

  The complete text of The Subjunctive Mood appears in the forthcoming anthology Wild East


MORE WRITING BY PAUL GREENBERG