The Wisconsin Ultimatum
We’re standing in front of a chair Haley considers perfect, an icon of mid-twentieth century design: it’s a Danish chair from 1944, made of cherry wood, with a soft orange leather pad on the seat. The chair has a top rail that curves gently downwards, supporting the back and forming the arms. I know she yearns for contact with this chair—not to sit in it, but to run her hands along the smooth wooden rail. She wants to spend her life with this chair.
I long to leave this hall of terribly beautiful chairs and go to the museum café. Instead, I walk a few feet forward and catch a glimpse of the two of us in the mirror, my scruffy hair with the fading pink dye; Haley’s tall figure and square shoulders in her black jacket. Now I’m standing in front of an elaborate rocking chair from 1912, upholstered in mustard-colored fabric. Haley turns to face me.
“Jen, you know I’m leaving for Wisconsin in August,” she begins. My heart is thudding, and I nod without saying anything. “I’ve been thinking,” she continues, “Unless you finish by then, you shouldn’t come with me.”
“You want to go alone?” I ask. But I already know she does.
She shakes her head. “I don’t want to, but it’s the only way. You need to finish.”
She doesn’t have to explain what I need to finish: the dissertation is like a hulking animal penned in the hallway of our apartment. Something immovable, impossible to budge. It’s been nine years working on the doctorate, seven of them on the dissertation. Yes, I’ve taught freshman English all those years, for a pittance, while Haley has supported me, working at the architecture firm. It’s her turn for graduate school, a place where she will be free to contemplate austere chairs, to sit on hard stools while she painstakingly reworks her own designs for chairs, couches, and bureaus.
I wonder momentarily what would happen if I collapsed onto this fainting couch like a lady whose corset was too tight. It would be lovely place to give way to despair, elegant in green velvet, with a scalloped back. I could fall dramatically, and if it were 1912, the guard would rush forward anxiously, and gentlemen would gather around, fanning me with handkerchiefs and proffering water.
Today, if I gave way to this impulse, an alarm would sound, the sleepy guard would be jolted awake; he would charge forward and yank me off. I would be expelled from the museum, and Haley would never speak to me again. I laugh at this scenario, and Haley looks at me, confused. She probably thinks I’m laughing at the very idea that I might finish before August.
“Can we go to the café?” I ask. “I want a hot chocolate.” What I really want is for Haley to take my hand, to hold it firmly and say decisively that I can finish. Not this time: she laughs ruefully and shakes her head. Instead of the café, Haley leads us out of the museum, where we wander down 5th Avenue and into Central Park. I know she thinks these benches are iconic, too, with their circular iron dividers balanced on half-circle legs. I sit on the hard slats, hoping she will sit on the same side of the divider with me, but she sits on the other side. It’s March, and there’s still snow on the ground. We watch a woman walking her dachshund, who is wearing a red knitted sweater and matching red booties. We watch a bearded young man pushing a stroller while thumbing his phone. We watch an elderly lady, edging forward with her walker, accompanied by a young companion in a neon orange watch cap.
Sitting in the chilly sunlight, a certainty overtakes me. I laugh a little with the terrible knowledge: I’m not going to finish. I can see the future now: Haley’s departure and my floundering; the demoralizing office job I’ll settle for; the dishes piling up in the sink; the apartment with only the cheap, ugly furniture left; my books alone on the half-empty shelves. My life without Haley. The devastatingly elegant chair she will design, which I will see one day in a magazine.
In a flash, I know all this, but I must keep it secret. “Of course I’ll finish,” I say abruptly. Haley nods once without looking at me. I grab her hand and hold it. She squeezes once, quickly, then releases my hand and rests hers on the curved iron of the bench. In the cool breeze, I feel the thrill of oncoming catastrophe.