

So Easy To Love

J.A. Pak

Copyright 2012 J.A. Pak

Smashwords Edition

Cover credit: Ben Earwicker, Garrison Photography

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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For all those with broken hearts.

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### Table Of Contents

Prolegomenon

Author Notes

Other Titles By Author

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Prolegomenon: Getting Fired

It was odd. This happened — like my brain was getting slowly unplugged. I couldn't move. People were talking to me and I couldn't move my head. And my eyes — I could see fine, but it was like my eyes were stuck in somebody else's body. The whole experience was so odd and so spectacularly novel, I began slowly meandering through its landscape.

It _was_ odd. I was braced for it. Getting fired. But when it happened, my brain refused to believe it. It just wasn't real.

I should have kept my mouth shut. I shouldn't have said anything. I should have waited. Stayed in the restroom five minutes longer. And then I would have been saved.

My Boss

When she hired me, a month before my college graduation, Daniella took my hand in both of hers and said, "I think we're kindred spirits, Smithie. I know we are. I'm going to love having you here."

I wanted to be Daniella. Tall, serene — you felt so good when you were around her. She knew everybody's name and everybody's birthday. She never forgot to send a birthday or anniversary card. Her handwriting was so beautiful, so warm — we all treasured her cards and all the little personal notes of encouragement she'd leave on our desks. And god she was smart. A linguistic genius, she spoke eight languages like a native. Her fluency in Mandarin had made the company famous in China.

I loved this thing she used to do — Daniella had this way of coming up from behind you as you walked down the hall — she'd put a friendly arm around your shoulders and quote a poem or invite you to lunch.

It's difficult to explain. What happened.

Innocuous

It's usually a look or a word. The relationship could continue for a long time after that, but when it's over and you look back, you know what look or word had ended it all. When you lost faith and stopped believing in someone.

At The Annual Christmas Party

In the hotel restroom, I run into Daniella. She's coming out of one of the stalls and sees me at the mirror. She smiles and says warmly, "I love your dress, Smithie. You look fantastic. You are such a lovely girl to look at. I love that lipstick color."

She dries her hands and I babble on and on about stupid, irrelevant things. She opens her silk evening bag and takes out a tiny bottle of moisturizer. Slowly, methodically, she rubs the moisturizer all over her large hands, wiping the excess off with a towel. I watch mesmerized.

Daniella checks her makeup. Everything is perfect. She winks at me and turns to leave.

And then I see it. Her silk taffeta skirt is tucked inside her pantyhose, inside her beige, control-top underwear.

"Daniella!"

I run to her, and without thinking, grab the skirt and lift it out of her undergarments, smoothing the silk out like I'm a bridesmaid.

"There. That's better," I say.

Daniella whips around. I step backwards, defensively, as if I expect her to hit me.

She doesn't say a word. But her eyes, all jagged ice, make me gasp.

My End

It began very slowly. Little rebukes in front of people. Small mistakes tabulated into a warning. Within a few months, I went from being the teacher's pet to being the company pariah. I thought about quitting. But I couldn't. I was angry. And stubborn. And I did something you should never do. I tried to regain her friendship. When someone hates you, it's the worst thing you can do because they'll only hate you more.

Home

I lost heart after that. And I guess I was shell-shocked too. About a month after getting fired, I packed up my bags and flew home. Back to my parents' house. I hadn't told them I'd been fired. I didn't even tell them I was coming home.

Want Ads

Weeks went by. And then I just got sick of being depressed. Sick of having nothing to do. Sick of my parents whispering about me. Sick of the walls of my bedroom. Sick of me.

I found a job and moved into a studio apartment.

Interview

The job was at a small company. They needed a number cruncher. At the interview my potential boss told me I was superbly overqualified.

"You'll be bored out of your mind," he said. He was so soft-spoken, so shy, I had to lean in to hear what he was saying.

"Boredom is what I need," I heard myself saying.

He gave me a second look. So surprised by my words, he actually looked me in the eye. But I was too far away to appreciate it.

My New Life

No one believed me when I said I was happy. My apartment was completely bare with the exception of a sofa sleeper — what could be more a testament to complete despair than an absence of consumer goods? My parents became so distressed, they immediately went to Costco and bought me a TV and a microwave. The microwave was convenient. And the TV gave my blank stare a focus.

My New Boss

His name was Rafe Tatum and he wasn't much older than me, maybe five years. Thin, with a kind, boyish face. He should have been a balding overweight guy in the middle of a midlife crisis with a tie half undone and maybe an ugly mustache. Someone with a round, little head and a round, little body, huffing and puffing on round, little legs. My boss was even a bit glamorous, half American, half English, not seeming very much of either. He didn't take his job seriously and he didn't take himself seriously. He was parked like me.

There was also his assistant Debbie, and they did this weird thing. They called each other Mr. Tatum and Mrs. Ray, like they were in a fifties office musical. Sometimes Mr. Tatum would give his orders to Mrs. Ray by singing a recitative. She'd answer the same. It could go on for twenty minutes. If I hadn't been so battered by Daniella, Mr. Tatum and Mrs. Ray would have driven me insane enough to blow my head off. Instead, I calmly crunched numbers. I wasn't really very much inside my body. I'm not sure where I was.

The Ward

Debbie barely looked at me the first month. It wasn't the sort of company where people stuck around. Employees came and went so quickly, nobody invested even a smile on you until after the first six-week period.

"You always wear a white shirt and a black skirt," she said to me one day in the restroom. "It makes you look like a waitress."

I couldn't tell whether she was trying to insult me or give me sage advice. I think it was both. I suppose a way of welcoming me to the company while, at the same time, letting me know of her top-dog position. Which was fine.

Debbie

She applied her makeup with a trowel.

Her fake eyelashes were more than an inch long.

She could be thirty-five. She could be forty-five.

She was territorial.

She was out of her head in love with Rafe.

"Everyone in the building is in love with Rafe," she said matter-of-factly while explaining some paperwork from human resources. I think, again, it was some kind of territorial act.

"You'll join the club," she told me. I guess I was free to fall in love with Rafe too, as long as I understood that I was way back at the end of the line. It was all about knowing my place. I shouldn't even sneeze without a nod from Debbie. And I was okay with that. After Daniella, I had absolutely no confidence about things and welcomed Debbie's authoritative guidance.

"You know, I knew he was going to hire you the second I saw you," she continued. She was liking my submissive posture. "You looked so depressed. So defeated. Rafe likes to take in strays. Like me. Cried all the way through the interview. Mascara running down my face, my neck, false eyelashes on my chin, snot everywhere. I was such a mess. Husband — gone — dumped me for a newer model. Couldn't get a penny out of him. Four children. Couldn't find a job. If Rafe hadn't taken me in, I don't know what I would have done. He's a saint. He really is. I'd do anything for him. I'd kill for him."

Fifties musical to film noir in a heartbeat. More versatile than Barbara Stanwyck. I was in awe of Debbie.

And she did have this small dagger in her purse, which she used to open mail and trim her nails. Her first boyfriend had given it to her, so she said it had real sentimental value. She never let it out of her sight. She never let anyone touch it. And she kept it razor sharp. She said she was planning to give it to her eldest daughter on her wedding day. But I couldn't see her handing it over.

But then this was Debbie. She did and said a lot of things for theatrical effect. Debbie was a semi-professional singer. The world was her stage. And she didn't need a microphone. Or sequins.

So would Rafe kill for Debbie? Relationships are rarely reciprocal. But I think Debbie knew that by heart.

Getting To Know You

Suddenly, it was my three-month anniversary. Rafe stopped me in the hallway to congratulate me. I guess I was now eligible for all kinds of exciting benefits. Including 10% off at a local toy store.

"It's phenomenal how time just disappears," Rafe observed philosophically. "I'm sure you feel like you've been here forever."

I did.

Rafe got lost in his own head for a moment. And then he said, "Debbie had an emergency. Nothing serious. Jonny, her youngest son, chipped his tooth at school. On a lunch tray. She'll be out for the rest of the day."

Debbie had four kids and there were a lot of home emergencies. There were her auditions too. It didn't really matter if she was at work or not because Rafe didn't really need an assistant. My job was superfluous too. Just typing an endless stream of handwritten numbers into a spreadsheet. The handwritten numbers appeared mysteriously on my desk every morning. Even Debbie wasn't sure where they came from. After a while, the spreadsheet spat out a calculation and the numbers disappeared into some vacuum. The endless data was like a vestigial tail still being produced because it always has. I was probably the end link of some obsolete process predating the computer era; it probably didn't matter whether I entered the numbers or not. Who would know or care?

My body performed the job automatically. My consciousness just slept. But somehow I always knew when it was five o'clock, when it was time to go home. Not that I looked forward to going home. It was just a studio apartment with a sofa, TV and microwave. But somehow, my body had set itself to a schedule and that was okay.

My Boss And Me

Another accidental moment that somehow becomes important to me.

It was pouring and I was waiting at the bus stop for my bus home. I had my umbrella but it didn't matter, the raging winds making sure I got thoroughly soaked. I didn't have a car. I hadn't even bothered to exchange my New York license for a local one. I still found it hard, buying things, doing things. So I stood there, in the rain, forty minutes going by, waiting for a bus that I was sure was never going to come. I thought about walking home. I'd almost be home by now if I'd started forty minutes ago. But it was easier. Just standing and waiting and getting wet.

A car stopped in front of me. The window rolled down. It was Rafe.

"Smithie? Get in!"

I hesitated. He smiled and extended his hand. I slipped inside.

"I didn't realize you took the bus," he said. "If I'd known, I would have offered to take you home. This is horrendous weather. Look! There's lightning over there."

"Usually there's a bus every ten minutes at rush hour. I guess the weather's screwed everything up."

"You're all soaked. How long were you out there?"

He turned up the heat and got me Kleenex from the glove compartment to help dry my hair.

"I was just on my way to get some dinner," he said. "Would you like to come? There's this pizza place — does great burgers. My treat."

"Oh, no — I mean, I don't want to intrude or anything."

"What would you intrude on, Susanna Yu?" he asked in a gentle, ironic way. "Besides, you're now a permanent employee. That's something to celebrate. And I have a company expense account. They don't like it if you don't use the company expense account on a regular basis. It looks odd to them. So, how about it? The burgers are the best in town. Or _am I_ intruding?"

Intruding: _To enter with unintentional consequences_. Yes. I suppose he was.

The burgers were as good as Rafe had promised. Grilled in the coal-burning oven along with the pizzas so there was this smoky, burnt-cheese quality to them. The beer was great too.

We had a second round, and then he asked me about my name.

"Smithie isn't the usual variant of Susanna?" he said.

"No. I had a volleyball coach. In high school. I went to a Catholic school. She liked to shout out people's last names. She had some kind of sadistic drill-sergeant fantasy. Only, she could never remember mine. So she just called me Smithie. Which was okay with me. I've never liked Susanna."

"Susanna Yu?"

"My dad is half Korean and half Japanese. My mom's Swedish. I think that's why Coach couldn't remember my last name. She couldn't place me. Sort of a weird kind of racism."

"So she gave you a generic Anglo-Saxon name in direct opposition. I am a descendent of Raynald de Châtillon, a most despicable knight. He used to hurl his captives from his castle walls. With boxes over their heads. So their bodies wouldn't go limp."

"How would a box matter?"

"Raynald, being a most despicable knight, had a whole theory worked out. He thought that if a captive's body was limp, the force of impact from the fall wouldn't always be effective. Without a box over his head, the victim could see that he was about to hit the ground and his body would go limp with resignation. With the box, the victim was always scared witless with anticipation and the body would remain rigid."

"I don't suppose we should have children together," I speculated. "I think I have Genghis Khan in my bloodline."

"No. I don't suppose we should."

He grinned at me.

I really liked him. I had to step back and close the door.

Making Friends

This happened without me noticing.

Kirsten lived two doors down from me. And she said:

"That's the problem. The only place you meet people these days is at work. So you end up fucking the boss. I mean, who else are you going to fuck? The janitor?"

Some women collect mangy dogs. Kirsten collected mangy men. Her apartment was a refuge for male vermin. She called them her Lost Men. They came and went, using Kirsten like a crutch. Sometimes she gave them money, but mostly, they just wanted a breather from life.

"So what's he like?" she asked me.

"Kind of sexy in a literary, distracted kinda way."

"Office Casanova?"

"No. I don't think so. I don't think Debbie's ever slept with Rafe," I speculated. "Not possible. She's way too reverential. She really does think he's a saint. I bet she'd wash his feet if she could."

"And dry them with her hair?"

"Absolutely."

Kirsten was also the bartender at Scrambles, the generic little restaurant on the ground floor of our building. If business was slow, and it usually was, she'd call me up and demand I go downstairs to keep her company. Kirsten slipped me free food and drinks so I didn't mind. And Kirsten was very funny in her angry-comic way.

Jack

Jack was the new chef at Scrambles. Like some hungry bear fresh out of the cave, he'd come out of the kitchen and grab Kirsten, shouting in her ear, "Kirsten, try this!" He had no concept of personal space. And he was really into Kirsten.

"It's really gross," she said. "It's like he's fattening me up. Like I'm some sort of goose — you know, the kind they nail to the floor and force-feed for the liver?"

So Kirsten had this plan to get him fired.

"Make him look like a total fuck-up. Trip him up when he's not looking. I'm not alone. The waiters hate his guts. See the way we're all signaling to each other?"

"Is that what that's all about?" I'd been noticing sly hand signals and surreptitious winking.

"Sous chef's in on it too. Not that he's a horrible guy. I've known much worse. And the food here's gotten a helluva lot better," Kirsten admitted.

I agreed. The potato gnocchi I was sharing with Kirsten was absolutely delicious. Light, airy, buttery. I was hoping to get more because Kirsten was eating most of it.

"Love makes you do horrible things," Kirsten contemplated, holding her fork just above her lips. "But he stepped over the line."

Kirsten wasn't the kind of person I'd ever want to mess with. She had this amazing way of banding people together against a common cause. Some magnetic charm of hers.

War Stories

Kirsten was also ex-NYC so we bonded trading war stories, mostly about NYC vermin. Cockroach stories were always good.

"God, the first apartment I had was this shitty little hole-in-the-wall in Brooklyn," Kirsten told me. "Cockroaches everywhere. One night, I was cooking dinner and I just lost it. This fat roach came my way and I just whacked the hell out of it with my Ginsu."

"Once I was steaming some dumplings," I said. "When I opened the basket, it was steamed cockroaches. Their antennae were still moving. Like they were in a sauna."

"Did I tell you my mice stories? One day I put my hand in my oven mitt and I feel this weird thing running up my arm — baby mice. Uhhhhh..."

The Refuge Of Lost Men

At first I didn't recognize him. Just because I wasn't expecting it. Running into Carter. In my apartment building.

I was in the lobby — I'd just said goodbye to Kirsten for the night — and the elevator door opens and a guy comes out and we accidentally brush shoulders. The guy turns around. He stops the door from closing. And I know him.

"Smithie?"

"Carter?"

"Don't tell me you live here," Carter said.

"Oh god," I said. My heart dropped.

"I just moved in today."

Ethan Carter and I had a kind of karmic chokehold on each other. Same elementary school, same middle school, same high school, same college. And now the same apartment building. It was more than that. No matter where I was, no matter how odd the place, Singapore, Reykjavik, I was always running into people who knew Carter.

"So, what are you doing back in town?" we both asked simultaneously.

The last time we'd seen each other was college commencement day. He was heading off to L.A. — film school. I didn't think I'd ever see him again. He hadn't changed at all.

"Long story," he said.

"Me, too," I said.

"Don't ask," we said simultaneously.

It wasn't that I didn't like Carter — I genuinely couldn't stand him. The feeling was mutual.

The elevator door kept jamming against him. He stepped back out and the door quickly closed.

"See you around!" he yelled.

Shit. Was Carter moving in right across the hall from me? I'd noticed someone was moving in. Our doors stared right into each other. And the hallway was not big.

"Could be worse," Kirsten said. "He could be living above you. Or below you. Or right next to you. It's not like this building is the best soundproofed building in the world."

Welcome Back, Carter

The thing was, I liked Carter too.

Carter was one of the most immature guys I'd ever known. In school, he'd been part of a pack, a pack so bad the nuns had begged Rome for extra-strength holy water. He was also incredibly intelligent and ambitious. And squishy soft. Which made him prone to mad fits of love. Unreciprocated love. He didn't seem to be at all interested in girls who actually liked him, appreciating the glamour of the unattainable.

The last time we'd had any kind of conversation was a couple of days before commencement. He suddenly called me up. He'd never called me up before. And he asked if I wanted to go get a cup of coffee or something. I was in so much shock, I said yes. I couldn't imagine why he'd want to get a cup of coffee with me. What he'd want to talk about. That whole afternoon was odd. Words tumbled out of him. About how much he was in love with Kellie Barboza — we'd gone to high school with her, cheerleader type — and how she was using him — he'd ask her out, she'd say yes, they'd spend the date doing her psych paper. And knowing all this, he still couldn't help but like her.

I drank my coffee and didn't say a word. We were more used to trading insults, really juvenile stuff we'd picked up in kindergarten. Around each other, we were always five years old. It was too sudden to be talking about his heart. I just wanted to kick him in the shins and stick my tongue out.

It wasn't until my coffee had gotten cold that I understood: I was the only one he felt comfortable with. Because we'd grown up together. And I suppose that makes you care.

Like Any Other Part Of Town

I was on my way to the convenience store for some milk and yogurts and I run into Rafe.

"Smithie." He's surprised to see me. And I'm surprised to see him. "What brings you to this part of town?"

"I live in the neighborhood," I said. "What about you? You don't live around here? Do you?"

"No. I live clear across town. By the Wain Building. I came to visit my piano," Rafe said.

"Piano?" I wasn't sure I was hearing right.

Rafe smiled. "Come and see. Do you have time?"

"Sure."

"This way."

We walked for two blocks. Down a street I'd never noticed before, there was a small piano store. Well, it looked small because it was so long and narrow. The front room was mostly digital pianos and cheap uprights. But the back room had a small selection of exquisite grand pianos.

"There's more downstairs," Rafe told me. A wonderland of pianos.

"Here he is!"

I turned around and a tall elderly man greeted us. He was wearing a bow tie. I don't know why, but whenever I see an elderly man in a bow tie, I always want to take a half step back.

"You're late so I wasn't sure if you were coming," the man said, smiling. He looked at me and then looked back at Rafe.

"I tried not to come, but I couldn't resist. It is still here?" Rafe asked.

"Oh, yes. I just had to move it. Right over here. Just tuned it."

"You gave me a real scare," Rafe said.

"I have another potential buyer. Rafe, this piano and you belong together. Don't let it get away."

"I'd like to buy it, but —"

The man shook his head and threw up his hands.

Rafe sat down at the piano.

"This is my Bösendorfer," he said, introducing the piano.

Rafe lingered over the instrument for a few minutes. And then he began playing. Just with one hand at first, his fingers running delicately over the keyboard.

The room was warm, almost hot. I took off my coat and sweater. Sitting on the floor, I watched him play. He'd forgotten all about me. Two hours, completely lost in his music. And then he stopped and just stared at the keyboard.

The Major And The Minor

Directed by Billy Wilder

Adapted from a short story by Fanny Kilbourne

Kirsten and I start to have movie nights. We were looking over a list of the top one hundred classic movies and there were only ten titles we recognized.

"I hate being this ignorant," Kirsten said.

So we start looking up movies on IMDb and we decide to rent _The Major And The Minor_ , which goes something like this:

Ginger Rogers dresses up as a little kid to get a cheaper train ticket. She's had it with the Big Rotten Apple and she wants to go home. Back to small-town Midwest. On the train she meets Ray Milland who falls in love with her but doesn't know he's in love with her because he thinks she's a kid. Ginger's pouring it on as the little kid with sex appeal.

"Okay, this movie is creeping me out," Kirsten says, halfway through.

The movie only works because Ray Milland was so good playing stupid.

"We're just jaded," I say.

"Come on, they weren't that stupid," Kirsten says.

"Technically, he's not a pedophile."

"Now this is what people should get Oscars for."

"What do you call a guy who's in love with a piano?" I ask.

"There's gotta be a word. Why?"

"I'm in love with a guy who's in love with a piano," I confess.

"Are we talking piano plural or piano singular?" she asks.

"Singular."

"I bet there's a web page. Pianos. And guys who fuck them. What's the piano like?"

"Great legs. First-class broad."

