Alone with You in the Ether: A Love Story

In Regan’s mind, her mother berates and insults her. Several pages of the text are devoted to this train of thought, or Helen’s voice inside Regan’s mind. Helen tells Regan that she’s too smart to still be failing, that she’s someone whom other people always eventually leave, and that she’s bound to mess things up with Aldo too. Helen’s voice tells Regan that her actions don’t make sense, that she’s better off with Marc, and that Aldo is strange and rude. The voice slowly starts to transform more into Regan’s own voice, reflecting her thoughts about the situation and her doubts about whether she’s in love with Aldo. Next, a third voice interrupts Regan’s thoughts: Aldo’s voice. He tells Regan to remember bees and to understand that their love is all that matters.

Regan sneaks into the guest room where Aldo is lying in bed. She sits down on his bed and apologizes for her family’s awkwardness as she reaches out to touch his hand. They stare at one another and slowly move closer until their foreheads are touching. She asks him which key to her he would most like to have and anticipates that he’ll answer that he wants her sexually. After a long buildup and dramatic hesitation, he answers that he wants to see her art, which startles and upsets her. Both insulted and disappointed, she tells him that she no longer has access to that part of herself, and tells him what she hoped he’d say. He admits that he wants the same thing, but not like this, and she confusedly walks out of the room. He wonders if she’ll ever forgive him.

After leaving Aldo’s room, Regan goes back to her own room in a huff, frustrated because she didn’t get what she wanted but reflecting that she didn’t even truly know what she wanted from that situation. She thinks about how Aldo said he wanted to see her art, and she feels like she has nothing to show him. On an impulse, she goes to her father’s office, where she sees a painting that he invested in when she was a child. Back then, she believed his words about how amazing the painting was, and she aspired to gain his approval in the same way. Now, she looks at the painting and sees it as average, and she knows that her father’s approval was nothing special. Suddenly inspired, Regan finds all her old art supplies and a canvas and creates an exact replica of the painting.

Early the next morning, Regan asks Aldo to take her home without saying goodbye to her parents or sister. She has her painting with her, along with her father’s, but Aldo doesn’t ask about it. He thinks about the night before and how he wished it had turned out differently, and she tells him that she thinks they should distance themselves from one another for a while. His heart wrenches at the thought.

When Regan goes to see her psychiatrist, she toys with her, telling her she stopped taking her pills and then claiming it was a joke (in truth, she did stop). The doctor asks Regan if anything has changed, as the doctor can see that something is different, and Regan says that she started painting again. The doctor seems uninterested in this, despite its importance, and tries to press Regan about her pills and her relationship with Marc. Regan refuses to tell her anything else and leaves.

Aldo talks to his father on the phone, who tries to convince him to come home to California, where the weather is warm. When Regan’s call interrupts their conversation, Aldo ends the call with his father and shakes as he says hello to Regan. In a businesslike manner, Regan asks Aldo if he can model for her so that she can draw him, and he agrees. When she hangs up, he thinks about whether some alternate version of himself did things the right way after all.

Looking at her paintings, which are all replicas, Regan knows she needs to create something new and hopes that Aldo can be the source of that creation. She knows, too, that art needs to expose some part of herself and to have an emotional basis, and she feels that Aldo does that for her. Regan hopes that by taking a risk, she can finally find the part of herself that she lost.

When Regan arrives at Aldo’s apartment with her sketchbook in hand, she’s dressed in sweats and initially seems focused only on her objective. She looks through his closet and decides that he should pose nude instead. He agrees to this, finding his nudity less threatening than the prospect of being analyzed the way he often analyzes others. Regan attempts to mold Aldo’s position to her liking, posing every joint on his body. She begins to draw and asks him to talk about something to fill the silence. He brings up the Pirahã tribe in Brazil, who don’t consider past or future as necessarily elements of their reality. Instead, they live in the present and base their existence only on their own immediate experiences. Aldo expresses feeling trapped inside the Babylonian concept of time and frustrated by this fact. Conversely, Regan feels comforted by not having to consider multiple possibilities and instead being on a linear path.

Looking at Aldo in this context, Regan sees every line and shape of his body. When his mind starts racing, Aldo starts to move his fingers, making it impossible for Regan to draw them. She approaches him and curls her fingers in his, confessing that she stopped taking pills for a diagnosed problem. Aldo counters that he sees nothing wrong with her and encourages her to let out whatever emotional fire might be burning inside of her. Before becoming too physical, Regan breaks the moment and leaves suddenly, returning briefly to tell Aldo that she’ll soon be ready to show him her drawings.