by William VanDenBerg

The astronaut woman comes to me in my dreams. She is covered in an orange vinyl pressure suit and wears a helmet, so I can never see her face. She has become accustomed to the pressure of space, so she can't take her suit off on earth. She stares into my eyes and I stare back at her, at my reflection in the helmet; I know, through the quarter inch of Plexiglas, that she loves me. She will love me the rest of her life.

In the dream we can make love through the space suit, somehow.

On Sundays I take the bus out to the suburbs and sit on the back patio of my brother's house drinking beer. His wife Carol corrals their children and puts them to bed. Carol is beautiful, but I'm not attracted to her. I can see her skin. My brother asks me why I'm alone. Before I can answer he offers to set me up with a woman from his office. He always offers me this. His secretary has an ass that "refuses to quit."  

When he offers to set me up, I refuse. They wouldn't be my type. He then asks me what I want in a woman, and I'm afraid to tell him that I want her to be covered in puncture resistant vinyl. I want her to breathe from an oxygen tank that's strapped to her back. I want to hear her voice through the crackle of a speaker. I want to know she loves me, even when she's in space, doing important things to the Hubble.

I lie to my brother about ridiculously specific qualities the woman I want would have. They aren't true, but it prevents him from finding her. He sighs and says my standards are too high.

"You'll never find anyone unless you learn to compromise," he says.

"But I can't compromise. You don't understand."

"Look at Carol, she's-"

"Carol's beautiful," I interrupt.

"Of course she is, but she's as dumb as a tin board. But am I ever going to find a woman with tits like that and a functioning brain?" I'm drunk, so I just call him an asshole. "I'm just saying; you need to find someone more in your league."

"I want my astronaut," I reply under my breath.

He hears me and laughs, saying that I'm cut off. He pulls the beer from out of my hand and drives me home, back to my little apartment in the city.

I'm at work, two days later. When my brother calls me, I'm cutting the stems off of roses. I work at a florist, mostly trying not to kill things.

"I found her!" he says.

"Who?"

"Your girl!" My heart jumps for a split second.

"The one you talked about last week," he says. "Long red hair, green eyes, only wears ribbed tank tops, leather pumps, and blue jeans. And she smokes exactly two cigarettes a day."

"Oh," I reply.

"She works at the coffee shop downstairs from my office. I told her all about you, how you work in a floral shop and like to write poetry, and after I convinced her that you're not gay, I asked if she wanted to go out with you."

"Oh," I reply again.

"What's the matter?   You didn't go gay all of sudden?"

"No. It's, it's fine. How did you even pull that off?"

"I'm very persuasive."

"Oh god. You paid her, didn't you?"

"No, of course not. Come on, I had to pull a lot of strings to get this for you."

I know that he will hound me forever unless I go out with her. After one date I can invent some excuse not to see her.

"Alright."

"Alright?"

"Ok."

And then next week we have lunch at a semi-trendy place that serves mostly vegan food. I get there early and order tea, hoping to calm down. I am already dreading the end of the night.

She will ask: so, would you like to come up?

No, I have to work early. Or, no, I never on the first date. Or, no, not unless you put on this plastic suit.

I have thirteen different reasons jotted down on a napkin when she walks up to the table. I crumple it and put it in my pocket. She smiles at me and asks, "James?"

"Yeah, yes. Hi."

"Hi, I'm Felice."

I extend my hand and she shakes it with an amused look on her face. She sits down and orders a beer.

"So, Nathan says you're a poet?" she says. It's a statement, technically, but she asks it like a question.

"Yeah. Kind of."

"Have you gotten anything published?"

"One or two things."

"That's nice."

The chatter isn't completely inane, but I don't have anything to give her. It's hard to fake interest when I know, at the end of the night, she won't have what I want. She's sweet, and nice, and kind of funny. When I don't have anything to say she speaks about herself. Not in an overly talkative way, but in an attempt to get me to reciprocate. I sit through dinner, itching in my chair, offering half answers.

