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Authors: Lauren Fox
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blue wool jacket over it. He smells like outside, like air, like wind. I have never, ever felt like this before: I’m collapsing in on myself. I’m the universe, expanding, contracting. I see him in front of me, and at the same time I see myself in his arms, feel his rough cheek on my neck. God, I want him inside me; I want to be inside him. I want to wear him. What is this?
He sits down, then bounces right back up, nervously. “I’m going to get a cup of coffee. Can I get you one?” he asks. I smile, tilt my head toward the cup in front of me. “Oh, right, you have one. I’ll be right back.”
I have always fallen for guys the way smart girls do, the way not-beautiful girls do, with my brain. My first boyfriend was a revelation. We met at the end of high school, at the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Debating finals. His team was in favor of the death penalty, ours was against it. When we talked on the phone, late at night, after our parents were asleep, we whispered about our SAT scores and the AP classes we were taking. In college, the first boy I loved sat next to me in Pre-Eighteenth Century Lit, and he asked me out after reading my essay on the Wife of Bath (the First Feminist!). A year later, I met boyfriend number three, the one before Kevin, at a political rally. Mark and I leafleted against our local Republican councilman together and argued politics before, after, and sometimes during sex on the single futon on the floor of his bedroom at the co-op. And Kevin, well, Kevin. This is different from that, different from love, of course, but different, too, from the brainy entanglements of my past.
David sits down across from me. He takes a sip of his coffee, puts his cup down, and meets my eyes. We look at each other for a long second. As my brain seizes up, I realize that I should have prepared something to say.
“I’m really glad you e-mailed,” he says.
I have a husband. “Thanks,” I say. “Me, too.” Now that that’s finished, we stare at each other in silence again. I look down at my hands, my pale, naked hands. I have a flash of Meg in the hospital waiting room, the way she looked drowned, wrung out. I called her yesterday and left a message. Nobody answered, but I’m sure they were home.
After a few moments, David finally breathes life into the dead air between us. “So, what kind of writing do you do?” I want to lick him.
“Well,” I say, wondering what will come out of my mouth, “I write about relationships, I guess, and I happen to have just finished a short piece for Me, the magazine Me, not myself me, on hats…but really what I try to do, when I can, when I have some free rein, is show evidence that the world is as weird as I think it is.” I’m a tiny, strange bird, chirping nonsensically at the sky. For some reason I hear myself continuing to talk. “I wrote a review a few months ago of this new book that argues that your astrological sign determines your interior decorating style.” I stop, abruptly, mortified at the stupidity of it all.
David laughs, but gently, I think. “I’m a Taurus,” he says. “What does that say about my living room?”
That I am suddenly imagining us on your plush sofa, you on top of me. “You’re into natural materials and natural colors, like sky blue, and textured fabrics. You’re tactile.” I feel myself blush immediately. Tactile! I might as well just have asked him to run his hand up my thigh!
He smiles. “It’s true, actually. I am kind of tactile! But, you know, my decorating style is more old stuff left behind by former roommates than anything else. Well,” he continues, “if I’d ever given a second’s thought to it, I guess I would be into textured fabrics.”
“I think it’s really great that you can talk about interior decorating without feeling that your manliness is compromised,” I say, and wait three long, horrible seconds before he laughs.
“Yes, I’m very secure that way. I could go on for hours about
He sits down, then bounces right back up, nervously. “I’m going to get a cup of coffee. Can I get you one?” he asks. I smile, tilt my head toward the cup in front of me. “Oh, right, you have one. I’ll be right back.”
I have always fallen for guys the way smart girls do, the way not-beautiful girls do, with my brain. My first boyfriend was a revelation. We met at the end of high school, at the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Debating finals. His team was in favor of the death penalty, ours was against it. When we talked on the phone, late at night, after our parents were asleep, we whispered about our SAT scores and the AP classes we were taking. In college, the first boy I loved sat next to me in Pre-Eighteenth Century Lit, and he asked me out after reading my essay on the Wife of Bath (the First Feminist!). A year later, I met boyfriend number three, the one before Kevin, at a political rally. Mark and I leafleted against our local Republican councilman together and argued politics before, after, and sometimes during sex on the single futon on the floor of his bedroom at the co-op. And Kevin, well, Kevin. This is different from that, different from love, of course, but different, too, from the brainy entanglements of my past.
David sits down across from me. He takes a sip of his coffee, puts his cup down, and meets my eyes. We look at each other for a long second. As my brain seizes up, I realize that I should have prepared something to say.
“I’m really glad you e-mailed,” he says.
I have a husband. “Thanks,” I say. “Me, too.” Now that that’s finished, we stare at each other in silence again. I look down at my hands, my pale, naked hands. I have a flash of Meg in the hospital waiting room, the way she looked drowned, wrung out. I called her yesterday and left a message. Nobody answered, but I’m sure they were home.
After a few moments, David finally breathes life into the dead air between us. “So, what kind of writing do you do?” I want to lick him.
“Well,” I say, wondering what will come out of my mouth, “I write about relationships, I guess, and I happen to have just finished a short piece for Me, the magazine Me, not myself me, on hats…but really what I try to do, when I can, when I have some free rein, is show evidence that the world is as weird as I think it is.” I’m a tiny, strange bird, chirping nonsensically at the sky. For some reason I hear myself continuing to talk. “I wrote a review a few months ago of this new book that argues that your astrological sign determines your interior decorating style.” I stop, abruptly, mortified at the stupidity of it all.
David laughs, but gently, I think. “I’m a Taurus,” he says. “What does that say about my living room?”
That I am suddenly imagining us on your plush sofa, you on top of me. “You’re into natural materials and natural colors, like sky blue, and textured fabrics. You’re tactile.” I feel myself blush immediately. Tactile! I might as well just have asked him to run his hand up my thigh!
He smiles. “It’s true, actually. I am kind of tactile! But, you know, my decorating style is more old stuff left behind by former roommates than anything else. Well,” he continues, “if I’d ever given a second’s thought to it, I guess I would be into textured fabrics.”
“I think it’s really great that you can talk about interior decorating without feeling that your manliness is compromised,” I say, and wait three long, horrible seconds before he laughs.
“Yes, I’m very secure that way. I could go on for hours about
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