"At least he's got good taste."

"He kissed me. Rafe. On the cheek. We went to dinner. I ran into him and he took me to see the piano. And then we went to dinner. At this tiny restaurant right next to the piano store. Steak and spaghetti. Really good. He always seems to know where to find good food. Then he walked me home. And he kissed me. On the cheek. That's bad, isn't it?"

"The cheek is bad," Kirsten agrees. "Just found out Danny's been forging my checks."

She was always having trouble with the Lost Men. She'd been sleeping with Danny.

"Wow. How long?"

"A couple of months now. Started off really slow, just a few bucks. And then he got a little too confident and forged checks for a hundred here, a hundred there. I really should check my bank statements more often."

"How much did you lose in all?"

"A couple thousand."

"Did you call the police?"

"Like they're going to do anything about it. He said he'd pay me back. Right before he absconded."

"You'll never see him again."

"Thank god." She chuckles. "Jack offered to beat him up. And he could. You should see the muscles on that guy."

Kirsten was checking out Jack's muscles. "I thought you were trying to get him fired."

"Still am. Like I said, he's not a bad kind of guy. He's a great chef. Only he doesn't understand boundaries. He's got to go."

"Rafe wasn't at work today," I say. "He's off somewhere in South America. Debbie says he does that sometimes, just takes off and we're supposed to pretend he's at work."

"Oh. That's good. Very good, Smithie."

"You think?"

"South America is pretty far to go for a cold shower."

"Coincidence?"

"In movies, there are no coincidences."

"I always hated my name but whenever Rafe says Susanna — it feels so wonderful."

"When did he start calling you Susanna?"

"Over steak and spaghetti."

"And a little wine?"

I nod.

"South America," we say in chorus.

Fun facts about South America (which I discover surfing continuously on the Web at work):

It has the smallest orchid (half a millimeter in diameter).

Llamas are the oldest domesticated animals.

Women used to wear spiders as fashion accessories.

Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth was part of an Aryan cult in Paraguay.

They have the largest and smallest everything.

For the first time, I see just how mind-numbingly boring my job really is. Which means I'm starting to wake up. Which isn't good, is it?

The Past Catches Up While I Eat A Burger, With Fries

Carter and I are sitting at the bar at Scrambles and he asks, "So what have you been up to?"

"Today?"

"Today's good."

"Went to work. Back from work. What about you?"

"Same. Yet again we find ourselves on the same path to enlightenment. When did you get back in town?"

"Couple months ago. How about you?"

"Three months. My girlfriend wanted to come back home. We were living together in L.A. but she wanted to be near her family."

"Still making documentaries?"

"Still my passion. But it has a nasty habit of maxing out your credit cards and keeping you in lifelong debt. Apparently, lifelong debt is not good. That's why the real stuff is on hold while I go around doing private documentaries for hire."

"Private documentaries?"

"Yeah. People hire me to make a documentary about their parents, you know, for a 60th wedding present, that sort of thing. Feel-good stuff. Feel-good stuff that makes pretty good money, I'm finding out. And I have to say, it's kind of nice being around feel-good stuff. A really good change. And you? I heard you were in New York making mega money? Investment banking? What are you doing back?"

"Hedge fund. Spat me out."

"Burn out? Yeah, I hear it's mental. Your parents still here?"

"Yup."

"Your dad still at St. Anthony's?"

"Yup. He's head of surgery. And Mom's still teaching at the university."

"How's your little brother doing?"

"Dentist. Married. With a three-year-old kid."

"Married? With a kid? Woah."

"A little boy. And he managed to do it all without getting disinherited."

"Disinherited?"

"Family tradition. Marrying someone who's so repugnant to your parents that they disinherit you. I can't tell you how wealthy we'd be if it wasn't for the string of disinheritances. It's usually the firstborn male. Since I'm the firstborn and female, I might have broken the curse. My dad says we should wait to see what I eventually bring home before proclaiming victory. I'm thinking about never bringing anyone home. Remain single. I think I owe it to the family fortune."

"You've never told me any of this. Holding back on the good stuff. Getting to know more about Smithie. I like it. So what started the curse? What was the first domino?"

"You don't want to know."

"I do. I really do."

"It's complicated. But here goes. My dad is half Korean and half Japanese. His dad is Korean and his mom is Japanese. His dad, my grandfather, got disinherited for marrying someone Japanese. As a special fuck-you to his family, my grandfather ended up making ten times the money his family had, and his family was not exactly poor. But then ole grandpa disinherited my dad for marrying someone Swedish. Luckily, my dad had already graduated from medical school by then. That is, luckily, he didn't tell my grandfather until he'd graduated from medical school. Only fools don't learn from history."

"Wait. What's the deal with being Japanese?"

"A big deal if you're Japanese."

Carter rolls his eyes. "Come on."

"Japan invaded Korea. Attempted cultural annihilation. Slavery. Koreans didn't like that."

"I didn't know that," Carter says.

"Did you?" he asks Kirsten, who's wiping down the counter and sneaking us free refills of beer.

"Who doesn't know?" she asks.

"So what's wrong with Swedes?" Carter asks.

"Not Asian?" I speculate.

"But you'd think your grandfather would be a bit more understanding. Duh. What was his problem?" Carter asks, astonished.

"Man, you really don't know anything about human nature, do you?" Kirsten comments.

"Does that make sense to you?" Carter asks.

"No. But that's humanity in a nutshell," Kirsten says.

"That's just fucked up," Carter declares.

"You know, you're the third Asian plus Swede combo I've met," Kirsten says to me. "God, that's a spectacular gene combo. Produces the most beautiful offspring. If I were a blond Swede, I'd go get an Asian. For the sake of my offspring."

"Look. This is me. Squirming under the microscope," I complain. "Your turn, Carter. How about your parents? How are they doing?"

"My mom passed away three years ago. My dad's living in one of those assisted-living places. He likes it. Nice people. And he's still pretty fit for his age. He loves to brag how he can still get around unaided on two feet. That's one of the things on the back burner, my documentary on growing old and having to live in places like that. Done right, they don't have to be depressing places. What are you doing now?"

"Working for some weird company that doesn't seem to do anything except sell and buy companies. My boss says the CEO likes scrapbooking. Something about collecting newsprint."

"Okay with you?"

"Just what the doctor ordered."

"It's strange we've ended up living right across the hall from each other," Carter says slowly.

"Too strange."

"Destiny?"

"You believe in destiny?"

Carter shrugs. He turns to Kirsten. "How about you? Believe in destiny?"

"Just karmic entanglements. And only because there just doesn't seem to be any other explanation for the weird shit that goes on in my life."

"I was thinking the other day how weird it is that people just disappear out of your life, people you grew up with, and then I run into you," Carter says to me. "I was really glad to see you."

"Really? Why?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"We hated each other."

"I didn't hate you. I liked you. I mean, you could be really irritating, but I did like you."

"When was this? I think you're getting me mixed up with somebody else."

Carter laughs.

"We used to say the most awful things to each other," I say.

"I only did it to get a rise out of you," Carter says. "You were such an easy target. Man, you had a temper. Anyway, didn't you think that was kind of fun?"

"No. It always ended up getting so personal. So nasty. Maybe you think that's fun, but I don't."

"You did say one or two things that kind of blew me away," Carter says, smiling ruefully. "Home-truth kind of stuff. I think that was part of why I liked you. You always got to the heart of things. Life wasn't just a big fat joke to you. I wish it could be."

"I thought you liked sucking milk up your nose."

"When I was eight."

"You were still doing it in high school."

"Okay. It took me a while to grow up."

"God, Carter — you're weird all grown up."

The Latin Dance

Rafe was back, all rejuvenated.

"Did you have a good time?" It takes me a while to talk to him. I feel shy around him. Maybe because he kissed my cheek. Maybe because I'm in love with him. Maybe because I think he might be in love with me too.

"I had a fantastic time."

"Where'd you go?" What else could I ask?

"All over Peru. And parts of Ecuador."

"Ecuador is one of the largest exporters of roses." It just came out of me.

"How did you know that, Susanna?"

"I — I don't know."

"You're full of surprises."

"What did you do in Peru?"

"Lots of traveling. Backpacking. I have friends in Buenos Aires. We met up in Peru and did a lot of hiking. Have you ever been to South America?"

"Just Central. To Belize. With my boyfriend. My ex-boyfriend."

Rafe stares at me, as if trying to see me in a different light.

"We went on vacation. Just to a resort. So it wasn't really seeing Belize at all." I don't want him to see me in that light.

"Try Peru next time," he says lightly.

"I will."

My Ex-boyfriend

I hadn't thought of Brett in months. We lived together in New York. He was a photographer, but that was more a hobby because he was a trust-fund baby and didn't need money. He didn't really understand needing money or working. He thought it was great that I was fired. More time to ski. That's when I realized my life was all wrong. When I realized I had to go home. Start all over again from as near to zero as I could.

Imitation Of Life

Directed by Douglas Sirk

Adapted from the novel by Fannie Hurst

We were twenty minutes into this film when I realized that I'd seen it before, when I was about eight or nine; I didn't understand it then but it'd always been with me, like a conversation I'd overheard, the emotions and mood seeping into me until it all got caught up with my own.

It's an ambitious movie, wanting to say so many important things, all in a very glossy, profitable Hollywood way. Actually, as Kirsten pointed out, it was pretty daring for 1959. Lana Turner plays a young widow with a little girl. She has one driving ambition in life — she wants to be a great actress (okay, who doesn't, right?). One day, at the beach, she meets a woman in very similar circumstances: widowed, with a young daughter, trying to survive without money in New York. Naturally, with so much in common, they should become friends. But it's not so easy. One woman is white, the other colored. In this world, it's much more natural that the black woman becomes the white woman's housekeeper.

The great Juanita Moore plays the poor colored woman. Out of necessity, she follows Lana Turner home, calmly and soothingly insinuating herself into Lana's life: yes, you can't afford a maid, but that's okay — we'll live together and I can take care of the apartment and children while you concentrate on becoming an actress — just see how our children are friends already! She even scrubs the building's staircase so the landlord will reduce Lana's rent.

Many years go by and Lana does become a great actress. But she loses her daughter's love in the process because a woman can't have a child and a career. Juanita loses her daughter too. Because her daughter is so light skinned she can pass as white and she wants desperately to be white. So she discards her mother, the only identifiable marker of her black heritage.

A heartbroken mother has to die. Juanita sacrificed everything for her daughter but her daughter doesn't want anything she has to give because she doesn't want to be the daughter of a colored housekeeper. She wants to be the daughter of the rich, glamorous white woman. In an ironic twist, she even follows the white woman's footsteps into show business, becoming a showgirl in a sleazy nightclub.

The ending is a bit strange. The humble housekeeper has one wish, a bang-up of a funeral. Horse-drawn carriage for her coffin, a band, hundreds of mourners following the procession. Her daughter crying hysterically as she runs after the coffin.

Kirsten got really pissed about the funeral: "So why did the housekeeper wait until she died to get so flamboyant? Maybe if she'd been a little bit more flamboyant while she'd been alive, her daughter wouldn't have run away and become a sleazy showgirl? What the hell!"

I wasn't so sure. Flamboyant moms are scary things.

Never Fall In Love Again

Carter's girlfriend situation was a bit more complicated than he'd first let on. The riff was something like this: Carter's in love with Stephanie who's in love with Per who's in love with some other girl who's in love with some other guy, etc. Stephanie had really come back home to be with Per — they'd had an on-again-off-again thing since high school. Frankly, I think the real reason Stephanie moved was to get rid of Carter. Per was just a bonus. Carter in love was grossly clingy. And disturbingly optimistic. He was sure Stephanie would take him back so he packed all his bags and followed her home. And she did. They lived together for three months. Then she kicked him out and now she was entering her on-again phase with Per.

Stephanie's game with Per turned Carter obsessive. He called her every hour, wrote her emails and letters, sent flowers, cards, showed up at the door with stuffed animals — just everything gross.

"You're pathetic," Kirsten said.

"Tell me something new," Carter replied.

"You're not getting off on this?" Kirsten asked. "I mean, you have to ask yourself what you're getting out of this."

"Haven't you ever been in love?"

"Man, Carter, you're always in love," I said. "It's disgusting."

"This calls for an intervention," Kirsten said. "What this situation needs is some Billy Wilder."

She was really into Billy Wilder now. _The Major And The Minor_ , _Some Like It Hot, Sabrina, Stalag 17, Double Indemnity, Irma La Douce, The Apartment_. Billy Wilder, aka the Viennese Pixie. 5'11 according to the IMDb (I don't know why but I always imagined him short — something about the writing makes me think he was short — don't ask me why). Screenwriter, director. Originally planned to become a lawyer. Part of the great German exodus pre World War II. Born 1906. Died 2002. He made a lot of movies.

"What would Billy Wilder write?" Kirsten asked herself. "Okay. Here's what you do, Ethan. Don't call Stephanie. Wait for her to call you."

"Then I'd be waiting for hell to freeze over," he lamented.

"No. You're not getting the Billy Wilder here. You don't understand the psychology. Stephanie is as addicted to the whole situation as you are. If you don't call, she's going to wonder why you aren't calling. Because you always call. So sooner or later, she's going to call you. And I suspect it'll be sooner than later. When she does, act like you haven't noticed you haven't been calling. Sound happy to hear from her, but seem like you have a life."

I laughed. Kirsten gave me a stern look. She continued.

"She'll ask what you've been up to. Say you just got back from a fantastic vacation. Say you spent an amazing week in Cancun. She'll ask if you went alone. Be coy. Hesitate. Say you went with a friend. Then she'll ask if it was a male friend or a female friend. Continue being hesitant. Say a female friend. And then quickly get off the phone. Leave her hanging. And thinking. Can you handle that?"

"I don't know. I don't know if I can act like I have a life," Carter joked.

"Try your best," I said. "The stakes are high."

"We'll rehearse," Kirsten said.

Carter seemed encouraged. He even ordered dinner.

Bait

Waiting for Stephanie to call almost killed Carter. But after a little over a week, Stephanie did call. It was like Kirsten had masterminded the whole thing. She was now Billy Wilder and Carter's romance was her film. No other creative input allowed.

"It was amazing," Carter said. "Everything happened just the way you said it would. I'm really glad we did all that rehearsing. You are brilliant, Kirsten."

"Now stage two," Kirsten said. "Let's channel Billy Wilder."

"The bait," I said.

"Yes, the bait," Kirsten agreed, thinking out her plot. "You need a girl. To make Stephanie jealous. Someone you can hire. Someone unusually stunning. You."

She pointed at me.

"No," I said. Kirsten could Billy Wilder Carter but she wasn't going to Billy Wilder me.

"You think she's stunning enough?" Carter asked Kirsten.

"Like you should be so lucky," Kirsten snorted.

"I'm not for hire," I said again.

"Come on, Smithie," Carter pleaded. "Help me out."

"I'm strictly with the audience," I protested.

"Any place you can go where you know Stephanie will be there?" Kirsten asked Carter.

"Yeah. We've both been invited to my friend Mark's party. This Saturday."

"Perfect. Just think Billy Wilder. Smithie, you're Ginger Rogers."

"Ginger Rogers was in love with Ray Milland," I said.

"So he's Ray Milland."

I groaned. "My imagination isn't _that_ good."

"Is it really that hard?" Carter asked me. He looked hurt.

"Carter, I've known you for so long, we're practically related."

"Just pretend Ethan's Rafe," Kirsten suggested. "That way, you get a rehearsal out of it."

This _was_ turning into a crazy Billy Wilder film.

It's My Party

The party was painful — just a bunch of people who didn't really know each other drinking alcohol and sticking to their patch of the wall. I went because Carter promised me that if things worked out with him and Stephanie, he'd present me with a $500 gift certificate from the luxury-brand store of my choice. It turns out that I can be bought. Yes, I am a whore. A shoe whore to be specific.

We tried to be cool and arrived late. I had to drive because Carter had drunk three shots of tequila trying to stay calm.

"So who's Stephanie?" I asked.

Carter looked around the room. "There. Over there."

You never know what you're going to find when you finally run into the object of someone else's obsession. Stephanie was average, bordering on anonymous. Average looks, average height, average everything. What was there to obsess about?

"She with Per?" I asked.

"No," Carter said, surprised.

"Trouble in paradise. You're already ahead of the game, Carter. Let's get some drinks and blend."

Carter held my hand and we crossed the room to the makeshift bar. His hand was sweaty and he clung to me like it was the first day of kindergarten and I was his teacher. We got matching beers, drinking straight out of the bottle. I had no idea if that made us look more cute but what the hell.

"I think she's coming our way," Carter whispered. He put his arm around me. I tried to look happy. God, the room was hot.

"Ethan," Stephanie said, approaching cautiously. "Just get here?"

"Yeah, a couple of minutes ago. Oh. Hey. This is Susanna."

"Hi," I murmured. _Try to look in love. Try to look in love._ This was embarrassing. It was like a really bad high school play.

"Hi," Stephanie said coolly, checking me out.

She was obnoxious and I thought, "Okay. I can be territorial too." I stared her down. _Who are_ you _to be so obnoxious to Carter_?

"So did you come with Per?" Carter asked. He shouldn't have acted so interested. _Think Ray Milland, Carter, think Ray Milland. If you're going to ask, throw in some irony._

"No. He's off with his buddies on a camping trip."

With his true love so near, Carter was forgetting about the bait. I put my arm around his waist and squeezed him a little. He took the hint and held me tighter, even looking at me and ignoring Stephanie. I tried to smile like Carter was Rafe but Carter wasn't anything like Rafe. His face was harder, his features more pronounced. He was also six feet four which meant I had to bend my neck up at a hard angle just so I could stare adoringly at his face — my neck was beginning to hurt like hell. I don't suppose you notice pain when you're really in love. Love hormones must be a natural muscle relaxant.

"You know, I'm going to go," Stephanie said.

Yes, go, I thought, cheering her on. Go! Go! Go!

"Go?" Carter asked, alarmed.

"Yeah. I've been here a while. I have to meet up with someone. See you around."

"Yeah. See you."

Carter watched Stephanie leave. He looked so sad.

"Don't worry," I said. "That was a complete success."

"Success? She didn't even hang around."

"No need. She saw. She was perturbed. Notice the way she came to you? Notice the way she checked me out and then completely ignored me?"

"How's that good?"

"Because. If she hadn't been threatened by me, she would have talked to me. Tried to be nice to me. But she was so perturbed, she ignored me completely. She didn't even try to be condescending to me. Success, Carter."

Carter thought about it.

"You are much better looking than her. That would drive her crazy."

"So you do know the object of your obsession is sort of blah in the looks department?"

"Yeah."

"And she doesn't have much in the personality department either. So what gives?"

"I dunno. It's love."

"Carter, you mind?" I asked, wiggling out of his arms. "It's really hot in here."

"Oh, sorry. I guess I got used to using you as a coatrack."

"Thanks."

And then I saw him. Walking through the door. Rafe. My mouth dropped.

"What's going on?" Carter asked.

"Rafe," I stuttered.

"Where?" he asked.

Rafe must have heard me. He was looking right at me. He waved. I waved back.

"He's coming our way."

I was a deer in headlights. I couldn't move or think. I wanted to run.

Carter grinned. He held my hand, slid his arm around my waist. Snuggled me. He knew he had me trapped.

"Susanna," Rafe said.

"Rafe," I said. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here with some friends." He looked around the room. "They're here somewhere."

He smiled at Carter and introduced himself.

"Hi, I'm Rafe. I work with Susanna."

"Gosh, I'm sorry," I said. "Rafe, this is Carter. My friend."

"Ethan," Carter interrupted. "Ethan Carter."

Now he was channeling James Bond. Great.

They shook hands, Carter trying to act all manly and Rafe not really understanding what was going on. He continued to smile and was so very nice.

"Have you been here long?" I asked Rafe, trying to pull away from Carter. Something in this very strange situation was making Carter hypercompetitive. He wasn't going to let me go. It was like I'd turned into Stephanie and Rafe was now Per. I'd forgotten how physically strong Carter was.

"Just arrived," Rafe said. "How about you?"

"Same. We just dropped by. To say hello. We can't stay long, though. We were about to leave."

"Then I'll see you at work, Susanna. It was nice meeting you, Ethan. Bye."

I watched him go — my heart twisted out of its slot.

"So that's Rafe," Carter said smugly.

I grabbed him and dragged him to the door.

"Hey, what's the hurry?" he asked mischievously.

