Leaving

The following is from Roxana Robinson’s Leaving . Robinson is the award-winning author of six novels and three short story collections. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic, Harper’s, and other publications. She lives in New York City and Connecticut, spends as much time as she can in Maine, and teaches in the MFA program at Hunter College. “I never thought I’d see you here,” Sarah says. Then she adds, “But I never thought I’d see you anywhere.” They’re at the opera house, on the second floor, near the head of the grand staircase. He’s facing her, leaning his hips against the railing, hands set lightly on either side. Beyond him, in the high open space of the atrium, hang the glittering crystal chandeliers, frozen starbursts. Below, people move up and down the broad red-carpeted staircase, hurrying but stately. They are mostly over fifty, this is the second intermission, and there is only so much time left to meet someone, eat something, drink something, void, before the caped ushers begin playing their little xylophones, the bright tuneless melodies announcing the last act. She had known him at once. His younger face is still visible within this older one, though this one is creased now, hollowed here, fuller there. The same square shape, same bright brown eyes and wide brow. The same thick light-brown hair, though now not so thick. The same fierce vitality in the gaze. “I always thought I’d see you somewhere,” he says. He looks directly into her eyes. He’d always done this, looked straight into her, as though she were important. It had always unnerved her. “You look just the same.” She smiles but shakes her head. “You know what I mean,” he says. “You do. Your eyes.” They had been close at one time. * After the last curtain call—the dark-haired soprano curtsying deeply and charmingly, kissing her fingertips to the audience as plastic-wrapped bouquets thud onto the stage, before the swirling gold curtain is finally drawn for good—Sarah stands, putting on her jacket. She buttons it as she inches her way across […]

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