Gerald took her back to his apartment. His girlfriend was out of town, which is what had sent him to the bar, and what had made him lonely, and what had made him jaunty, and what had made him drunk. He lined up all the results for the young woman down the way, who was glancing at her phone with frequency. “My friend is stuck at work,” she said. “It’s my last night in town and stranded like a fool.” Gerald had moved seats then, sensing an opening. It turned out they had more in common than two people ten years apart in age who lived on opposite coasts and had never heard of each others’ companies had any right to. “Are you in a position to take me home?” she said after only two drinks, and he held his glass up and clinked invisible air. “To life,” he said. They thumped in through the front door trying to whisper. His hands were interlaced at the back of her neck. Kind laughter tumbled from her mouth when she saw the picture of him and Kim on the refrigerator. “Oh,” she said. “Are you two happy?” He shrugged. He never knew how to answer the question and he wasn’t about to start now. In bed, sliding wonderfully across each other, she said “maglev,” which made him laugh again until he thought about what she probably meant, which was that they were moving fast because they were never really touching, and that made him go to the bathroom while she was sleeping and look in the mirror and cry a little. It was the last time he cried until twelve years later when he heard she had died. “Why are you crying?” Kim said. He pointed at the crystal flutes behind her, the tenth anniversary present they had bought each other. “Those,” he said, not completely lying.
©2021 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
No comments:
Post a Comment