"What the fuck, Carter? Why'd you drool all over me like that?"

"Are you kidding? You should be thanking me. What works for Stephanie should work for Rafe. I mean, that is the guy you're all in love with, right? I should have tongued you right then and there."

"You haven't grown up at all, Carter. I'm so fucking mad at you."

He just laughed like it was the biggest joke. I punched him in the arm. He punched me right back, laughing.

Kirsten, of course, agreed with Carter.

"I'm with Ethan," she said. "You should be thanking him."

"Rafe isn't that kind of guy. God, now he thinks I'm with Carter."

"Then show up at work and say Ethan dumped you and cry all over Rafe's shoulder. That'll work too."

"Yeah," Carter agreed. "I'll be more than happy to play the bad guy."

"You know, that might work with Rafe," I said. Saint Rafe.

"All is not lost," Kirsten said, smiling.

Sometimes Kirsten could be strangely Machiavellian. She sent shivers down my spine.

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

Directed by Michel Gondry

Written by Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondry, et al.

Are we doomed to fall in love with the same person over and over again, even with the slate clean? To make all the same mistakes because who we are doesn't ever change, even as we're touched by one person and then another? Perhaps each person who brushes against us makes us all the more entrenched in what we're not. All that wonder and optimism of a beginning, slashed and cut by experience — so why is the beginning so enhanced, imbued with magic dust, when its lightness makes it almost superfluous? Is it that possibility of being who we are not?

I Melt With You

Possibilities. I think that's why Rafe was always reading brochures. Usually brochures for classes. Like taekwondo. Meditation. Yoga. Web programming. Knitting.

"And this one's for music appreciation. And this one's for pet grooming. I like this one. 'No sweat cooking'."

"So you think you'll take a cooking class?" I could picture him in a white apron, chopping up an onion. Letting me taste his beurre blanc.

"I don't know. Are you interested?"

"I can't boil an egg."

"I can't either. Which makes us ideal students. Should we take a cooking class together, Susanna?"

"Seriously?"

He seemed serious. But sometimes he was serious when he wasn't. And if you didn't catch on, he'd go on pretending that he was serious. He didn't like to embarrass people.

"I'll sign us up." He started filling out the back of the brochure where there was a form. "It's only five classes. Not much of a commitment. But five classes ought to be enough to learn how to boil an egg, don't you think?"

Goofing Around

Carter makes a surprising announcement: "I think I'm going to try out one of those online dating services."

"You got a good pic?" Kirsten asks.

"No. Not anything recent anyway. Thought I'd take some new photos. You guys wanna help me take some shots?"

Carter has one of those professional cameras with extra big phallic lenses and Kirsten goes nuts snapping photos. We go all over town, shooting Carter from front, back, all around. He even takes his shirt off, doing Adonis shots. All those hours at the gym has made Carter's muscles very, very happy. Back home we scrutinize the pics. Kirsten finally says, "I think this is it."

It's perfect. The photo looks exactly like Carter, only with shitloads of va va va voom.

"You look hot, Carter," I say.

"I'd reply to that," Kirsten says. "And it'd be short and simple: Dear Ethan, bring a condom."

We scream with laughter.

It was a good day.

The Egg

The cooking class starts and we're in this old woman's home. She's a French woman with the forearms of Popeye The Sailor. She's great. Barking out orders, scaring the life out of us.

"This is the proper way to hold a knife," she yells out. She makes us pose with our knives while she goes around and corrects the angle of our fingers. "You don't hold a knife this way and you cut yourself! I don't want any bloody fingers in my kitchen. But if you do cut yourself, you must clean the wound and apply this! Yes, the bandages are blue. You must use blue bandages. Why? There is no food that is blue. That is why. This way you will not lose a bandage in the food. No one wants to eat a pudding with a blue bandage in it. Everyone understand what I am saying? Good."

We learn to whip cream. We learn to boil an egg. The class ends with an omelet. There's a lot of butter in a good omelet.

Rafe and I celebrated the last class with drinks at a bar.

"I'm going to miss our cooking classes." I was sad. I was never alone with Rafe but I was with him and he wasn't my boss.

"Did you really like the class?"

"I did."

Rafe sighed. "I'm so relieved. I thought maybe I'd sort of bullied you into taking the class with me."

I laughed. "I thought maybe I'd accidentally pressured you."

"Maybe then you'd be interested in this?" Rafe takes out a brochure from his coat pocket. Songwriting.

A Song In My Heart

The instructor was another woman. Rail thin with huge circular eyeglasses. She thought we could all find fame and fortune thinking up ringtones for cell phones. She was hilarious.

"I think we're going to end up subsidizing every crazy woman in the city," Rafe said. "It's fantastic."

It was.

It's Nice

Going to class once a week. Having dinner together. Drinks and coffee. It'd be around two by the time Rafe drove me home. He was amazingly sweet. Walking me to the elevator, kissing me on the cheek. And it wasn't just a polite kiss or a ritual goodbye kiss. It was affectionate and tender, and it was driving me crazy. Why couldn't he just tell me what he thought of me? What he felt for me? Did he think of me like I was some kid sister or did he think of me as something more? He was so impossible to read, the way he always nodded and said yes even before I'd finished like he already knew what I was going to say. Did he? Or was that some kind of automatic response system? He seemed so open, but then you looked into his eyes and saw his eyes were Teflon eyes. Highly reflective Teflon eyes.

"Just grab him and kiss him," Kirsten said. "Then you'd find out quick."

"And if it turns out he thinks I'm a sister? The last thing I want to see is repulsion on his face. Not to mention the small fact that we work together. He's my boss. Oh god, he's my boss."

"You realize you're as bad as Ethan?"

Jack came out of the kitchen with a small morsel for Kirsten. She seemed to barely notice him.

"Rafe's dad is from Alabama," I continued. "Don't you think there must be a karmic connection? You know. The song. _Oh, Susanna_."

"If it works for you..."

"Of course it doesn't."

"I think you're just turned on by the whole thing," Kirsten said.

"Are you kidding?" I protested. "It's driving me crazy. I can't even sleep."

"Exactly. You're going to hold on to it for as long as possible. I've been there, sister. I know."

"I'd love to see what you're like all gooey in love."

"It's not love. It's pheromones. I hate pheromones. Pheromones are natural lobotomies. It's idiotic. Everything is about him, him, him. You just can't do enough for this _human being_. And then it becomes habit. That's what love is, habit. You're stuck doing things for this _human being_ purely out of habit _._ The pheromones all burn off. But you're _stuck_. That's the cruel trick of Mother Nature."

Kanojo To Kanojo No Neko (She And Her Cat)

Directed by Makoto Shinkai

Written by Makoto Shinkai

Kirsten found this purely by chance. Someone had posted it on their blog. It was like a beautiful poem and we fell in love with it right away.

There's an abandoned cat. In the middle of a rainfall, a young woman finds the cat and adopts him. The cat falls in love with her, sees her as his "adult" lover. And even though he has a summer romance with a spoiled cat named Mimi, he still stays true and loyal to She. Poor Mimi.

Kirsten: People talk about unconditional love but I think that's a red herring. Isn't what we really want is for someone to see and admire our very essence? To love what we are above all things? To only see and love our essential being?

And that's the way the cat loves. He doesn't understand the human world, the world outside of himself. For him, there's only this woman who cares for him, the essence of who she is — he doesn't even have a name for her. The woman is just She, the essence of love.

The film is sometimes called _Their Standing Points_. Love is like that, isn't it? We love where the two of us stand, the intersection of our lives held whole by the gravity of mutual compassion.

The Saga Continues

Crazy as it sounds, using me as bait did work. Carter and Stephanie got back together. For two weeks. Then Stephanie went back to Per and now they were engaged. Carter was completely devastated. Locked himself up in his apartment. Weeks went by. Not a word, not a sound. I tried knocking — I tried calling — I tried threatening — he wouldn't respond in any way. Was it time to call the police? There just didn't seem to be any life in there.

As a last ditch effort, I enlisted Jack, who cooked up a batch of lasagna so rich with MSG, even a corpse would have taken the bait. I knocked several times and then screamed through the door that I was leaving the lasagna outside. About five minutes went by, and then the door opened.

He was a mess. Bearded, smelly, disgusting.

"You are alive," I said. "Lasagna?"

He shrugged and walked back into the cave. I followed. The smell was rank. Bits of rotting food everywhere, garbage spilling all over the floor.

"I'm going to pass out," I said. "We're going over to my place. After you take a shower. And then change into clean clothes. You do have clean clothes? I'll give you twenty minutes. If you don't show up at my place, I'm going to call the cops and say you locked yourself in your bathroom with a razor blade. Twenty minutes."

I had to give him thirty. But at least he was over at my place, grimly working his way through the huge plate of lasagna. I'd gotten a new batch from Jack, one without the lacing of MSG. It looked so good, I started eating off Carter's plate. Jack can really cook. It was northern style, with lots of béchamel sauce and Parmesan. He'd made the pasta — he always made it fresh daily, from a formula he'd picked up as a kid from a neighbor who happened to be a Ligurian immigrant fresh off the boat. Jack had also snuck me half a bottle of really nice Sicilian red to share.

Carter was strange with a beard. Unrecognizable. In some ways, better. The beard softened up some of his harder features. Made him look as vulnerable as he really was inside. I'd always doubted that—I'd never really believed he was truly vulnerable.

"Are you going to be okay, Carter?"

"Yeah. Don't worry too much about me. I'm not worth the worry."

"You're not worth the worry? What kind of shit is that?"

"Look at me. I am completely pathetic. I can't do anything right. My life is a complete joke. Girls walk all over me. My career is laughable. I am a complete, utter failure."

"Join the club," I said.

"What club? You're Little Miss Perfect. Always was. Always will be."

"I got fired."

"What?"

"Fired. From my perfect New York job."

Carter's mouth dropped open.

"I don't believe it," he said.

"Believe it."

"You got fired. I just can't imagine you getting fired."

"Came home and my boyfriend says, 'Great, more time for us to go skiing.'"

"Skiing?"

"He had the bags all packed, ready to go out the door. Wanted to meet up with some of his friends that weekend. He thought we'd have a great time."

"What an asshole."

"Couldn't help it. He was one of those trust-fund babies. He called himself a photographer, but he'd never had a job in his life. I doubt he even knew what a job was."

"But still, he could have at least seen that you were hurting."

"Completely egocentric. If he wasn't experiencing it right there, right then, didn't exist. He was happy to be going skiing so he couldn't imagine that I wouldn't be happy."

"People are unbelievable."

"No. He wasn't like that. I don't know why I'm doing this. I liked him. I liked being with him. I was happy. For a long time. We'd been planning the ski trip for a long time. He was a lot of fun to be with. So now you know the truth about me."

"Will you stop doing that," Carter said angrily.

"What?"

"That thing. Like you think I'm your enemy or something."

"I can't help it. I just keep expecting the other shoe to drop. I keep expecting you to say something mean. Do something mean."

"But, Smithie, that's not me anymore. That hasn't been me for a very long time."

"I know. I'm sorry. I guess it's hard letting people grow up."

"You know, you're the only person who calls me Carter anymore."

"I'm sorry. You want me to start calling you Ethan?"

"No. I like the way you call me Carter. But strangely, I miss calling you Susanna."

"You want to call me Susanna?" I was surprised.

"You don't mind?"

"Well — Rafe calls me Susanna."

"Oh."

"Okay. Sure, why not."

"Do you think we can be friends now?" Carter asked. "I mean real friends. Because I'd really like that. I'd really like to be your friend."

"I'd like that too," I said.

"Remember when we were taking German and Frau Maxwell told us about the dutzen ceremony?"

"What? You want a ceremony?"

"Yeah. I feel like something big's just happened between us. It's too bad we don't have a friendship ceremony too."

"Yeah. It is, isn't it? Just weddings and funerals. Like there isn't anything in between. Why isn't friendship important too? Just as important as a wedding?"

"Well, here's the wine," Carter said, holding up his glass.

"How does it go?" I asked.

"Here. Like this?" Carter wrapped his arm around mine so that we were entwined as we drank from our glasses.

"So," Carter said, "tell me what happened."

"About what?"

"New York."

"It was a mess."

"So tell me."

He seemed to really want to know. Eager to share my life with me. Unable to protect myself, all that stuff about Daniella poured out of me. How much I looked up to her. How much I wanted to be her. She went home at seven every night to have dinner with her family. Her husband was a tenor. She had two kids, a boy and a girl, twins. I could go to her with any problem and she'd have sage advice. For such a long time, I thought she was watching over me. At work, anyway, buffering me along on the right road. It'd been such a shock. The whole Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde thing. I'd been ready to follow her to hell.

Carter listened patiently, nodding sympathetically. And then he said, "You got your heart broken, Susanna."

He was right. Carter was right. Daniella broke my heart.

Knitting

Now Rafe and I were taking a knitting class. Every Wednesday at 7:00. There were five of us, all women except Rafe. It wasn't a popular class and most nights it was just me and Rafe. That was fine with the instructor, who was having several life crises at once, including an IRS audit. She'd babble a few sentences about what we'd be learning, rush out of the room, yell and cry into a phone, rush back, apologize, launch into a rant about the IRS, and then rush out again. We tried to be polite. We tried to pretend we couldn't hear her conversations: her ex-husband was so happy with his new child bride — _Oh, Mother, what shall I do?_

Left pretty much alone, Rafe worked on his "deconstructed scarf" and I'd spend an hour trying to make two square inches perfectly neat and orderly. My yarn was starting to get permanent kinks from being unraveled so often. It reminded me of shop class. I spent the entire quarter trying to file the perfect square notch into a piece of iron a quarter of an inch thick. Iron is pretty hard to file. Sometimes, though, concentrating that hard on something has the exact same effect as concentrating on nothing at all, only I always find it so much easier concentrating on something rather than nothing.

One day, after class, Rafe and I decided to take a walk. It was a nice, clear night. The knitting class had made both of us melancholy. I think I was following Rafe. And Rafe was following his heart. Before we knew it, we were in front of the piano store, staring through the security bars. Rafe had both his hands in his pockets. I could see his reflection in the store window. He looked defeated.

"Why aren't you a concert pianist?" I found myself asking.

"To be a concert pianist you need two things. Well, three things. You need talent. You need to start young. After age six, it's too late. And you need ambitious parents. I did not have the ambitious parents."

"Would your Bösendorfer make things all right?"

We were still talking into the store window.

"We make beautiful music together."

"Carter says my heart is broken."

"I know. Poor, Susanna, _don't you cry_."

Rapunzel

My hair hangs down my back in a tangled mess. I haven't had it cut since getting fired. I can feel the obnoxious weight swaying between my shoulder blades. My hair is alive, purposeful, tendrils curling into my eyes or mouth whenever it feels neglected. It weeps everywhere. I spend hours sweeping up long trails of discouragement.

Long hair is high maintenance. Takes forever to blow-dry. Falls into your food and gets shellacked in soup. Chunks catch in car doors. I have to find clever ways of tying it off, wrapping long strands around my fist trying to decide what to do.

Why do men find long hair sexy?

I wonder when it'll wear off, this paralysis that keeps me from doing even the simplest of things, like finding a new salon and making a hair appointment.

I dream about scissors.

The Zen Master Of Love

That was Debbie. While I took baby steps, Debbie somersaulted through love. She'd met a man. A cute plumber. Who proposed on the first date. And we're talking _blind date_. Before they'd even had the chance to order drinks. Debbie said yes. Bliss. It was so classic Debbie.

She did have the good sense to ask for a long engagement. Three months. That way she could have a Christmas wedding. Christmas and a wedding in one. How brave was that?

She was nice enough to invite me to the wedding. Of course, Rafe was going.

I wondered if he'd bring a date. He never mentioned women. Never talked about his love life. Rarely talked about himself at all. Why did I feel that I knew him, knew everything about him? Projections, illusion, delusions. That's what love was. I was understanding Carter better. I was going to start being much nicer to him.

"Maybe he's a virgin," Carter joked. "Or he could be gay. You thought of that? Gay."

"Shut up."

"I could go as your date, if you'd like," Carter gamely volunteered.

"If you come, I won't even get one dance with him. If I go alone, he might feel sorry for me. Even if he has a date."

"I've never seen you in love. It's distressing. I don't like it."

"Then just walk away, Carter."

"Just what is it that you like about this guy?" Carter asked, baffled.

"What isn't there I don't like about the guy," I said dreamily.

"We're both really pathetic," Carter said.

"You know it."

"Come on. I'll buy you a beer. That way I won't feel completely powerless."

"Beer good. Love bad."

"Beer buddies?"

"Beer buddies."

Debbie's Top 10 Tips For Good Dating Hygiene

1. Never date a guy who's prettier than you. (It's tough enough being a woman as it is.)

2. Never date a guy who's a finicky eater. (Watching a guy pick itsy-bitsy pieces of onion out of his potato salad just gets on my nerves.)

3. Never date a guy who corrects your grammar. (I want to be left alone when I talk.)

4. Never date a guy who's neater than you. (It's tough enough being a woman as it is.)

5. Never date a steak-and-potatoes man — you know — a meal isn't a meal unless it's got steak and potatoes. (You might as well get a lobotomy.)

6. Never give a guy money. (You don't want to leave a relationship poorer than when you got into it.)

7. Never date a guy who doesn't have a high school diploma. (You want a guy who can finish what he started.)

8. Never date a guy who's been married more than three times. (Why would you want a guy with bad habits?)

9. Never date a guy who's never had a job. (That rich or that poor — you just don't want to touch them.)

10. Never date a virgin.

I'm thinking Debbie should write a book. I'd buy it. So true about #9. And I'm thinking #10 is just common sense.

What We Saw

Down at Scrambles we got a shock. Kirsten was kissing Jack. They were half hidden between the kitchen and the bar. This was Kirsten. She wanted to outlaw PDA. She was all for flogging offenders. I've never even seen her holding hands with a guy. Occasionally I'd see her on the sofa with a guy, his arms around her. But it was more like Kirsten was using the guy as a pillow.

And it was Jack.

"I thought you were trying to get Jack fired," I whispered to Kirsten.

"That is so old news. We talked. Agreed on some rules. Once you get to know the guy, he grows on you. And he cooks."

"It's more than that. Isn't it? I think you're in love."

"Love?" She snorted.

Aesthetics

There's this feeling — when you're walking down the street, the sun warming your face — a guy looks up and notices you and smiles and he doesn't even know he's smiling—

The Politics Of Presents

There was this song playing at the bar.

"What is that?" I asked Kirsten.

"Ivy singing that Charlie Brown Christmas song," she replied. She was wiping down the counter. She kept it so clean, you could eat off it.

"It's kind of depressing," I remarked. I hadn't recognized it sung like that.

"And yet strangely festive," Carter contributed.

"I like it," Kirsten said.

"Do you think it'd be too weird if I gave Rafe a Christmas present?" I asked.

"Let's not give presents," Kirsten said. "The three of us. No Christmas presents. None. No cards either. That's the least friends can do for one another. And I think Christ would approve."

"Sounds good," Carter seconded, which didn't surprise me at all. Why is it so hard for guys to go out and get a present or a card? Except when they're head-over-heels in love and drenched in oxytocin. And should that be oxytoxic?

"But, Kirsten, I already bought you a present," I said.

She gave me this stare, like "I hate you."

I smiled. Something about being around Kirsten made me oh-so-slightly mischievous. "Just kidding."

"You are such a brat."

On presents: I'd always given Daniella a Christmas present. And she'd always given us a present, something thoughtful and beautiful. Rafe was my boss. But he was sort of my friend too. What was a gift that was in between boss and friend?

Boss

Debbie was barely at work, she was so busy with the wedding. Without Debbie, there was this strange tension in the air. Like Rafe and I had to be serious and be boss and employee. We were even taking separate lunch breaks.

Then out of the blue Rafe asked me if I needed a ride to the wedding. Debbie had booked a B&B just outside the city.

"I wouldn't want to make things inconvenient for you," I said, hesitating.

"Inconvenient?" Rafe asked, smiling. He didn't seem to know what I was hinting at. "No, not inconvenient. Do we need to pick up anyone else?"

Anyone else? And then it hit me: he was trying to figure out the same thing I was trying to figure out.

"Going stag," I said.

"Me too," he half whispered.

He seemed happy that I didn't have a date —

I needed to stop doing this, writing my own scripts. Isn't this how I always get into trouble? Seeing things that aren't there? Inserting meanings that come from my heart and not theirs?

