Most stars travel in pairs, orbiting one another—they’re called binary stars, and some of them travel so closely together that their gases and dust flow from one to the other, so you might not even know who is who. That’s how Manny and I are. It’s how we’ve always been.
Our night swimming spot is about a mile from my house on Highway 22, past the graffiti-filled rock walls that line that part of the highway. There’s Kenny luvs Shayna, and Ricky 4Eva RIP and some that are just scribbles or symbols. It’s just after the TONY THE DRUNK IS A THIEF, when the wall breaks up and opens to Lake Champlain, where there’s a sheltered area that's perfect for swimming without being seen.
The humidity clings like Velcro on the night everything starts to change. We climb to the top of the end of the cliff wall just off the shoulder of the highway—it isn’t that tall there, maybe five feet high—and it's pretty flat, so we can lie across it. It's pitch black out so we don't have to worry about being seen.
"27," Manny says.
"23."
That's how many cars we guess will pass in the next hour. Whoever is closest without going over wins and the loser has to jump in the water first. It doesn’t make much sense because we're both going to swim anyway but what the hell else are we going to do?
I turn over on my back to look at the stars.
"They announce the winner next week," I say. "The Teacher-in-Space thing."
"Oh, really?"
A car passes. That's one.
"Yep."
"That's rad."
"Yeah. You wanna come over and watch it?"
Two more cars.
"Three," Manny says. Then, "Sure."
"That's gonna be me some day you know, going up there."
"That's news to me. I've never heard you say anything like that before.”
He's being sarcastic. I say it a lot. But now it’s different. Now some regular person is going to get picked to go.
"Ha. Ha. Not funny.”
We're quiet for a minute.
"I can’t help talking about it a lot. This place is suffocating." “This place” being, Whitehall, New York. Population 1,976. A grocery store, a hardware store, a Stewart's. Oh, and a bowling alley.
"Guess I'll have to find myself some new friends.”