She has a little white string tied around her index finger. I ask what she's trying to remember, and she says that she heard someone talk about it in a song. She says it sounded nice. I didn't ask what song, or what she meant by it sounding nice. Our conversation sputters again. "Glorybox" by Portishead plays through the restaurant. I tell her I like it, but I don't.

We finish and pay the bill dutch. She lives a few blocks away, so I resentfully ask if I can walk her home. She says alright, and we walk in silence. I look at streetlamps; I look at my shoes, and her shoes, and the steps of apartment buildings with normal people living normal lives in them. I keep my eyes off of her face. We get to her building and I start to say something, but she cuts me off.

"Good night. It was nice meeting you."

I pause. I ask if that's it.

She laughs. "You don't seem very interested in me."

"I'm sorry. I don't do this a lot."

She can tell. She asks, "Why, do you want to see me again?"

"I don't think so," I say.

"You don't sound terribly certain."

"It's complicated," I murmur.

"Let me guess, you're married?"

"No!   No, that's not it."

"Sorry, I've just been getting a run of married guys lately," she says.

"No, I'm not married, it's just complicated."

"Alright. So we won't see each other again."

An awkward second passes. She frowns with the corners of her mouth.

I ask, "If I wanted to call you, sometime, maybe, would that be ok?"

She thinks about it. I see gears clicking in her eyes. She says no.

"Oh," I respond.

"I just don't want anything complicated right now. I'm sorry, you seem really nice, and if you get things worked out, then, you know, sure. But until then, I need to look out for myself."

Again, "Oh."

"Goodnight James."

"Goodnight Felice."

And then she walks into her building. I take the bus back home and find my answering machine blinking.

"Hello brother," the machine says. "Just hoping everything went well tonight."   He says something lewd about the length of Felice's legs and laughs loudly, harshly. In the background I hear Carol yelling at him to keep quiet. "Anyway, let me know. Bye."

I have three beers and call the operator. They have to listen to you; it's actually one of their job requirements.

"Operator," he says

"Hi, I have a problem."

"How can I help you?"  

I clear my throat and begin. "All I want is to be loved. And to love that person in return. She has to be in a spacesuit, or it doesn't work, trust me. I've tried picturing other women in love with me, making love to me, and it never, ever works. Even in hazmat suits or wearing rubber gloves. It's too close and much too dirty. I can't stand thinking of all that skin touching me."

"Sir, if this is a joke-"

"It's not a joke!   What am I supposed to do?"

Then he tells me that I am going to be alone the rest of my life and hangs up. This is a breach of operator protocol. I consider calling him up and demanding to speak to his supervisor. Instead I think about Felice. I can almost picture her face behind the Plexiglas mask, never visible, but always there. My brother gave me her cell number so I have two more beers and call it. I'm not really expecting her to pick up; it's around four in the morning. I get her machine and start talking.

"Felice," I say, "I'm sorry about calling so late. An operator just told me I was going to be alone for the rest of my life. I don't want to call my brother; his wife will just get angry and not let him ask me over for dinner this Sunday. I'm sorry I freaked out, I'm so sorry, it's just I want one thing, that's all; I won't ask for anything else, so please, will you give it to me?   I need you to-"

And I can't describe it. I can picture it in my mind, the shiny plastic with an American flag on the shoulder. The suit just barely giving away the curve of breasts. I can see it perfectly, but it won't come through in words. I hang up the phone and stumble over to bed.

Tomorrow I would call my brother and have him apologize to Felice for me. He is better with excuses. Tomorrow I will get up and go to my job and come home and go to sleep. On Sunday I will take the bus to my brother's house and drink beer on his patio and look at his wife and his children and envy him. But tonight, I am collapsing on my bed, and I am dreaming.

I am dreaming of someone who will descend on me and love me forever. She will have her name stitched on the front of her uniform so I will always know who she is. She can't feel my skin through the thick gloves, but she will love my body without touch. Her voice will crackle through the speaker and say, I have been waiting for you all of my life.

Again, I have been waiting for you all of my life.

And I will kiss the mirror of her helmet, leaving wet marks where my lips have been. And she can hold me as well as her trapped limbs allow, forever.

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