My Dress Won't Fit

The dress that I wanted to wear to the wedding. The dress that was going to wow Rafe. I'd lost too much weight. Pale and thin, bloated in the middle, I was a battery-farmed chicken.

I went home looking for Mom. She always knew what to do with a chicken. And she always had homemade cookies in the freezer. Every couple of months she'd make several dozen kalasstanger and store them away for emergencies. I even found cardamom buns. But no Mom.

Cardamom Buns

You eat one. You eat two. You eat three. And they're sticky. You're sticky. And you eat four and you begin to wonder about life. On Mars. And why there's no life. In you.

Mom's Always Right

She found me really sticky. She cleaned me up and I felt the way I did when I was two. It was nice, being looked after. Feeling the fuss of love and tenderness. It seemed like I hadn't felt that in a long, long time.

We went upstairs to look for a dress I could wear. The attic was incredible. Like a vault in a library. Boxes and boxes, neatly stacked and labeled.

"I went to The Container Store," Mom explained. "Knocked myself out. Isn't it wonderful in here? Happiness is a well-organized attic. If only I could get life to look like this. I'm too old for all that fuzzy stuff. Clear delineation — that's the ticket!"

I found a box of old yearbooks. I started thumbing through my senior year. "I didn't realize Carter had changed so much. He's much, much better looking now."

I was surprised. You add fifteen pounds to a geeky, thin frame and the whole world changes. He'd always had nice eyes though.

"I should remind him to go to our next reunion. All the girls are going to be so sorry they weren't nicer to him."

"Sometimes people have to grow into their faces. Unfortunately, when you reach my age, your face starts to melt away from you. Can't tell you how much fun that is."

"Wait. There is something different about you, isn't there?" I said.

Something about her face, something I couldn't quite put my finger on. She was doing her hair differently, but that wasn't it.

"Botox," she whispered.

"Botox?"

"Looks great, doesn't it? I absolutely love it! We should go together. They do mother-and-daughter sessions. We can plump up your cheeks. Get some fat back into you."

"Where did you have it done?"

"Here. And here." She pointed to her forehead, the corners of her mouth.

"When?"

"About a month ago. I had to do something. I'm the only one growing older in this family. You lot just look younger and younger every year. I am not going to let people think I'm your grandmother."

"What did Dad say?"

"Wasn't too happy about it beforehand. He just couldn't understand why anyone would want to inject themselves with poison. But now, he has to admit I look a hell of a lot better. Don't you think?"

I looked really hard. I had to admit she did look less tired. She looked happy.

"That's what Botox is all about, isn't it?" she said, sparkling.

Would I find happiness in an injection?

The Dress

We looked at a lot of dresses together. She loved dresses. Especially vintage. She liked to look at them, touch them, the yards and yards of fabric. She adored fabrics. Adored Ingres just because of the way he painted them. She had enough dresses to open a department store.

Suddenly, she laughed.

"What a funny joke," she said, looking into space — I suppose, looking into memory. "I think I know just the dress. Now where could it be?"

She went through several boxes.

"Yes. Here it is. Brand new. Never worn. I saved it because I remember thinking, maybe one day, one day —"

She held up a beautiful midnight blue, silk satin dress, off-the-shoulder, cinched waist, swaying skirt, hem just below the calves. It was beautiful. And romantic. You wanted to dance in it, be held in it, kissed in it.

"Remember this?" she asked. "So Givenchy."

"No."

"I bought it for you for your prom and you absolutely hated it. Said it made you look like a mummy from the fifties. But I didn't buy it for you, did I? I was the one who fell head over heels in love with it. God, I paid a fortune — ten times more expensive than the prom dress you decided to buy. I always had the fantasy that one day I'd magically fit into it. If I remember right, it was too small for you even then. But now. You are a skeleton, my love. Try it on. You could get married in this."

"I don't remember you having such good taste," I teased.

"You little ingrate," she said. "Do me a favor. Get your hair done. Don't let the dress down. Please. Remember, it's my fantasy you're wearing. Promise?"

She took back the dress and covered herself with it, singing "I Could Have Danced All Night"!

She was off-key but so glamorous.

Ingrid Bergman And Me

We had dinner together, just the two of us. Dad was stuck in surgery. But it was nice, just the two of us. Since graduating from college, I'd always related more to my dad. I don't know why. I don't know why I felt my mom didn't understand my life anymore. I was ambitious and had a career and wanted to put such a big stamp on the world. She'd always seemed so unconcerned with that sort of thing.

Being girls together seemed to bring out a lot of thoughts from my mom:

"I'm ashamed of myself. I thought when I got to this age, this stage in life, I'd have learned from life and metamorphosed into a great dame of mankind, a wise old sage. To have moved on to the next great evolutionary stage of life and seen beyond the obvious. Needing less of the superficial. But I haven't at all. I still want the same things I wanted when I was a young, stupid girl in my twenties. To be pretty. To have others think me pretty. To feel desired. To be seen with new eyes."

She looked at me, tried to see what I understood.

"This makes no sense to you at all. But one day, my love, these words will haunt you."

I thought for the first time that she was a little like Ingrid Bergman, not so much in the way she looked but in the sparkle of her eyes and the humor of her mouth. She seemed very glamorous and I hoped I could take some of that away with me along with The Dress.

In Hollywood, The Dress Always Gets The Man

Gone With The Wind

Directed by Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Co.

Adapted from the novel by Margaret Mitchell

At the Twelve Oaks ball, Scarlett O'Hara spits on tradition and shows her bosom before twelve. All because of a knockout dress. The dress is designed by Walter Plunkett and it's a staggeringly lovely confection, all tight around Scarlett's perky breasts, yards and yards of skirt that flirts and flounces — just one flounce and Rhett Butler develops a lifelong obsession. Men have to scream and shout, fight duels with silly pistols to show they've got balls. Scarlett just wears a dress. I always thought it was strange that the one man who really sees Scarlett for who she is and likes her for it, only ends up wanting to change her. Scarlett want a pretty toy? I guess Rhett just wasn't half the man he thought he was.

Kirsten says it's human nature, the perversity of wanting someone for the one thing you end up trying to destroy. Maybe it's a case of people not really knowing what they want. Maybe it's because they don't really know themselves. You know — you buy a red sports car because you've always wanted a red sports car but after you buy it, it just rots in the garage. Because really, you like fuel economy. And easy-to-park cars. You just don't want to admit it to yourself. But don't you have a responsibility to the fantasy? At least let it breathe.

Sabrina

Directed by Billy Wilder

Adapted from a play by Samuel A. Taylor

At another ball, the chauffeur's daughter shows up in a jaw-dropping Givenchy ball gown and has two millionaires chasing after her. Brothers as different as night and day. So romantic. The pivotal scene: at the indoor tennis court, Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, and the dress. Audrey Hepburn's character Sabrina is convinced she's in love with the younger Mr. Larrabee. Until the elder Mr. Larrabee (Humphrey Bogart) gives her a smooch that cracks her compass. The look on Audrey Hepburn's face. And the innocent smugness of Mr. Bogart. She's so perfect in that dress, even a woman would want to kiss Hepburn. In that dress, you could believe anything.

Cinderella

Directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske

Written by Charles Perrault, Bill Peet, et al.

The prince doesn't even recognize her without the dress. So he's really just in love with the dress? And the shoe? Maybe he's gay?

Tony Takitani

Directed by Jun Ichikawa

Adapted from a short story by Haruki Murakami

He's a man with no sense of other people at all. He grows up alone. His mother is dead. His father is always traveling, a jazz musician. A lady comes in once a day to cook for him. One day he tells her suddenly that he can cook his own meals so she doesn't need to come anymore At an early age, he's so disconnected to people, he genuinely doesn't need them.

One day this woman comes into his office. He's a graphic artist now. This woman is dressed in the most beautiful clothes. But it's not the beauty of the clothes that strikes him — it's the way she wears them. The clothes become alive, beautiful to watch. He falls in love, not with the woman, not with the clothes, but with the conjunction of the two, like watching an array of stars. She's fifteen years his junior and she has a boyfriend. But he continues to woo her, proclaiming that he'll die without her. She knows he's not the kind of person to make remarks that he doesn't mean. So she marries him. But before she does, she tells him about her clothes. She spends every cent she makes buying beautiful, expensive clothes. Without these clothes, she feels dead inside. Like so many lovers, he doesn't really care what she's saying. It's all about the having, not the understanding, isn't it? They end up having a good marriage. She turns out to be a good housekeeper, taking care of all his needs, including washing the car. It's his first real human contact and he finds he needs it. But, of course, the clothes become their downfall. Her obsession grows. She buys so many clothes, they need their own room. One day, he says to her that maybe she should slow it down a bit. It's not just the money — and it's clear she'll bankrupt them soon — but he's genuinely worried about her mental well-being. She knows he's right. And she loves him. So she decides to go cold turkey. She stays in the house, doesn't go into town, tries to keep herself busy with housework. She even thinks that she doesn't need all her many clothes — maybe she'll return the coat and shoes she'd just bought. She goes into town. Bravely returns the clothes. What she feels immediately afterwards is an immense sense of relief. But then, as she drives home, she keeps thinking about the coat and shoes. How she needs them back. Without thinking, she makes a quick U-turn. Of course, she dies in a terrible car accident.

All he has left are her clothes, rack after rack after rack. Without her, the clothes are dead too. So he hires a girl to wear the clothes, just so he could get used to her death. But as soon as he sees the girl in the clothes, he realizes his efforts are ridiculous, even creepy. He gives the clothes away and loses his last connection. Except there's the girl he'd hired, who'd cried at the beauty of the clothes.

The thing is, I know how the woman felt. What the clothes did for her. That incredible sense of being fully alive when you see something so beautiful, so well made. And how that beauty can enclose you, become a part of you, give you life. Of course they would inspire love. Of course they would make him human. That's what a beautiful dress does.

My Entrance

I had a beautiful cashmere evening coat I'd never worn that went perfectly with the dress. And a pair of long blue suede gloves I'd borrowed from my mom. It'd been a present from my dad, brought all the way back from Milan after yet another medical conference. The only jewelry I wore was a short strand of pearls and matching drop earrings.

I waited for Rafe in the lobby. My stomach was mad with butterflies. I kept looking at my shoes. I was worried, because it was snowing, just lightly, but enough for me to worry about my silk satin slingbacks. I needed to worry about shoes so I wouldn't worry about other things.

The door swung open. Rafe walked in. The air in the lobby froze. He didn't say anything. I don't think he was expecting me to be waiting there, in the lobby. He didn't seem to know which way to look. This was too much like a first date. We drove to the wedding hardly saying anything at all. But at the B&B, in the parking lot, Rafe gave me his arm to hold. The frozen ground was slippery and I found myself holding very tightly to his arm.

We checked our coats. Rafe was wearing a tuxedo, his hair newly cut. He looked so handsome, so sophisticated — he was like something out of an old black-and-white movie. He even had the slightest whisper of a white handkerchief breathing out from his breast pocket. Standing there, without our coats, our eyes fixed on one another, it seemed as if we were never going to move. Then people began brushing past us. Rafe offered me his arm again and we walked into the reception room.

The Dance

Debbie's wedding party was adorable. Her little sons and nephews were her ushers, her daughters the bridesmaids. In bright red velvet a magnificently corseted Debbie came sashaying down the aisle, marabou feathers electrifying her hair. Her cleavage was stunning. It was a good thing her groom was so tall and big or else he would have been totally eclipsed.

The reception was wonderful and bizarre. Debbie's entertainer friends came dressed as pierrots and harlequins, and they tumbled around the room, making light mischief. Debbie was circus ringmaster and grand diva in one, sometimes shooing the harlequins away, sometimes egging them on in their mischief. She couldn't stop singing. Her vows were a recitative.

Debbie was so busy managing the entertainment, she didn't get a chance to dance with Rafe until after midnight. They got a good boogie-woogie number which let them clown around, their fingers poking the air, arms dramatically swinging each other around. Debbie always brought out an endearing goofiness in Rafe. Me? I just brought out his melancholia.

I drank another glass of champagne, too depressed to notice Debbie and Rafe coming up from behind me.

"Now you have to dance with Smithie," she said, handing Rafe to me. "I haven't seen you on the dance floor all night. You can't go to a wedding and not dance."

It was true. I hadn't danced. And neither had Rafe until just then with Debbie. I kept thinking he was going to ask me, but he never did. Now, with Debbie's prodding, he slowly extended his hand to me. I took it, nervous. I'd drunk a lot of champagne and I wasn't sure I could walk a straight line. "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree" ended just as we started to dance. Then something much slower, sadder came on. Cole Porter's "Easy To Love". Rafe shyly took me in his arm. There was just a breath of air between us.

Frozen Over

All over the ground. Ice. Concrete frozen. Tree limbs embalmed. The moon a swollen ice crystal. I could feel Rafe's warmth. He was walking behind me, one hand on my waist, one hand holding my arm, making sure I wouldn't slip. We'd stopped walking.

"Rafe!"

"Mike?"

Mike, from work, and his wife.

"Our car won't start. You couldn't give us a lift home?"

"Of course."

Of course.

The four of us got in Rafe's car. It was late, Mike's wife falling asleep, her head gently snuggled against her husband's shoulder. Mike took his wife's hand and held it lovingly in his. I looked over at Rafe, at his hands as he steered. I wanted to put my hand over his, create love like Mike and his wife.

My apartment was the closest so Rafe took me home first.

"Don't get out," I said, quickly opening the car door. "I'll see you on Monday."

Rafe nodded and drove away.

I fell asleep in my dress, watching an old black-and-white movie, Myrna Loy all clever with Clark Gable. Man, Clark Gable looked good in black-and-white. The old movies were all foreplay, weren't they?

A Face In The Crowd

Directed by Elia Kazan

Adapted from a short story by Budd Schulberg

What makes us think we know someone heart and soul? Because they come to us with their emotional highs and lows? Because they whisper to us the secrets of their most obvious tricks? He's conning the world, but not us. With us he's the only self in a thousand, the true self and we love him. When we destroy him, we destroy ourselves. He knows this, and so lets his guard down, becomes dependent on us, and that in our eyes is love and we love him more. Who's conning the con? Perhaps that's the only love he knows, we say. We lap up any psychobabble garbage. Because we never want to let go of that love. And that love isn't a fantasy of him but of us.

The Eyes

"Oh, yeah, _that look_ ," Kirsten said. "It is _so_ incredible. So _addictive_."

"What's addictive about Jack," I teased.

"Shut up."

"What look are you talking about?" Carter asked, totally clueless.

"You know, that look," I said.

"That look a man gives a woman," Kirsten explained. "There's this look in his eyes that says just everything. Have you ever seen _My Favorite Wife_? That scene when Cary Grant first sees Irene Dunne —"

Kirsten and I sighed.

"So I just have to perfect that look and any girl's mine?" Carter asked.

"Don't do it," I said. "It'd be too cruel."

"Too, too cruel," Kirsten echoed. "You just can't fake that sort of thing. Totally immoral."

" _My Favorite Wife_? I'm renting that when I get back," Carter said.

"When are you leaving?" I asked. It was finally Christmas and everyone was taking off. Carter to see his dad in San Diego, Kirsten to see friends in New York. I was losing Rafe to South Africa. His dad had just bought a vineyard. No Rafe for almost three weeks.

"Tonight," Carter replied.

"And you?" I asked Kirsten.

"Saturday."

"So are you all packed and ready?" I asked Carter.

"No," Carter said. "I guess I should go up and pack."

"Probably a good idea. I'll go up with you," I said. "See you, Kirsten."

We rode the elevator up. Carter got his keys out and said, "Hey, have a good Christmas" before slipping into his apartment.

"Wait. I've got something I need to give you," I said.

I opened my door and invited Carter in. I gave him his Christmas present.

"I know we said no presents but this isn't really a present. It's a scarf I knitted in knitting class. I just thought it'd go really good with your new coat."

Carter opened the present and stretched the scarf out.

"Susanna — I don't know what to say."

"Here —"

I put the scarf around his neck.

"Could be a little longer," I said. "Here, give it back to me and I'll add half a foot more."

"No." He stopped me from taking the scarf. "It's perfect as it is. Don't touch it."

"It'll be better with half a foot more," I insisted, pulling on the scarf.

"You're not going to get this back."

"What? You're afraid I'll keep it?"

"Yeah. This is my first present from Susanna Yu and I'm not going to let it out of my sight."

"I knew giving you a present was a bad idea."

Carter gave me a hug and said, "Merry Christmas."

I hadn't expected him to be so moved. It was just a silly scarf. In the most beautiful sea green color. Merino wool. Knitted at a rate of five inches per hour. Carter had really dense, dark hair and the green color was a fantastic match. The green made his black eyelashes really pop too. Better coordinated and Carter could look as good as a black-and-white movie star. He had all those jagged edges that look so sexy in black-and-white. Not that he'd be happy with girls chasing him. He liked to do the chasing. The more impossible, the better.

Christmas Time Is Here

I like Christmas. You get all this warm, fuzzy stuff on TV. Christmas isn't Christmas without TV. In the box, there's caroling and unreal Christmas trees and beautiful tables with perfect food and candlelight. And Charlie Brown. Christmas isn't Christmas without the classic animated _Grinch_ and _The Year Without A Santa Claus._ Mother Nature screaming, " _Boys_!" and putting the fear of nature into Snow Miser and Heat Miser. " _I'm Mister Heat Miser! I'm Mister 101_!" It gears the soul up for a week of eating too much and for drinking things that the human body just wasn't designed for, like eggnog.

I moved back home for the week. My mom treated me like I was twelve and I liked it. I even wore flannel pj's around the house. My mom and dad still lived in the house I grew up in. A nice Victorian-type house with bay windows and a veranda that stretched all the way around the house. The old neighborhood was pretty much the same too, just the trees taller and thicker.

"Guess what we have to do?" Mom asked when I mentioned the trees. "Have to get the front oak tree chopped down."

"Why?"

"The insurance people. They're afraid next storm the tree's going to crash right on top of the house. It is pretty old. And probably rotting inside."

"That's terrible."

"I think so too. Your dad's heartbroken. He figures the tree's more than a hundred years old. God, I hate this whole insurance business. I don't know how society could have taken such a rotten turn. Yes, take precautions, I say, but this is ridiculous. We're all living in a ridiculous way. And it's all the insurance people's fault. They don't want to give you any money. They just want to take yours so they spread all this fear. And if they kill your heart and soul, what do they care? It's not as if they have any heart and soul. Why are we all living like such cowards?"

Christmas Eve Dad decided to take me and Mom out to dinner. We went to our favorite Chinese restaurant and I had a huge plate of sweet-and-sour pork. My idea of perfect comfort food.

"Maybe that's what we should have for Christmas dinner," I said. "Chinese takeout. Remember that time we did that for Thanksgiving? That was fantastic. We even ate right out of the containers so there wouldn't be any dishes."

"Don't have any say this year," Dad said. We were spending the day at my brother Aron's.

"I wonder what kind of feast Silvana is planning," Mom said. "I asked her if she wanted us to bring anything and she gave me an emphatic no. She didn't even want us to come early and help."

"Silvana," I repeated. That was my sister-in-law's name. "Why couldn't you have given me a sexy name like Silvana. Susanna. You might as well have named me Mabel. Or Daisy The Cow. It's no wonder my love life is nonexistent."

"I like Susanna," Mom said. "I got it from that funny banjo song."

"I know. Why didn't you stop her?" I asked my dad.

"You cried so much as a baby, it seemed appropriate," Dad said.

"You did cry a lot," Mom said. "And Aron hardly ever."

"That was more worrying," Dad said. "You expect babies to cry."

"Your dad was so worried about Aron, he even got the hospital to do all sorts of brain scans."

"Turns out it was nature just equalizing things," Dad laughed. Dad's nerdy humor was so cute.

"I feel weird whenever I see Aron," I admitted.

"Why?" my mom asked.

"I feel all out of synch," I said. "He has a child. He's younger than me."

"We all have our own timelines," my dad said philosophically. He was very good with the whole bedside manner sort of thing.

"It takes a bit of getting used to, this seeing your children at designated holidays," Mom sighed. "I suppose when you get married we'll see you and your family one Christmas and Aron and his family the next and so on."

Aron and Silvana had it all organized. This year, Thanksgiving had been with her parents and Christmas was with mine. Next year, Thanksgiving was with my parents and Christmas was with hers. New Year's Eve was always going to be theirs alone.

"She's very well organized," Mom said. "This girl is very organized. Her wedding was a joy to watch. Better organized than Mussolini's trains. Did the whole thing herself. No wedding planner for her. Quite a girl."

"Don't you miss spending Christmas with your parents?" I teased my mom.

"Your parents must be happy being back in Sweden after all this time," my dad sweetly said.

My maternal grandparents were psychologists, which made them particularly difficult in-laws — and parents. Professors, they'd been in the U.S. for decades teaching. My grandmother, especially, had an answer for everything. Here's how she'd explained why my parents had fallen in love:

"So simple," she'd said. "A case of two outsiders meeting. Two outsiders in a very small community, I might add. It wasn't an act of falling in love. It was an act of forging commonality from that very thing which held them apart from the rest of the community. A kind of recognition and narcissism, if you will. While biologically, the act of falling in love is an attempt to achieve genetic diversity for your offspring, emotionally, it is, at its core, an act of narcissism."

"She's having you on," my mom had said. "We all know it's just about sex."

"Which is the ultimate act of narcissism," I'd said, imitating my grandmother.

"And boy, could that woman be narcissistic. And loud."

Thinking about your grandparents having sex was much worse than thinking about your parents having sex. My mom was very open about sex. Well, she was uninhibited about talking about sex.

"So how's Silvana going to have time to cook Christmas dinner?" I asked.

Mom shrugged.

"I do not ask. I do not question. I do not interfere. I do not care. That's the role of a mother-in-law. Complete ignorance. I just smile. See? Like this. That's good, isn't it? I'm thinking about writing a book. _How To Be The Perfect Mother-in-Law_ : _Lessons In Keeping Your Mouth Shut_."

"Fiction or nonfiction?" I asked.

"I am the perfect mother-in-law," she said. "I divorce myself completely from my mouth. I defy you to see what I am thinking. Can't be done."

I wondered if my parents would like Rafe. What they would say if I brought him home? If Rafe would like my parents. What Rafe's parents were like. I kept imagining what it would be like, Rafe coming to Christmas dinner, Rafe talking to my dad, the whole world knowing Rafe was my boyfriend. My husband. I knew my mom knew I was in love. But she was never the kind of mom to ask about these things, never the kind to say, "When are you going to get married? Are you seeing anyone?" She was happy to discuss romance if I brought it up, but otherwise, she kept very quiet about it. I don't think she wanted to put any pressure on me, make me think romance was life and death. An anthropologist, she liked to apply her social theories at home. But I knew she wanted me to have someone. I knew she was waiting. And I wanted so much for her to meet Rafe. To love him. I don't think Rafe had ever had enough love in his life. Great. My need was creating a whole psychological profile for him now. I had to stop.

Christmas Past

Like a little kid, I woke up early on Christmas day. The house was so quiet. I looked outside, hoping to see snow. It was frosty, with the hope of snow. Downstairs, in the dining room, my mom was still wrapping gifts.

"What did you do?" I asked her, seeing the huge mountain of gifts. "Rob a department store?"

"I admit it. I overdid it this year. But they just moved into their house and they're expecting another baby and they just need so much stuff. Sit down and help me or I'll never finish."

I grabbed a box and started wrapping. She got me a cup of coffee and a hot cardamom bun.

"What do you think about this fabric?" my mom asked, taking a huge slab of heavy fabric from out of a box. "Isn't it gorgeous? I thought they could make curtains out of it."

"You are cruel," I said. "Now they're going to have to make curtains out of it whether they like it or not."

"Not at all. I'm going to tell them that if they don't like it, I'll take it and give them a gift certificate instead. That way they can pick out their own fabric. This would make a gorgeous cover for that old settee in the bedroom."

"Very practical. Very devious."

I made some scrambled eggs for us. My mom and I liked to eat them with lots of lingonberry jam on top.

"I must be getting old. You being here in the house brings up so many memories," Mom said. "When you were growing up, your father had hopes that you'd become a surgeon. Take after him."

"Me a surgeon?" That was a surprise. "Whatever gave him that idea?"

"Well, when you were a baby, you were always playing with his stethoscope. You loved putting it on your stomach and listening to your stomach gurgle. And you always were so good with sharp implements. Look at the way you handle that pair of scissors. No one curls ribbons the way you do. Here — do this box too. Curl them all! Go ahead! Curl them all!"

"Why didn't he say anything?" I asked, going back to my dad and his dream of me becoming a surgeon. Maybe he should have said something. Maybe that was the road I should have gone down. I'd be married. To a Dr. Rafe.

"Because. He remembers how much pressure was put on him to be a doctor. He loves being a doctor but he wouldn't put that kind of pressure on anybody."

"Not even a nudge?"

"Why? Do you regret not being a doctor?"

"I'll have to think about it."

"Don't go making that a focal point for all your frustrations," my mom warned.

"Like I need a focal point," I smirked.

It took us a while, but we finally managed to get everything wrapped. It was all so pretty. Packaged happiness.

Silvana

Over at Silvana's, life was calm and neat. She was in the kitchen peeling vegetables when we arrived.

"Need any help?" I asked, peeking in.

"Sure. You want to peel some potatoes?"

"Okay."

I realized Silvana and I never really talked. I think our longest conversation had lasted all of six minutes. I knew almost nothing about her. She was five years older than Aron. I remember being so shocked at first, but then when I thought about it, it made sense. Aron had always been older than his skin. They had a good marriage. I wanted to know what made their marriage tick. Neither talked very much, so did they sit around saying nothing? Or maybe in private they made up for all the silences and talked their heads off. Silvana worked for a big media company, on the production end. Whenever I asked her about how work was going, she always said the same thing: "Good." She was like a wall, so you couldn't go on asking, prying.

In the background, my nephew Davey was screaming his head off with joy. Davey was a three-year-old human energy bomb, running everywhere on cartoon-speed legs, stop-starting at ferocious speeds, spinning wildly in circles, insanely head-butting people. He loved holding on to your leg, grabbing with both arms like he was hugging an energy-renewing tree trunk. Just the thought of Davey visiting made my mom panic. Everything had to be secured, breakables locked up — she was totally exhausted even before Davey had set one foot through the door. He was going to be a big brother soon. I wondered if Davey knew what was about to happen. His whole world was going to explode.

"The house looks wonderful," I said, trying to get something going.

"I wish I could have gotten it cleaner for today, but with a child, things are never really clean."

"I can imagine."

"Can you?"

And this was why our conversations averaged two minutes. Luckily, Mom to the rescue. She came in just in time and asked, "Can I help?"

I gave her the rest of the potatoes and went to play with Dad and Davey. Aron was sitting in the living room watching them. People often said that Aron and I looked like twins, except Aron was half a foot taller. He was a big guy, built like a jock. People assumed he'd played football. But he hadn't. He hated sports. Confrontation. Aggression. Crowds. He looked much older too. More adult, more grown-up. Even as a child. What was nice was that he was finally looking more the right age.

Once, I asked Aron why he decided to become a dentist. He replied, "Seemed like a good career option."

"Was it?" I asked.

He looked at me like he was surprised I would even wonder. They were so perfect together, Aron and Silvana. Only, weren't you supposed to have an introvert and an extrovert pair up?

"So how did you meet Silvana again?" I asked Aron, sitting across from him. Of course I knew, but I just wanted to get him started. Maybe even make him a little uncomfortable.

"At the radio station," he said. Aron had spent his college summers interning at a radio station.

"Can I ask you something?" I asked.

"Fire away."

"When you decided to get married, didn't you have any doubts?" I asked. "I mean you were so young. You hadn't even graduated from college yet."

"No."

"Not even one little iota?"

"No."

"Didn't you ever think, 'Well, we could wait a little. I still have dentist school to go to. What's the rush?'"

"Why? I knew I wanted to marry Silvana. She knew she wanted to marry me. What would have been the purpose of waiting?"

"Is life so black-and-white for you?"

"Look. If you have a cavity, do you wait to go to the dentist? You know what to do, so do it. Why wait when waiting will only make things worse?"

"Wow."

"If you love someone, you marry them. Right?"

"Right." Little brother made so much sense. Mom and Dad did something right. Maybe it was all those brain scans. I wished they had signed me up for a few. I wondered if it was too late for me.

We opened presents after dinner. Little Davey did very well. He had enough Christmas toys to open his own toy store. My mom didn't do too badly either. Dad had gotten her a trip around the world. Of course he was going too.

"But what about work?" Mom asked, shocked.

"I'm taking a sabbatical. A year. Maybe two."

"But — but —"

"You don't believe me?" Dad teased.

"No one believes you, Dad," I said, teasing back.

"Just as soon as my schedule clears up —"

We all groaned and laughed. Dad blushed. He owed a lot to Mom's patience.

My dad put his arm around my mom and squeezed her. Aron gave Silvana a kiss. I saw it all and tried to be happy. Oh! It was finally snowing.

Mr. Skeffington

Directed by Vincent Sherman

Written by Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, et al.

Adapted from a novel by Elizabeth Von Arnim

I always feel like January is just one long hangover. The sky is grey. The horizon is grey. All I want to do is stay in bed and watch movies.

The sofa bed started to look a little lived-in. After work, Kirsten liked to come by with a basket of food from the restaurant and a movie. We usually fell asleep mid movie, mid snack.

While watching _Mr. Skeffington_ , she gave me a terrific massage. She'd been a masseuse, stewardess, bus driver, NBC page, short-order cook, stock broker, Tokyo bar hostess —

"I get bored a lot," she said. "We have that in common. Jack and I. Low boredom threshold."

Kirsten liked Bette Davis movies. We started talking about Bette and suddenly the whole issue of worship came up.

"The world is divided into two kinds of people," Kirsten said. "Those who want to be worshiped and those who want to worship. Luckily, it works out because those who want to worship far exceed those who want to be worshiped. I want to be worshiped. Jack wants to worship. Carter wants to worship. You seem like you want to be worshiped but actually, you want to worship. And Rafe wants to worship. That's a problem. **Wants to worship** plus **wants to worship** equals **void**."

"You want to be worshiped?" I said, astonished.

"Yes. Something I discovered about myself when I turned thirty. I like to be worshiped. In a nice pagan way. None of that crap 'I want to be treated like a normal human being' spiel Katharine Hepburn spouts in _The Philadelphia Story_. Like you can believe Hepburn anyway — what an attention monopolizer. You'd believe Grace Kelly but not Hepburn."

Kirsten was no Hepburn fan: "Can barely act — can't stand that piggy face — ruined _Little_ _Women_ , although no one was as atrocious as June Allyson."

She turned to _Mr. Skeffington_ : "Skeffington is a serious worshiper. He's even literally blind at the end of the movie. The perfect symbol of worship."

"You want Jack to be blind?" I said.

"Jack has ADD, which is as good as. I don't think Jack's in love with me," she digressed. "I think this is a case of mutual syndrome attraction. I'm bi-polar light – not seriously bad, very controlled. And Jack has ADD. I've seen other bi-polar/ADD/RDS relationships. We're magnets for each other."

"So two worshipers can't get together?"

"Can't last. Unless you find a common idol. But then you wouldn't be loving each other, would you? I mean, that's what cults are all about and look at what road that takes you: polygamy, lobotomy. How bad do you want Rafe? Because you could make the sacrifice and become the object of worship."

But how would you make that transition?

The Matchmaker

The perfect honeymoon for Debbie was Hawaii with all her kids. I think her kids were a portable audience. She came back to work with a bulging mound of pictures. Kids on surfing boards, kids playing in the pool, kids playing on the beach, kids, kids, kids.

"They'd just be calling me up all the time anyway," she'd said before she'd left. "Might as well have them along. Besides, it's Christmas. And what's Christmas without the kids? We'll have a great time."

There was only one picture of the cute plumber. He was smiling and waving, a beer clutched in his hand. He knew what he was getting into. I hoped.

Debbie also brought souvenirs of her wedding, framed pictures of Rafe and me dancing, a copy for Rafe, a copy for me. I put mine on my desk and stared at it. I could hear Kirsten: " **Wants to worship** plus **wants to worship** equals **void**."

Debbie passed by my desk. She noticed I was staring at the picture. Mid step, she rewound herself backwards until she was right in front of my desk. Before saying anything, she looked around to make sure Rafe was safely in his office.

"Listen," Debbie said, hunching down towards me and fiercely whispering. "The two of you aren't —"

She made a slow motion with her finger. Rafe one way, me the other.

"No!" I protested. I could feel myself going red from head to toe.

"What are you waiting for?" She was angry. "If he looked at me the way he looks at you, I'd have made a move ages ago. Don't tell me you're waiting for him? Don't you know Rafe by now? Don't you know anything about men? Just go in there, right now, and grab him!"

Her whispers became a declaration of war. I was sure Rafe could hear every word she was saying. I was mortified. I slunk as low in my chair as I could get, wishing Debbie would go away.

"I'm telling you," Debbie kept insisting, "grab him before it's too late."

She punched her fist down on my desk and walked away, so frustrated, I thought she was going to scream.

She wasn't the only person frustrated in that office.

I put the picture away and kept my eyes on my computer screen. I didn't look at either Rafe or Debbie until lunchtime. And then, making sure the coast was clear, I made my way to the elevator as fast as I could. I stayed away for a good hour and a half. I thought about calling in sick and going home. But, no, I decided I had to be brave and go back to work. It was a mistake. Debbie was in Rafe's office, talking excitedly. It was clear what the subject was. The door was closed. Rafe looked up and saw me through the glass wall. He stared at me for a second, as if he was wondering about something, and then quickly looked down at his desk, like he was busy working on some figures.

Debbie came out of Rafe's office. She looked at me and shook her head.

"The problem is, the problem is the two of you are too much alike!"

Um. Worshiper plus worshiper equals inaction and frustration.

Debbie was so disgusted, she had to go home. Well, it was Friday. She was always looking for a good excuse to begin the weekend early.

Rafe stayed in his office for the rest of the day. I didn't budge from my desk. Five o'clock came. I put on my coat and walked to the elevator. As I passed Rafe's office, he came out, ready to go home too. He sort of looked at me and I sort of looked at him, and — we just started laughing.

We took the elevator down together, walked out of the building, said goodbye as if we were just friends.

"Have a good weekend, Rafe," I said as I walked to the bus stop.

"You too, Susanna. Be careful going home."

It'd begun to snow, heavily, the roads iced over. A classic February snowstorm.

"Thanks."

He walked away, looking pretty content with life. Not even an offer to take me home. Didn't look back once. But, that day, at that moment, I was okay with that.

Miracle

The next morning, when I thought about it, it seemed like Rafe and I had reached a silent agreement. Peace in inaction, if that makes sense. After all, it was nice where we were standing. No drama. No expectations. No declarations. Nothing to live up to. Nothing to live down. We liked each other and that was all. And, besides, we got to see each other eight hours a day, five days a week. There were married couples who spent less time together. Why should we want more? Where we were was nice.

And then the phone rang and it was Rafe.

"Are you doing anything right now?" he asked.

"No. I don't think so." I couldn't think.

"Want to go skating?"

"Skating?"

"The river's frozen over. People are ice skating on the river. It's perfect skating conditions."

"I can't skate."

"I'll teach you."

"No, I really can't skate. I tried once and it was a total disaster. Broke my leg."

"It's too late," Rafe said. "I've rented the skates. And I'm outside your apartment building."

I jumped off the sofa and looked out the window. Rafe was out in the snow, waving and smiling. My heart pounded.

"Can I come up?" he asked.

"Yes. Sure. Of course."

Rafe took the stairs, running up, all excited like a five-year-old. He presented me with a pair of skates.

"I had to guess your size," he said. "Try it on."

My childhood accident had given me ice-skates-phobia. But how could I disappoint Rafe? I put the skates on.

"Now stand up. Don't worry. I've got you."

I stood up, holding on to Rafe's shoulders. He was checking my toes. My ankles wobbled. I was feeling really, really dizzy. I had to get the skates off. I had to get the skates off. Rafe was at my feet. I was afraid I was going to faint.

"A little bit too big," he said. "I thought that might be a problem, so I brought these."

Rafe took out some thick woolen socks from his pocket.

"Remember these?" he asked. "The ones we made in knitting class?"

"You thought of everything." I wish he hadn't. The skates were giving me a severe case of vertigo.

"Come on, let's go."

"You're really going to make me do this."

"Don't worry, Susanna. I've got you."

Being in love has tragic ramifications. I bounced after Rafe, ready to do whatever he wanted me to do. Down, puppy, down. I was so disgusted with myself.

The river was less than half a mile away. We walked, holding hands, the snow falling. At the river, Rafe got on his knees and helped me with my skates.

"Are you sure it's safe?" I asked, looking out at the frozen river. It was so rare for the river to freeze.

"Look —" There were already a dozen people skating on the ice. "Come on, Susanna, courage!"

He quickly put his skates on and pulled me to the river.

"How is it now?" he asked. "With the extra socks?"

"Okay?"

"Good."

I thought I could hear the ice crack.

"Don't let go of me," I pleaded.

"I won't. But, Susanna, you're going to have to stop restricting my blood supply."

I guess I was holding on to his wrists extremely hard.

"Just relax," he said. "That's it. Try moving your legs. Right leg, left leg. You can do it. And don't look down at your feet. Look right here. Into my eyes."

If I looked into his eyes, the ice would melt beneath my feet. Then we'd plunge into the icy depths, lost lovers forever. Would that be so bad?

Rafe gently pulled me forward.

"Right leg, left leg," Rafe coached. Slowly, he released my hand.

Splat! I was on my stomach. I'd taken Rafe down with me.

"Are you alright?" Rafe asked.

"I don't know."

"Any broken bones?"

"I don't think so."

"Wow. When you take a tumble, you take the whole world with you, don't you?" He laughed hard. "Come on. Up we go."

He hoisted me up. This time he was behind me, one hand around my waist, the other holding my hand. Not only was he balancing me, but he was lifting me up too. He was surprisingly strong.

"The secret, Susanna, is just to relax. Bend your knees. Lower. Good. I'll do all the skating for you. You just relax. Good. Now push off with your left leg. Just like this. Good. Now your right leg. Gently. Gently. Here we go. See, you're a natural."

My body wasn't mine anymore, but Rafe's. I couldn't believe what was happening. We were skating faster and faster, snow and ice brushing against our faces, so fast that I thought, any second, we'd fly through the air and never stop.

My Buttons

The way he bites his lower lip when he's thinking something through. It's so sexy.

He said once that he'd moved around so much as a kid that now, wherever he is, he's homesick for where he isn't so he's in a perpetual state of homesickness and my heart ached.

His shirts are always slightly rumpled and his hair just a little messy and it makes me think about that Herrick poem we had to memorize in English class and for the first time, it means something to me: _A sweet disorder in the dress..._

I can come up with the strangest observation and he smiles in appreciation.

He's much stronger than I thought he'd be. I realize I'm just a typical girl with typical evolutionary needs. And I don't care. He makes me not care.

Sometimes he looks at me and I'm Irene Dunne.

And then he gets drunk and none of this is true.

Too Drunk To Fuck

He drank glass after glass of vodka and it was like I wasn't even there.

He was iced up and even his eyes were cold.

He stopped mid glass. He looked at me, froze his stare for about a minute and then stood up. He seemed fine, until he took his first step. I had to catch him. His drunkenness made him heavy and awkward to hold.

I think, to him, he was still alone.

I took him back up to my place. He walked as if I was his guiding will. I put him on my sofa. Lying very still, he looked at me coldly and chanted slowly:

" _I come from Alabama_

With a banjo on my knee,

I'm going to Louisiana,

My true love for to see;

It rained all night the day I left

The weather it was dry,

The sun so hot I froze to death,

Susanna, don't you cry.

Oh! Susanna,

Oh don't you cry for me.

I've come from Alabama

_With my banjo on my knee_."

He closed his eyes and I didn't know if he was asleep or not.

Jean Reno

Kirsten: Jean Reno, in _Les Visiteurs_ , as Godefroy de Papincourt, is _the_ ideal man. No question about it. First, he looks like a man. I hate these adol-men. It's like the whole film world is turning anime. Disgusting. Who wants to fuck Speed Racer? I'd like to fuck Godefroy de Papincourt. What a man. And I mean MAN. Through and through. No hidden abscess of giggling little boy who's going to end up crying and wanting his mommy. Godefroy de Papincourt knows what honor is. Has no problems decapitating scums with a sword. Faithful. Loyal. Elitist. Says what he means. Knows what he's feeling. So totally clued up. Doesn't run away from his enemies. Doesn't run away from problems. Doesn't run away from the love of his life. Everything's upfront. You know what you're getting. All that and he's tender too. Who wouldn't want to melt in his arms? Arms strong enough to carry you up that _long_ staircase of love. Makes modern men look vapid. So — Speed Racer or Godefroy de Papincourt? Speed or Godefroy? Are we women? Or are we pubescent girls who need stuffed toys?

Heart And Soul

For a whole month, he was like that. Cold. He came to work late and went to lunch early. Half the time he never came back from lunch. He sealed himself up and Debbie and I couldn't touch him. I didn't understand. One moment, we seemed so close, skating arm in arm — I thought — he seemed — three days later he was unrecognizable to me. To Debbie. We didn't know what to do. It hurt so much.

And then he announced quietly that he was leaving.

"I got an offer from a company in France. A wine distribution company," he explained. He was so warm now. "I've already submitted my resignation."

"When are you leaving?" Debbie asked. She was so shell-shocked she could barely stand.

"This Friday's my last day. I'm heading off to France Saturday morning."

Debbie started to cry.

Rafe hugged her and said, "You're okay now. Everything is okay now. There's no need to cry anymore."

I stood watching, not feeling anything really. I kept thinking I needed to buy more milk. Maybe a package of croissants. The ones you can reheat in the oven or toaster. And more boxes of frozen macaroni and cheese. I have to remember to get off the bus one stop early. To get to the supermarket. Or maybe I'd wait until I got home and ask Carter if he wanted to do a supermarket run together. We hadn't done that in a while.

On Friday Debbie and I took Rafe out for a farewell dinner. A big shellfish feast with lots of alcohol. I think Debbie was hoping Rafe would get food poisoning and miss his flight. She spent most of dinner taking pictures of Rafe and the two of them did their old Mrs. Ray/Mr. Tatum act. She didn't cry when she had to go. Instead, she grabbed Rafe by the ears and gave him a big smacker of a kiss straight on the lips.

"Now that's a woman," Rafe said, trying to recover. He was blushing.

"She's been wanting to do that for ages," I said.

"I know," he said. We laughed.

"She's going to miss you so much," I said. And then I let it slip: "So am I."

I wondered if he'd miss us. Out of sight, out of mind. Guys were like that, weren't they? So easy for them to end one life and go on to another, even leaving behind their own kids, while girls hang on to everything, worlds colliding inside their hearts.

We started to walk, very slowly. The cold air bit into my lungs and I wanted to run. I hated him.

"Do you want to visit your piano?" I asked.

"It's gone," he said. "Sold. About a month ago. On it's way to Saudi Arabia."

He stopped, put his hand hard on my arm and forced me to understand:

"I don't want to leave, Susanna. I want so much to stay. But I have nothing to give you, Susanna."

We walked until the sun came up.

Take Care Of My Cat

Work was now intolerably depressing. Rafe was gone and so was our department. We were viciously split apart. Debbie stuck in human resources, the first ring in hell, and me in accounting, the second ring. Maybe it was the other way around. Not that the order really matters in hell.

But life, as a boyfriend of mine once said, has a way of going on and there's something wonderful about that. I wondered where he was now. What he was doing. Who he was with. If he ever wondered about me. Out of sight, out of mind.

Life post-Rafe was watching an endless stream of movies with Kirsten. Kirsten was obsessed with _Tachiguishi Retsuden_. She watched it day and night, dissecting it into little pieces and then trying to put it all back together again in an attempt to build a universe that would make sense to her. Maybe it was the way the action was all spliced up, forcing your brain to create the motions, the connections. Or maybe it was the narration and the faux documentation that alluded to a greater meaning in spite of the gag. The movie totally hypnotized her. She began to think the subtitles were part of the excavation. She kept speaking Japanese without realizing she was speaking Japanese. (She was fluent from her two years as a gaijin bar hostess in Tokyo.) Carter started filming her. She seemed on the verge of bursting into nirvana.

The delirium was totally broken by _Take Care Of My Cat_. The problem with watching Asian films or shows is that there's so much food. Korean films are totally guilty. Everyone's always eating. Really eating. Food spitting out as they deliver dialogue. _Couple Or Trouble_ 's main character is chajangmyun, a noodle dish. _Take Care Of My Cat_ has tteokbokki. Kirsten actually ferreted out a place that served it. A hole-in-the-wall where Korean college kids hung out. We had a table to ourselves, eating this incredibly spicy concoction with bottles of soju.

"When food's this spicy, it's like a soul cleansing," Kirsten said. "And then, of course, you're sitting on the toilet for the next twenty-four hours. It's so true. If a friend told me she didn't like tteokbokki, I'd have to drop her. _Take Care Of My Cat_ really understands the soul of friendships."

We were on our third bottle of soju. It's a great way of getting drunk because you can drink half a bottle and not realize you're drunk at all.

"You can drink," Kirsten said. She sat firmly in her seat, almost glaring at me, her fingers gripped around the small soju glass.

"So can you."

"I worked in an awful lot of bars. There are only a very few people who can out drink me."

"Are you the man? Or am I the man? Because someone's going to have to piggyback."

"Let's get Carter. Get Carter!"

We laughed uncontrollably.

"Were you really a Tokyo bar hostess?" I asked. "I just can't see it. You're not exactly the petite little blonds they like."

Kirsten was 5'9 with big bones. Her dad was a Turkish Jew and her mom a well-fed Midwestern farm girl of good Polish stock. She was what the French called jolie laide. Her face was masculine and heavy and her hair black and wild. She usually combed oil through the hair and tied it back severely into a chignon, which made her face look even more testosterone heavy. Nonetheless, she was beautiful. Men worshiped her. She did have this sense of danger, like she could throw a lightning bolt into your heart and strike you dead on the spot.

"I filled a niche," she said matter-of-factly. Sometimes she was so annoyingly closemouthed.

And then, for a while, we were too drunk to talk. We looked into our glasses until we were hungry again and started eating more tteokbokki.

"'Our distressed lives will not create a remarkable love story,'" Kirsten quoted.

"If you don't stop quoting _Tachiguishi Retsuden_ , I'll take this bottle of soju and ram it down your throat," I threatened.

"I hate mean drunks," she said.

Then she said, "Have I ever talked about Julia? I don't usually talk about Julia but I thought I might have mentioned her because we end up talking about so many things I kinda forget what we talked about which is unusual for me because I'm really good at remembering that sorta thing. I remember everything. There's so much sadness in remembering everything."

I shook my head. I'd never heard of Julia.

"I loved her," Kirsten said. "She was killed — this ferry accident in Greece. I loved her. One human being for another. I loved her. But all these years later I wonder how I could have loved her. Because I knew so little about her. And we spent so little time together. If I really think about it, I don't think we spent, all hours counted up, more than fifty hours or so together. We spoke a couple times a year on the phone. And saw each other once or twice a year, whenever we found ourselves on the same continent. She was a drifter. So what was it that I was responding to? What is love that you can know so little and love so much? I miss her."

The Cats

Anyway, Debbie and I met up for lunch whenever we could, half an hour, clocked to the minute. Debbie was now punching timecards, a defeated hourly-wage slave. Of course the only thing we ever talked about was Rafe. We were both totally gutted that neither one of us had heard one word from him. Debbie was hurting bad. After all, she'd been addicted to Rafe a lot longer.

"Just a postcard," Debbie pleaded. "An email. Just to tell us you're alive, baby. Talk to me."

"Out of sight, out of mind," I said.

"Rafe is not like that," Debbie rang out. She was outraged, as if I'd blasphemed. Rafe was still her savior, her divine guardian angel.

"I guess he'll never take me to South Africa now," she voiced with pitiful sadness.

"He was going to take you to South Africa?" I asked, surprised. This was the first time I'd heard anything about it.

"To the vineyard."

So he'd promised South Africa to Debbie and South America to me. He'd been making promises all over the place. He was a promise whore. Just gets better and better.

"I blame you," Debbie suddenly said, pointing a long fingernail at me. She had the most amazing acrylics. So perfectly French manicured. It was like they had an identity all their own.

"Me?"

"Yes. You." Her finger was still pointing at me. "If you had just done what I had told you to do — if you had just grabbed him and kissed him, he'd still be here with us."

"He never gave me the chance."

"Don't give me that."

"Why didn't he grab me and kiss me? I gave him plenty of chances. He didn't even _need_ to grab me."

"Didn't I tell you Rafe has a clinical inability to take risks? What he needed was a stiff kick in the ass from Cupid. And I was going to give it to him. But you just wouldn't cooperate."

"You could have kissed him."

"The point was to make him stay, not to have him jump on the first rocket into space. I know he loved you. The way he looked at you — I would have given anything for him to look at me like that. I really hated you. I guess I still do hate you. Oh, why didn't you just kiss him?"

Why didn't I just kiss him? Go ahead and kick me in the ass, Debbie, because I deserve it. Kick me. Just kick me.

"He had this incredible way of making you feel so special," Debbie swooned on and on.

Yes, it was true. He made Debbie feel special. He made me feel special. He made Carol, the cashier at the cafeteria, feel special. He probably made the time clock feel special. Can you trust someone who makes the entire world feel so fucking special? I hated him and I loved him. His absence was burning through me like acid, the fumes keeping me alive.

The Walrus

I now left work at five o'clock on the dot. One second too early and my boss would have skewered me alive. One second too late and I would have gone insane. My boss, who I silently called The Walrus, was one of those tyrannical nutcases who acted all chummy with the employees but couldn't hide the fact he hated us. He was half ogre, half ninny. He was also a patroller. In his rubber-soled shoes he'd walk obsessively up and down the aisles between our neatly-lined desks, peeking into our computer screens, listening into our conversations, examining the objects on our desks, sure we were committing office fraud by the second. He'd done away with all the cubicles so there was absolutely no privacy. We were galley slaves on a ship. I had never worked in an atmosphere that was so quiet, so tense. Even a chair squeaking felt like a knife scraping pulled skin.

Ironically, The Walrus was exactly the kind of ass I was expecting to be sitting in Rafe's chair when I came for my job interview all those months ago. I wouldn't have cared then. But now, I was too alive.

Birthday

In March Kirsten turned thirty-five. We took over Scrambles and half the neighborhood for a party. The more people drank, the better it got. When Jack rolled out the mammoth birthday cake, "Happy Birthday" could be heard out in space.

Jack made Kirsten's favorite cake, an intense banana sponge with a middle layer of thinly sliced bananas and banana-liquor-laced whipped cream. He was a good baker. I don't know, but I always think there's something sweet in a man being a good baker. Maybe it's the sugar and spice. And the measuring out of things — teaspoon of baking powder, tablespoon of love.

Jack and I got to talking. He was all sweaty from having been a maniac all evening. Running around with his finger in every pie, he was making sure everything was absolutely perfect for Kirsten's birthday. It's funny how some people give off the worst first impression, but once you get to know them, really know them, how much you like them. I was glad Kirsten had given Jack a second chance. It wasn't the sort of thing she did. She believed in first instincts and not wasting time.

"It's serious, having a broken heart," he reflected, drinking his beer straight out of the bottle. He was chubby but tall, like a sweet teddy bear. "You've got to take it easy. Take some time. Time to really recuperate."

"Man of experience?" I asked.

"Yup. _The_ man of experience. I've had my heart broken so many times I'm surprised I still have a heart. Maybe I don't. Maybe my body's just acting on memory."

"Maybe that was my problem," I reflected. "I haven't had my heart broken enough. Can I tell you something, Jack? This is my first. My first heartbreak."

"No shit. What have you been doing with your life?"

"I don't know. I guess I didn't know it was important so I never scheduled it in. I would have scheduled it right before freshman year. Do you think heartbreak is something that should happen to you when you're really little? Like having the chicken pox?"

"It's fucking bad no matter what age you are. I once saw a ninety-year-old man blubber like a baby because he got dumped. Scars you too."

"So what happens now?" I wanted to know. "How long before I feel okay again?"

"I don't know. I still don't get it. Maybe you just have to get back on the bike again."

"Is that what you did? With Kirsten?"

"Nah. It wasn't like that at all," Jack explained. "It was the one time when I wasn't in love or falling in love or coming out of love. In fact, it was this really great period when I was just doing my own thing. It was great. And then I got this job and here was Kirsten and how do you not fall in love with Kirsten? She's a goddess. I love her so much. I didn't think it was possible to love so much. And the more I know her, the more I love her. I can't tell you how much more I love her. It's scary to think how much more I'll love her next week. Next year. In fifty years. And that to me is so incomprehensible. You think love is just love. You don't expect it to keep growing. Infinitely. This is the first time I've ever thought about marriage. All those times in love and this is the first woman I've ever met that makes me think marriage. For the first time I realize how holy that word is. _Marriage_."

"Have you asked her?"

"I want to. But she wouldn't say yes. I've wanted to ask her since the very first time I spoke to her. I can't tell you how hard it was, talking to her, trying to seem normal when my brain's hammering, 'Marry me, marry me, marry me, marry me —' It's crazy."

Wow. This was an epic love story.

"Why do you think she won't say yes?" I asked. It was good to get the male side of things, find out what these guys are really thinking. It was so rare for one of them to articulate their dilemmas. Most of the time they didn't even know they had one.

"Isn't that obvious?" he asked.

"She cares about you."

"She's a wonderful person. She cares about everyone. I'm just another guy in The Refuge. That's okay. I'll take crumbs if that's all that's being offered. Hold on for as long as Kirsten will let me."

Jack didn't seem like the kind of guy who was so easily defeated.

"What is it about love that turns us into pathetic idiots?" I asked.

"They say it's biology and the drive to propagate the species. But I don't buy it. If it was just biology, it'd be a lot more efficient, you know?"

"It is efficient. Except with humans. We fuck everything up."

"Now bitter — that's something you don't want to get."

"So says the god of Zen love."

He swiped my head with affection.

Distraction

One day Carter asked me if I wanted to go on an overnight trip with him. He had to go up to Lincoln to interview some guy for a video he was doing. He wanted me to come along and keep him company, help carry stuff. Exciting.

"Come on. It'll be good for you. You don't want to spend all weekend moping around."

"Leave me alone."

"We'll leave Friday evening. What time do you get off work? Five? We'll leave around six. We should get to Lincoln by eight. We'll check into the motel. Have dinner. Get the interview the next day. Drive home. It'll be fun."

"Your holiday brochure stinks."

"The motel has a pool," he said enticingly.

"Great. I can drown myself."

Carter practically packed for me. We didn't speak a lot these days. His business was taking off and we were seeing less and less of him.

"So what's this DocuPresent all about?" I asked him as we drove to Lincoln.

"Couple's fiftieth anniversary. His kids want me to do a DocuPresent about how they met, their marriage, struggles, etc. I have everything I need except an interview with the one sibling still alive."

"Fiftieth anniversary. Wow. You're lucky to get a first these days."

"I wonder how many marriages you can fit into a life span. Let's say you average seven years for each marriage and you live for ninety years. And you get married at thirty. Four? Five?"

"How many years were your parents married?" I asked.

"Fifty-six years. My mom got married when she was only twenty. If she were alive, I guess they'd be approaching their sixtieth. What about your parents?"

"Thirty-two years."

"It's weird to be the exceptions, isn't it? I don't know anyone else except you who isn't from a divorced family."

"If Rafe and I got married, how many years do you think we'd last?"

"Okay. That's the last time you mention Rafe this weekend. This weekend is going to be a Rafe-free zone."

"Is that fair? You went on and on for months about Stephanie."

"And what did you finally say? That it was a filthy habit and you weren't going to put up with it anymore."

"I am not as bad as you were."

"You're worse."

"No one could be worse than you."

Carter glared at me in disbelief.

"Hey! Keep your eyes on the road," I complained.

"Rafe-free zone. I am a Rafe-free zone," Carter yelled.

"Oh. The second you mention Stephanie, you are going to be so in trouble. You know where you're going? Isn't that our exit?"

"That _was_ our exit."

I don't know why, but we burst out laughing and couldn't stop. The next exit, as luck would have it, wasn't for another thirty miles. We didn't mind too much. We had the radio and we both liked to sing.

We got a pizza delivered to the motel and went to bed pretty early. Carter looked completely exhausted. Overwork. I was worried about him. But he was the one knocking on my door early the next morning. He had bagels, donuts and coffee.

"Breakfast."

"God, Carter, it's only seven. It's a sin to get up before ten on a Saturday."

"Thought we'd eat breakfast and then drive around. Maybe get something scenic on tape."

I grabbed a bagel and coffee and told him to come back at eight-thirty. I slept half an hour more. I could have slept longer because Carter didn't come back until checkout time. He'd decided to drive around on his own.

"Find anything scenic?" I asked.

"Nope. Let's check out and head over."

"So who are we meeting again?" I asked as we drove out of the motel parking lot.

"Mac Boscastle. Seventy-three years young."

"Shoot me if I start saying things like that."

Mac had invited us to have lunch with him and his daughter Honey. Carter said he liked having lunch before an interview. A relaxed atmosphere made it easier to get to know people.

"They always end up telling you more," Carter explained. "Things they don't necessarily tell you when they're all prepared, things they hadn't really thought about or things they didn't think were very important. But it's always those stories that make everything so special."

Mac and Honey had a mini mansion on five acres of green land. It was a warm, sunny day, so they'd spread the meal outside near the pool. I couldn't believe what an effort they'd made. Roast ham, several kinds of salads, home-baked bread. Mac wasn't a big wine fan but he loved his beers, ice cold and hoppy. He owned a microbrewery with a nephew and two of his grandsons.

"We don't make a lot of money, but it's a hell of a lot of fun," he said about the brewery. "I wish I'd been a little bit smarter. For fifty years I slaved away making money. You know, that's what you're supposed to do. That's what people say you're supposed to be doing, making money — all that bullshit about success and everything. Just so you can afford a fancy tombstone. I wish I'd figured out earlier that having fun is what it's all about. What a waste of fifty years."

"He says that," Honey chuckled, "but he does enjoy a certain lifestyle as I'm sure you must have noticed. What would you do without your pool? And your trips to Las Vegas. And having your name on plaques all over town."

"Better than on a tombstone. Well, if you have money, you might as well spend it. She's just upset because I'm spending all the inheritance."

"Daddy!" Honey laughed. I got the feeling no one was going to deprive her of her fair share.

Carter had gone off with his camera, filming around the property.

"Can I get you something more to eat?" Honey asked. She began to remind me of Daniella. In a vague way that made me squirm a little. That was the horrible thing when you have an ugly experience with someone. It makes you so much more sensitive and wary of other people, unable to accept them as they are because of a superficial resemblance to someone they aren't connected to at all. I hated condemning Honey for Daniella's misdemeanors. But I couldn't help it. Honey couldn't even defend herself. She didn't know how I felt; she didn't know what I'd gone through, how much hurt was still inside me.

"Oh, no thank you. I ate so much. It was all so wonderfully good. I can't believe you went to so much effort for us."

"Oh, it's our pleasure. There's nothing Daddy and I like more than entertaining. Let me at least get you another beer."

"Thank you."

"I've been watching you," Mac said, "and I see you enjoy your beers. I like that in a woman."

"It's so delicious, it's hard to stop."

"I've also been watching you and Ethan. Any plans to get married?"

"Married. Oh, no —"

"Well, the two of you should get married. You're a nice couple. You get along."

"Oh, no, it's not like that at all. We're just friends."

Mac nodded, smiling.

"I've seen a lot of couples together in my time, and I've gotten to have a good feel for those that'll make it and those that won't. I haven't been too lucky myself. I was married to my wife for fifteen years, but I was never faithful. That's another myth they tell you. That it's in the nature of a man to fool around. You sort of feel almost obligated," he chuckled. "My wife wasn't faithful either. The two of us — we weren't really able to love someone, not like the way my brother and Helen love each other. Lisa and I ended our marriage just as we were getting closer. I always wondered about that. And I finally realized I didn't want her to get close to me, and she didn't want me to get close to her. It just wasn't something we were comfortable with. I bet there isn't more than ten percent of us who are really brave enough to really love another person. Not to keep some part of us aloof. So we can't really be touched. Isn't that what all those messy romances are all about? Hide-and-seek? I sometimes think maybe it's a kind of miracle. To really love someone and have someone love you. You have to really open you heart for that to happen. And keep it open. I really admire anyone who can do that. That's why I really admire my brother. People talk about what a success his life has been because he did so well as a lawyer and then became a respected judge. But they don't get the point. Look at what he created with Helen."

Mac's eyes were wet.

Just then I noticed Carter and his camera. He'd been taping Mac the whole time.

"You okay, Daddy?" Honey asked.

"Yes, yes. Honey's about to take the plunge again," he chuckled.

"Fifth time," Honey said. "I _love_ getting married. And I think I'm getting to like being married. I certainly miss it when I'm not married!"

Carter and I had such a good time with Mac and Honey, we ended up staying for dinner. I don't know what Mac was up to, but he plied us with so much alcohol, we could hardly walk.

"You'll just have to spend the night here," Mac said. "Plenty of room. Now that you don't have to worry about driving anywhere, how about sampling some of my special bourbon?"

He was such a nice man.

We were _so_ hung over the next day. After a light lunch at Mac's we headed back home.

Light In The Piazza

Directed by Guy Green

Adapted from a novella by Elizabeth Spencer

I didn't see Carter again until the next Sunday. It was two in the morning and I'd fallen asleep with the TV on. Carter kept banging away at my door.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"What if you're incapable of loving somebody? What if you just don't have the guts?"

"Go away."

He wouldn't let me shut the door. I didn't care. I flopped back down on my sleeper sofa, hugging a pillow. I'd been having a really good dream. Just couldn't quite figure out what the dream was. But I was still feeling the juice and it was nice. If I just nudged it, I was sure I could get it back.

"It's gone." I sighed and opened my eyes.

Carter was lying next to me, staring up at the ceiling.

I found the remote and started channel surfing. If I couldn't have my dream, I might as well steal someone else's.

Then more knocking on the door. Kirsten. Didn't anyone sleep anymore?

"Guess what's on TV?" she asked.

She flopped next to Carter and grabbed the remote.

" _Light In The Piazza_. We just missed the set up. I saw it years ago and I've never been able to get it out of my head. It's just so disturbing and weird. And beautiful." She started filling us in. "Yvette Mimieux had this accident — I think she got kicked in the head by a horse or something — when she was like eight or ten — anyway, her brain dented and now she's permanently ten. No one really notices because hey, she's a blond! Except she does have these fits that's a little weird and she goes all nuts. Olivia de Havilland is her mom. Isn't Olivia de Havilland wonderful? I want to be Olivia de Havilland. They're on an extended European vacation. Basically, running away from life. Here's George Hamilton — playing an Italian. He falls madly in love with Yvette. Has no idea she's in a time freeze. He just thinks she's great. I mean she's gorgeous. And enchanting. She just laughs and laughs and laughs. So American! He does have this amazing power over her. See — she goes nuts and he can calm her right down. Amazing what hormones can do for you. Better than sleeping pills. No, he's never going to find out. Oh, come on, Carter. It's totally believable. She can't speak Italian and he can barely speak English. Men like to think women are dumb anyway. And this is Italy. Anything slightly off and they're going to think it's a language thing or a cultural thing. Hey, she's American!"

All this was going on and I'm falling back asleep and I'm in Italy with Carter and Kirsten and falling in love with George Hamilton, who's really Italian and I think this is the dream I was having all along.

I could hear them, Kirsten and Carter talking about the movie, still dreaming, Carter becoming George, George becoming Carter.

Kirsten: But should she tell? It's her daughter's only chance at a normal life. It's her daughter's only chance at happiness. He loves her. The family loves her. They're rich. They'll take good care of her. She'll have children. They'll take care of the children. She doesn't have to do anything except look beautiful. Look — all they want is a beautiful daughter-in-law and if she's a ten-year-old, great. That's what they want. Body of a goddess, the brain of a ten-year-old. Total control. The perfect daughter-in-law. Of course she loves him, Carter. Like a child. What every man wants. Men don't want women. The older a guy gets, the younger his wife gets. Why? Because a child can't judge him. She'll always look up to him. He'll never diminish in her eyes. The perfect love. Isn't that what we all want? Someone to look at us with untarnished eyes? For us to always be beautiful in their eyes? Have you ever seen _Mr. Skeffington_? Bette Davis. You have to see it. Let's go over to Star Videos. They're open 24 hours. We can go rent it now. Hello? I'm over at Smithie's. Watching a movie. Can we meet at Star Videos? Okay. See ya.

Carter: You should be a film critic.

Kirsten: You think?

Carter: Write this stuff down.

Kirsten: Like who's interested. Wanna come? Okay. I'll be back soon. Want me to rent anything else? Smithie?

"She's totally out. Hey! Popcorn! Bring back popcorn!"

"Movie over?" I ask.

"Movie over. Thought you were sleeping. Would you tell?"

"Hey, give love a chance. Cute blonds get away with murder anyway."

I was starting to fall asleep again.

"Susanna, I'm adopted. No one knows. I've never told anyone."

"Wow." It was disturbing, George turning into Carter who's really Italian. And now he's adopted.

"I was adopted when I was a couple of days old. I found out when I was seventeen. Don't tell anyone."

"No. Don't ask, don't tell."

"I'm so glad you're here, Susanna."

He rolled over on top of me and squeezed me really, really tight.

I passed out.

Sleeping Beauty

How much can we afford to give? How much can we afford not to give?

Kirsten told me the original fairy tales were pretty vile. Like "Sleeping Beauty". She's lying asleep, dead to the world, under a spell. Some jerk stumbles across her body and rapes her. So he's not a Prince Charming but some sicko who's probably a necrophiliac. It gets weirder. The rape doesn't wake her. She's still dead to the world. But she does get pregnant, so her body's operating full on. It's just her mind that's gone, her consciousness. Nine months later, she gives birth and she's still asleep. Finally, it's the baby, crawling up to her breasts to nurse, that wakes her. It's not a man's kiss that breaks the spell. Not a man at all. But a baby. A living, independent part of her.

We don't even get a fantasy of happily ever after. They've gone and debunked everything. So what is it that we have?

Telling Someone A Secret When She's Asleep Is Not Fair

The next day I found Carter at Scrambles, sitting at the bar.

"So, you told me you were adopted last night."

"I did."

"Talk."

"My dad doesn't know that I know. Neither did my mom."

"I can't believe it. You look so much like your dad. Like a junior version. I guess that explains why your parents were so old. How did you find out?"

"My dad had a safe at home. Always made a big deal about never letting anyone open it. One day, I found the keys."

"Do you know anything about your real parents?"

"Birth parents. No. For all I know my dad could have been a rapist. My mom could have been thirteen. It could have been her dad. Or maybe she just had too many children and didn't want anymore. I don't know. I just don't want to know."

And here was Carter, making his living doing documentaries about families. Was he insane?

The Yin And The Yang

We'd hit a heat wave and it was really ugly. Ten seconds on concrete without moving and you were liable to get glued on. Even the air was rubbery. The heat wasn't good for Kirsten. She went a little nuts and threw all the Lost Men out of her apartment. Most of the furniture went with them.

"Last night I had a very disturbing dream," she told us. "I was really horny, but in this weird, strange — well, hard — way. And I look down and it turns out I have a hard dick. And I think, why am I hard? And then I think, why do I have a hard dick? And it was huge, balls and all."

"Do I dare say it?" Carter asked. "Is this a classic case of penis envy?"

"Get real," Kirsten retorted. "There is no way I could suffer penis envy. Aesthetically, I find the penis one of the ugliest, most ridiculous looking things in nature. The dream isn't about penis envy. I think the dream is telling me I'm out of balance. Too much yang. Too much frustrated yang. Maybe it's time to quit this fucking loser job."

"And do what?" I asked. Maybe if Kirsten could find a direction, so could I.

"I don't know. I've been thinking about enrolling in film school," she said. "Maybe I'll do that."

"Really? You want to make films?" I said.

"Even the cleaning lady at the office wants to make films," Carter said dismissively. That's the problem with people in the arts — always snorting at anyone else wanting to do what they do. Not the greatest personality trait.

"I just want to make one film," Kirsten said. "There's this idea burning inside my head — it's been there for years and it wants to get out. It's just a short film. About ten minutes should take care of it."

"You want to go to film school for a ten-minute film?" Carter asked.

"I want to do it justice."

"Sell it to me, baby."

"It's hard to sell. It's mostly atmosphere. I'm thinking sepia tones. It'd be color but I want the tones to be a little flat, a little yellow, a little sluggish. I want that reflected in the sound. I can hear it so clearly. Drives me crazy."

"Early David Lynch."

"Whatever."

"Is there a story?" Carter continued to ask.

"Yes. But it's not about the story. First shot: you get a cramped, small bedroom in a large city like New York. Woman crumpled up in bed. Alarm clock goes off. She can hardly move. She gets dressed and walks down to street level, all hunched over. She's in pain. She makes her way slowly to the subway. She only walks half a block and she has to stop. She turns around and makes her way back to her apartment. Next shot: she's on the phone. Conversation: she's trying to get a prescription from her gynecologist. Painkillers. Gynecologist won't come to the phone. Receptionist says no appointment, no prescription. The woman explains that she told the gynecologist she needed a standing prescription for painkillers for her period. Receptionist is a pig and won't help her out. Next shot: woman in bed. She tosses and turns in agony. Slowly, she lifts up her shirt, takes her hand, inserts it inside her stomach cavity and emerges with her uterus. She throws the uterus across the room where it hits the wall with a huge splat. Shot of the uterus frozen on the wall. And then slowly, we make the uterus slide down the wall, oh, so very slowly. The shot of the uterus hitting the wall is repeated over and over again. Credits roll."

"What painkiller?"

"No product placement."

"We'll do generic. I like the uterus part," Carter said. "Okay. You write, I'll direct and produce."

"I suppose I can get Jack to find me some pig organ that looks like a uterus. It's always a pig organ. How many people know what a naked uterus looks like anyway."

"Poor piggies. So cute, so smart, so delicious," I said. "Daniella used to collect pig figurines. Little china piggies. She was crazy about pigs. Her childhood nickname was Piglet. She said she had this fantasy of retiring and raising those little miniature pig things."

"You think we can really do this?" Kirsten asked Carter.

"Piece of cake," Carter said.

"It's got to be totally my vision."

"Total creative control. But I get seventy percent of all action-figure rights."

"Fifty. Okay. Let's do this!"

Kirsten ended up acting too. I was the voice of the snotty receptionist. The film got a YouTube premier. Logged over a thousand visitors the last time I checked. Carter did a great job with the uterus. Very satisfying splat. I have to admit he's very good at what he does.

Volleyball

The weather didn't ease up, so we went to the beach in Jack's gigantic SUV. It was the size of a small mobile home. Only he used it for storage. The shit-to-space ratio was unbelievable.

"He doesn't throw anything away," Kirsten said. Kirsten didn't believe in clutter. Human or object, if you were clutter you had to go. I had no doubt Kirsten would eventually strip Jack down to the essentials. Just leave a little meat on him, Kirsten. A man doesn't look good skeletal.

Life at the beach was fine. We swam. We BBQed. And then we played volleyball.

It was me and Carter versus Jack and Kirsten. A seriously bad call. Individually, me and Carter were what you might call aggressively competitive. Together, things got nuclear. Fist pumping, hand slapping, dive bombing. Spike after spike after spike. It was all that Catholic-school training.

Jack and Kirsten thought it was pretty funny. At first. Slowly, annoyance became anger, anger became fury. Volleyball, to them, was laughing with a ball. Against our über-competitiveness, there was nothing they could do but walk off, pissed to hell.

But what was the point of playing if you weren't going to play for real? What was the point of playing, if you weren't going to play to win? At least that's what Carter and I were thinking.

Carter and I felt pretty bad. We treated them to dinner. A few beers and they graciously forgave us. As penalty, Carter and I didn't drink so we could do the driving home. Yes, they made fun of us. The entire drive home.

Ah, home sweet home. Carter and I stood in the hallway between our facing doors and commiserated.

"I don't think we should ever team up again," I said to Carter.

"I just don't think we should play Jack and Kirsten. I thought we were great together. Maybe we should join a local league or something."

"That sort of thing shouldn't be encouraged. Man, that was ugly."

"Ugly? What are you talking about?"

"We were being shitty."

"We were playing volleyball! The way it should be played! Fuck Kirsten and Jack."

"Listen to yourself."

Naturally, Carter and I got into a huge argument disagreeing. Neighbors started shooting us from their doorways.

Super Robot

That night I had a strange dream. Carter had turned into a robot and I was some superhero sent to rescue him. Only he just wanted me to kiss him. And I thought, it figures. Here I am, equipped to save the world from evil domination and all he can think about is sex. And he was supposed to be a robot. Then things changed, like it was another dream: Rafe showed up and I wasn't a superhero anymore. He was smiling and he seemed so happy to see me. He asked me how I was and I didn't ever want to wake up.

I called in sick the next morning. I just couldn't face work.

Propositioned

Around eleven I went down to Scrambles for an early lunch. Carter was sitting at a back table, working on his laptop.

"Susanna," he called out.

"Hey, Carter."

"I'm really glad to see you. I have something I want to discuss with you."

"Oh?"

"A proposal. A business proposal."

"Business proposal?"

"Yeah. Listen, Susanna — what about you and me working together?"

"On what?"

"No — you coming and working with me at the studio."

"Doing what?"

"Accounting, organizing things, office management — everything you're really good at and I don't have the time for. And you can help with the taping and editing. Even the interviewing. You were really good that time with Mac."

"I dunno. You and me. Together. That sounds scary."

"Just give it a try. For a month. See how it goes."

"I don't know. We're obnoxious together."

"I love that."

"But I have a job."

"A job you hate."

"I do hate my job."

Could working for Carter be any worse than what I was doing now?

"It's just, it's just — Carter, we're really starting to be friends right now and —"

"It'll be alright, Susanna. Really."

"You know what they say. Never mix business with pleasure. Never do business with a friend. I like being friends with you, Carter. Go figure."

"You can't live life on clichés, Susanna."

"They're not clichés, Carter. They're wise and sensible cautionary rules for life."

"You want rules? Okay. From nine to five I'm your boss. From one past five to eight fifty-nine, I'm your friend."

"And you can switch on and off like that? Just like a robot?"

"No. The rule was for you."

"I'll think about it."

Of course the idea was ludicrous. But the next day, I was at work, sitting at my desk, The Walrus peeking over my shoulders to see if I was really working on a spreadsheet or looking at porn sites and I just capitulated. Yes, Carter, I will work for you. Just get me out of here.

Master And Servant

Carter had a very laissez-faire attitude towards business. I asked him what my salary was.

"Pay yourself whatever you think you should be paid," he says.

His paperwork was a mess. Billing, nonexistent. He could have gone to a luxury spa in Thailand for a month on what was owing. So, I tackled it all. Accounting, reception, sales, marketing — if it needed to be done, I did it.

Surprisingly — at least, I was surprised — there was no friction. None of the bickering I was expecting. We settled, almost immediately, into a pleasant routine, like we'd been in partnership all of our lives. The work day never really started and it never really ended, we were together so much. All day at work. Dinner. Back at my place for TV. Falling asleep on the sofa. We were juggling over a hundred different conversations, the threads abrupt, jumbled — and yet we always knew where we were, what was being meant. It was freaky. Maybe we were twins, separated at birth.

It made me think: I wonder if life isn't sort of like packing for a long trip. You plan so carefully, make sure you're taking everything you need, only to find out you took all the wrong things. That the very thing you thought you'd never need again is the very thing, the essential thing, you now need. And you wish you could go back and repack everything all over again.

The Stork Forks

Silvana was at the hospital. Something was wrong and they needed to deliver the baby as soon as possible. Mom called me at work to tell me the news.

"I'll take you." Carter was already putting on his jacket.

The hospital was a large, white plastic box in the middle of a nice, woody suburb. I didn't want Carter to think he had to stay with me. We had a lot to do at work. Three DocuLifes were due at the end of the week.

"Don't come in, Carter."

"Sure I will."

"You should go back to work."

"I'll stay. I'll drive you back."

"It could take a while. You don't want to hang around."

"Sure I do."

"I'll get a ride back with my parents or take a taxi."

"Do I smell or something?" Carter joked.

"Now that you mention it —"

Carter bopped me on the head.

"Come on," he said, getting out of the car. "We're going to miss all the action sitting around here in the parking lot."

We found my parents huddled inside the waiting room. Silvana was having a cesarean, they told me.

"No news yet," Mom said. She looked weary.

I could tell Dad wanted to be in the operating room.

"You guys all remember Carter," I said.

They looked up and nodded hello.

"Ethan, it's been a long time," Mom said. "I was so sorry to hear about your mother. How's your dad?"

She made room next to her for Carter to sit down. A sleeping Davey was in her arms.

We didn't have to wait long to hear the news. Silvana and Aron were the proud parents of another boy.

"Are you babysitting Davey?" I asked my mom.

She nodded. She didn't look well.

"I'm still recovering from the flu," she admitted.

"I'll take Davey. For a couple of days," I said.

"Would you? Oh, sweetheart, you are an angel. Here are my keys to Aron's. Pick up a few things for Davey. Enough for two or three days."

"Okay."

I kissed my parents and gave Davey a big hug.

"How about spending a couple of days with your old auntie?"

Davey thought about it.

"Okay." He said it so seriously, so thoughtfully. He really was Aron's kid.

"Feel like a trip to my brother's?" I asked Carter.

"Sure."

"Hope you weren't too bored," I said to him as we walked back to the parking lot.

"Not at all. I've always liked your mom. She's so cool. I've always liked your family."

"I like them too," I admitted.

By the time we got back to my place, Davey was pretty zonked. I gave him some milk and bread. He took a few bites in a daze and fell asleep with a piece of bread in his hand. I was pretty zonked myself and had no trouble falling asleep.

What Do You Do With A Three-year-old?

When I woke up the next morning, all I could see was Davey. He was very close; I could see mostly his eyes, which were staring into mine. They were so sweet, so beautiful.

"Breafass," he said.

"What time is it?"

I looked at the clock. It wasn't even six.

"Aren't you sleepy?" I asked Davey.

He shook his head.

"Breafass time," he said.

"Okay. What do you want?"

"Breafass."

He took my hand and pulled me off the sofa bed. I had no idea what to feed a three-year-old.

"Davey, what do you usually eat for breakfast?"

"Breafass."

"Okay. What does Mommy make for breafass?"

"Omeal."

Nice and nutritious. Only I didn't have oatmeal. I didn't even have cereal. Two bananas and a container of yogurt. That was it. And Scrambles wasn't open.

"Why don't we have a special treat?"

I mashed up a banana with some yogurt. Davey didn't seem to mind. He ate his banana mess, licking the bowl clean.

"Doggie," he said. "Doggie! Doggie!"

In some ways, he was his own built-in entertainment. How can kids be so cute? He had the most luscious eyelashes. And this little button nose. Little boys were so cute. Like puppy dogs. Then they grew up. Into dogs. Totally different story.

"Doggie! Doggie!"

I decided to take Davey to work with me. Along with his bunny movies. Carter was already there, looking pretty bad.

"Have you been here all night?"

He nodded.

"It was good though. I got most of the work done on the Wolver DocuLife."

"Go home. Go to bed."

"Can't. Too much caffeine. Besides, I'm in the zone."

Hmm. Half an hour later he was asleep in his chair. I looked at what he'd done. It was pretty good. Really good. He had a flair for telling other people's stories.

Bringing Davey to work wasn't one of my better ideas. He followed me everywhere. I mean, the kid was never less than two inches away from me. He even followed me to the bathroom, looking totally dejected when I said he couldn't come in.

"I'll be right out, Davey. Don't worry."

I closed the door as gently as I could. Davey pressed his cheek against the wood, the cheek sliding slowly down to the floor until he was flat on his tummy, his eyes peeking through the bottom crevice. I was starting to get seriously claustrophobic.

But then Carter to the rescue. He woke up still buzzed. Davey sensed entertainment. Carter obliged. He gave Davey a tour of all his equipment, a step-by-step crash course on film editing part of the deluxe package. _And_ he was getting work done. Amazing.

"You're a marvel, Carter."

"I like it when you compliment me. Do it more often."

"You're a marvel, Carter."

"I just can't get enough. I just can't get enough."

Carter sometimes entered this manic phase and he'd end up completing three or four projects at once. It was like suddenly, he had multiple brains and the Zen-like ability to inhabit expanded time. Our deadlines were met days ahead, leaving Carter with all the time in the world.

"Let's go to Jungle World!" he screamed, fists in the air.

"Carter, you haven't slept in over twenty-four hours. Not a good idea," I said.

"Couldn't sleep even if I wanted to. Got to ride the wave out," he said, grinning from ear to ear. And what a wave. Caffeine-induced sleep deprivation is not a pretty thing.

He picked up Davey and put him on his shoulder.

"Jungle World," he screamed, charging out the door with a fist punching the air.

I'm in trouble, I kept thinking. I insisted on driving. Which was perfect for Carter. He sat in the back with Davey, doing everything he could to cause an accident. I actually had to pull over and threaten bodily harm. Davey was having the time of his life. Carter was giving him a template for every bad car behavior in the book. Now that he was a big brother, he could pass the knowledge on. And he was getting plenty. Sorry, Aron and Silvana.

Jungle World was an amusement park for tiny tots. With gentle rides like carousels, undulating roller coasters, mammoth swings — all hyped up with sugary graphics on a jungle theme. They even had an exotic petting zoo — although, when did sheep become exotic? A sad testimonial to modern-day living. They also had a "drive-in theater", which I had to admit was pretty cute — the children sat in toy cars, watching a giant outdoor screen, while the adults drank piña coladas at the adjoining bar. I'd never been to Jungle World before, but I think Davey liked to go about once a month. There was always something new, puppet shows, clowns, parades, all the latest children's movies. And, of course, food — messy, drippy food that got everywhere.

Carter and Davey were inexhaustible. They did all the rides, the roller coaster four times.

"Roller coaster — your favorite?" Carter asked Davey.

Davey nodded.

"Man, Davey, wait until you grow a few inches more. How long are you going to take to grow up to my size?"

Davey raised four fingers.

"Not soon enough."

Davey ate his hot dog in a blissful state, ketchup globbing all over his shirt. He was so dirty, I figured the only thing to do was throw him in the washing machine. Why bother taking his clothes off? Add the teddy bear and he'd be perfectly happy.

"How am I doing?" Carter asked.

That was the problem with Carter. He always needed a progress report.

I couldn't deny I was witnessing a serious mutual bonding. Davey was completely in love with Carter, like he was Super Big Brother. Carter was so sweet, so caring, tying Davey's shoelaces, buttoning up his jacket when he thought the weather was getting chilly, acting like a monkey as they swung through the jungle gym. You had to smile.

By the end of the day, Davey could not be separated from Carter. He cried and screamed when I tried to take him back to my apartment, throwing a horrific tantrum. He really scared the shit out of me. But Carter managed to calm him down and I let Davey spend the night at Carter's. They didn't sleep. The two stayed up all night playing computer games and eating popcorn. Still, you can't run from sleep forever. The next morning I found them comatose on the floor. Completely knocked out for the rest of the day.

Carter liked to say he'd changed, that he'd grown up, but seeing him asleep like that with Davey, I knew he hadn't. Carter was just a giant version of Davey. They were perfect together. I got my camera and took a picture. And then I went to work.

Not that I got much done. I kept thinking about Carter and how much he needed love. To love as much as being loved. I didn't realize before how crucial love was to Carter. Like sunlight. It gave me a strange, aching feeling.

Little Brothers

All good things come to an end. At the end of the week, we returned Davey to where he belonged. Davey was so happy to see his mom and dad, he completely forgot Carter.

"Can't compete with Mom," Carter said, shrugging his shoulders.

"You'd be a good dad," I said.

"Nah. I've always wanted a brother though."

"Older or little?" I asked.

"When I was little, I would have given anything for an older brother. But now I'd like a little brother. I guess that's the usual thing that happens."

"What about a sister?"

"Yeah. A little sister wouldn't be bad. I guess I just want to be a big brother."

Carter moped around for a few days. He had a serious case of withdrawal.

"I feel bad for Carter," I said to Kirsten. "I bet he'd kidnap Davey and keep him forever if he could get away with it."

"You're just going to have to marry him and give him a kid," Kirsten said.

"Me? Why me?"

"You're the nearest and dearest. And your womb's still good."

"Wouldn't know. He'll just have to get a dog."

"I'm surprised he doesn't have one," Kirsten reflected. "He seems like the kind of guy who'd have a dog. A really big Lab or something."

"You think Carter's a Lab guy? I dunno. I see him with a big Dalmatian or something."

"Definitely not a terrier. I saw a beefy guy with a Westie the other day. Looked weird."

"I thought you have to be gay to have a Westie."

"Gay couple. Or old lady."

"I used to know a Westie," I said. "In New York. There was one in my building. Nice elderly couple had him."

Kirsten nodded and pointed, as if to say, "See —"

"They used to walk him in the evenings. He'd always look up, give me a curious look, and then walk away in this sort of bored way. One evening — I have no idea what got into me — I waited for him to look up, and when he did, I did a dog impression — looked right at him like a dog, using the exact same expression he always gave me — you should have seen his face. He actually did a double take. Just like a human."

"Dog impression?" Kirsten asked. "Do one now."

"Can't. Honest. I couldn't do one if my life depended on it. It was just one of those weird moments. It's like I was channeling a dog. Anyway, it turned out to be a special bonding moment. That dog was absolutely in love with me after that. You know, it's nice. Me and Carter. Becoming real friends and everything."

"You don't want to go there."

"Something wrong with Carter?"

"He's a guy."

"You don't think a girl and a guy can be friends?"

"No. Don't get vulnerable with a guy. Don't tell him your secrets, your dreams. You do and something always clicks with the guy and he begins to think he'd like to play Prince Charming. But the second it gets real, the second things get hard, he'll hurl the mask at you and run like his life depended on it."

"That's about fifty percent of the population that you're eliminating as potential friends there."

"Most of the world segregates girls and boys until it's time for marriage. They understand human biology."

"So what about you?" I finally ask.

"Me?"

"Yeah. You and Jack? How do you feel about Jack?"

"He's fun."

"Aren't you in love with Jack?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Listen, sister, if I thought I was in love with Jack, I'd run clear across to the other side of the universe."

"That's what he said. Why?"

Kirsten put a glass on the bar. She filled the glass with milk.

"This is the human brain."

She grabbed some orange juice and poured it into the milk.

"This is the human brain in love."

The milk curdled.

"Disgusting," I said.

"My point exactly. The only place love belongs in is in the movies."

In the end, we didn't have to bother with a dog for Carter. He joined a Big Brother/Little Brother program. He was always showing some scruffy kid around the studio.

"Carter, you're really inspirational," I said.

He blushed and laughed.

Used Car

Buying a car meant independence. Buying a car meant staying. How could you be independent and trapped at the same time?

"Is that so bad?" Carter asked. "Staying around?"

"I dunno."

"I guess we can't compete with New York."

"It's not that. It's just. You know how I hate losing."

"Yeah. I know."

And he did. That meant a lot to me.

The gang decided a used car was good enough for me. Jack's cousin worked at a car dealership. The boys were ogling a broken down 1960s Mercedes convertible while Kirsten gave a two-year-old Volvo a thorough inspection.

"I think this is the one," she said. "Good condition. Good mileage. Good MPG. Good price. Good size. Good color too. And the interior isn't bad. Probably want to replace the radio. Let's take it out for a test drive."

I shrugged. I really couldn't care less.

I drove once around the block. Kirsten drove twice around the block. She and Jack's cousin began bartering. An hour later, I was driving the Volvo out of the lot.

"Can I interest you in a bridge?" Kirsten joked in the car.

"I'm sorry. I love this car. I love this town. I love my life."

"New York bad. Our town good."

"Our town good."

I treated the gang to lunch. We had pizza and beer. Carter and I got back to the office around five. He had a message waiting for him. His dad had died.

Compulsion

Once, when we were having dinner together after one of our classes, Rafe let something of himself slip. He said when he was seventeen he fell head over heels in love with this girl — the daughter of a friend of his mom. They went out for seven weeks and two days. She was a year older. Rafe wasn't sure if the age difference had anything to do with it. She just called him up one day and said she didn't want to go out again. It was the end of the school year and he was in the middle of exams. He couldn't sleep. He was in a daze. He didn't remember very much of anything, except coming straight home after his final exam and sitting at his desk. He must have fallen asleep without realizing it. The first sleep he'd had in a week. He thinks he slept for maybe an hour or so. When he woke up, his forearm was bleeding. There was a deep slash in the flesh and blood was pouring out. He had one of those retractable knives on his desk — the kind people open packages with.

The doctors decided he'd tried to kill himself. Nothing Rafe said could convince them otherwise. His mom was sure the doctors were right. She blamed the girl and the cruel way she'd handled the breakup. She'd always been afraid that Rafe was too sensitive. It was the first time he'd ever given his heart to anyone.

The doctors pumped him full of drugs. Rafe was effectively comatose for several weeks. And he'd never fully woken up.

"This is the first time I've ever talked about that," he said in wonder. "Sometimes, I think maybe I dreamt it."

And then he showed me his scarred forearm. The slash was six inches long. The slash must have been pretty deep.

I can't stop thinking about him.

Orphan

Carter kept going back and forth. One moment he acted like nothing had happened, fully lucid but emotionally blank. The next, he was so confused, anxious, looking around, not knowing what he should be doing. I booked the flight to his dad's funeral and went with him. I couldn't trust him to be alone.

Awake

I only went to see the piano with Rafe twice. The first time he played a program of sonatas: Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, and I think, Scarlatti. He had a prodigious memory for music. He said his fingers seemed to remember every song he'd ever played. The second time I went with him, he played just one song. Bach's Prelude #6 in D Minor. He played it over and over again, slowly, almost deliberately, so that it was hypnotic, holding you inside a kind of mournfulness.

That first time Rafe played for me, he was embarrassed and apologetic for having played for so long. He'd only meant to play one song. But at the piano, playing, he said he was pulled out of time and into another world. A world where he was — how could he explain it? A world where he was fully awake.

Thinking About It

Did I have anything to give him, really?

Les Apprentis

Directed by Pierre Salvadori

Written by Franck Bauchard, Nicolas Cuche, et al.

Kirsten: If you rent it, don't let me watch it. I love the movie. But it's like running into someone who's clinically depressed and catching it, like the film is some trigger or virus. And it's a comedy. A really, really funny, great movie about two guys who just can't get it together. François Cluzet plays Antoine. His girlfriend kicks him out and he ends up squatting with Fred at their mutual friend's apartment. The friend's never there — he works for an airline or something and is always abroad. Guillaume Depardieu is fantastic as Fred.

Anyway, Antoine is desperate to get his girlfriend back. For her, he's going to become a famous playwright so he won't be such a loser. It's such an amazing beginning: Antoine knocking on the door, expecting his friend to open the door, seeing Fred, battling for the apartment, hearing the years go by as he takes pen to paper, writing to his girlfriend, telling her about the progress of his play, his only encouragement coming from Fred, who thinks he's brilliant. Being a writer, Antoine makes practically no money. At least he's got that part of being a writer down pat. Fred, on the other hand, has absolutely no interest in making money or becoming famous. In fact, he's pretty content with their life together. Antoine writes. Fred shoplifts. Canned foods are his specialty. I love it when Antoine says, "Can't you steal lettuce for a change?" And Fred argues about how difficult it is to steal fresh food. It just doesn't fit neatly inside pockets.

And then their mutual friend comes back and kicks them out of the apartment and Antoine starts breaking down, little by little, until he's finally institutionalized. And that's when it starts to happen. I start breaking down, little by little. And I'm no longer connected. And it's just the movie.

Mr. Carter

The assisted-living home Mr. Carter had lived in was a nice place. The apartments were spread out in groups of threes and fives, with pools and gardens mixing things up. There was even a convenience store and everything had the feeling of a small, cozy village in a bright, artificial kind of way. A great part of the sell was that as soon as you moved in, everything, from entertainment to shopping to medical needs, would be taken care of for you. No more worry, no more thinking. There was even aftercare — a rep from the home helped us with all the funeral arrangements. Of course Mr. Carter would be buried next to his wife. There was also a plot for Carter. And provisions for the family Carter would one day have. His dad liked to take care of the details.

"My whole family's gone," Carter said.

He looked at me and I didn't know what to say, what to do. There's only so much looking compassionate can do. So I went back to my steak sandwich. Carter was on his second. I told him to go easy on the spicy peppers but he wouldn't listen. He had another sandwich and about a gallon of coke.

Confessions

After the funeral, Carter totally escaped into work. He hardly slept, hardly ate, hardly noticed anything or anybody around him. I thought about force-feeding him.

"What do you think we should do?" I asked Kirsten. She'd been a nurse in another lifetime.

She gave me a concoction of flower essences.

"You're kidding, right?" I said.

"I played a healthcare professional in real life. Trust me."

"What do I do with it?"

"Ideally, you put a few drops under the tongue. In this case, I'd just sneak a few drops in his water."

"Is that ethical?"

She rolled her eyes.

"He needs help. Give it to him."

"I can see you were a great nurse."

"I was the best."

"Why'd you quit?"

"It was demeaning. Some asshole exploiting half the planet is paid millions and a nurse gets paid less than a janitor. We're saving lives. In a sane universe it would be the reverse. Anyway, I got sick of being hit on by doctors. God, doctors are disgusting. You wouldn't believe half the things I could tell you. Unnecessary vaginal exams. You name it. MCATs should have a maturity section. A perv section, at a min. The foreign guys were the worst. You wouldn't believe the misogyny. At least they'll be practicing elsewhere, I used to think. Now, they're here."

Kirsten's stories were always scary. I didn't want to know. Ignorance is bliss. Don't let them tell you otherwise.

I took the flower concoction back to the office. Carter was asleep, his head on his desk. On the computer a video was playing. It was Mr. Carter, Ethan's dad, speaking to a camera, the video on auto repeat:

"I can't tell you how sorry I am that you found out about your adoption. And I'm very grateful to you that you never told your mother that you knew. Since you know, I'll tell you all that I can. Your mother couldn't have children. She had an accident. A car accident shortly after we were married and it damaged her ovaries. We decided to adopt, but years went by while we just waited. Sometimes the babies went to other parents. Sometimes the mother changed her mind, which, of course, was her prerogative. No one wants to part a mother from her child. Once, the baby died shortly before the adoption. He had a heart defect, it turned out. A tiny valve wasn't working right. Although we never met the little fellow, we grieved as if he were our own son. I didn't think your mother could go on, so I was going to insist we take our names off the waiting list, and then we heard we finally had a baby of our own. You. You were just born. The mother was a young college student. We weren't told anything more than that. But they told her a little bit about us. They even showed her a picture of our house. I guess she wanted to see where the baby would live. They told us she was very happy that we were a more mature couple and could provide everything the baby could need or want. Here — here's the picture of our first house. There's your mother and you — you were nine months old, it says here on the back. Doesn't your mother look so sweet? I think about her every day. Here's the house from the back. And our car. I don't know if you remember the house. You were so young when we moved away. About a year and a half. Maybe these pictures will bring back some memories. We'd planned on telling you that you were adopted. When you were old enough. Well, that's the problem, isn't it? When would you be old enough? How in the world could we determine such a thing? And then, having you with us, we began to change our way of thinking. Why should you find out you were adopted? What good would that do? We did a great deal of research and found all the harm which could result. Children feeling that they were born unwanted. Finding birth mothers and being rejected once again. We couldn't bear to think that you might be hurt, that you would ever imagine that you weren't wanted. There was no baby who was wanted more than you. And your mother, the way she felt every one of your joys and pains as if it were her own. No, she felt it even more than if it were her own. She'd put a brave face on it, but every time you came home hurt because of something someone had said or done — it was like a knife in her heart. She'd cry her heart out when she was alone.

"We moved clear across the country so you wouldn't accidentally find out from a neighbor. It was hard because we loved that house. It was our first house together and we put so much work into it. But there wasn't anything we wouldn't have sacrificed for you. I don't know how you feel about things, Ethan. I'm astonished to find out that you've known for so long. And yet never said a word. Maybe we were only justifying our own selfishness. To us, you were our baby. The minute we held you in our arms, you were our biological baby. You looked so like us. As you grew up, I was astonished by how much you looked like us. I sometimes wondered if that girl who gave you up wasn't related to us, a distant blood kin, and that you were just going from one part of the family to another. It was your mother's firm belief that you were born to be loved by us. It certainly seems so.

"Well, that's really all that I can think of saying."

Carter didn't look very comfortable sleeping the way he was. But I couldn't move him and I didn't want to wake him. I put a coat over his shoulders and watched over him. When he woke up, he told me the story. He'd wanted to interview his dad for a while — part of the documentary he was doing on retirement homes. But every time he got the camera going, his dad would freeze. So he left a camera with him, hoping his dad might be able to open up once he was on his own. He was surprised when he found the video.

"When did you tell your dad you knew?"

"Last time I went to see him. A few weeks ago. He didn't say anything. I didn't think he wanted to talk about it. I didn't push him or anything. I just said I knew."

"Come on. Let's go home, Carter. You need some serious sleep."

He nodded. I drove him home.

All In The Family

With his dad's death, Carter became softer, more thoughtful. He didn't jump in with snarky remarks anymore. Sometimes you had to nudge him to get anything out of him at all. I liked him like that. He seemed more mature, more heartfelt. Even his laughter seemed softer. When he was quiet, not goofing around, you could see how handsome he could be.

We were really living in each other's pockets now. We worked together, effectively lived together, went out together and went home together. I made my family his, never going home without bringing Carter. And my family loved him. Because of Carter, I was eating dinner with my parents five or six times a month. It was only natural he'd spend all the holidays with us, birthdays and anniversaries too. We didn't forget his birthday either, doing everything we could to make it seem extra special.

"I've never felt so loved," Carter joked.

Carter's parents had been kind and gentle people, but reserved, quiet. As a family, we were much more easy with each other. I suppose because of my mom. She loved to laugh and tease, make the whole room move with fun. She'd always been an incredibly popular professor because of the way she entertained and enchanted. No audience was too small, no audience too big. And Carter was a new member of the audience.

For dessert one evening, she made crêpe suzettes, flaming the dish at the table. I didn't even know she had a chafing dish.

"How much booze did you put in this thing?" I asked after choking on a small bite. The burn going down my throat was incredible.

"Do you think it's too much?" she asked.

My dad couldn't touch his.

"I think it's perfect," Carter said. He'd already eaten half his pancake.

"I think it's perfect," she agreed, serving Carter another portion. "I guess we're just two old boozers, Ethan."

It made me realize just how much booze Carter had been drinking in the last few months. I guess I was going to have to talk to him about that later.

"Anyone know of any good places to rent?" Carter asked.

"Are you moving?" I asked, surprised.

"Have to. Remember I told you I'm subletting from my friend Bill? He's coming home and wants his apartment back."

"When?"

"Yesterday."

"Move in with us," Mom said with absolutely no hesitation. "I am perfectly serious. We have plenty of room. And you're family as far as we're concerned. So do what comes naturally. Move back home. Leave when you're ready."

"That'd be great," Carter said. "Are you sure it'd be okay?"

He looked at Mom, then Dad.

"You're more than welcome," Dad said. "We have plenty of room."

"Are you sure you want to move in with my parents?" I asked Carter as we drove back.

"Yeah. Your parents are great. I love your family."

"Why does this seem weird?"

"Relax, Smithie. It's only temporary. Don't worry. I'm not out to steal your family."

"Help yourself."

"I won't move in if you don't want me to, Susanna."

We were at a stoplight. He looked at me for an answer. Something started to happen to us and I thought we were going to kiss each other.

The car behind us started to honk; the light had changed.

"This is just getting too weird," I said to Kirsten later.

"I always thought Carter had a bit of a thing for you."

"He's like my brother. Now more than ever."

"He's in love with you."

"He's not in love with me. He's in love with my family."

"If that's the case, run away. Fast."

Sometimes at work, I'd catch Carter staring at me and it'd make me nervous. I was going to miss him. I know. He was only a few miles away. But it was nice driving to work with him, having him just across the hall. I almost felt like moving back home too.

Pigs

"This is why I never become friends with a guy I don't want to fuck," Kirsten says. "Because you're going to have to do it somewhere along the line."

"Why?"

"Usually because the guy is desperate and you're the most available body around. And there's something about guys not being able to distinguish between emotional closeness and sex. You know how with women sex leads to emotional bonding? With guys it's the other way around. It's like they say, 'Ooh! I feel something for this woman!' And the only way they can deal with that is with a sex organ.

"Have you ever seen _Disco Pigs_? It has Cillian Murphy in it and he's fantastic. So is Elaine Cassidy. They really make the movie. It's sort of a tale of soulmating gone wrong. Really wrong. What do you do when you've out grown your soul mate? When you need to move on but he can't? When he's in love with you, can't live without you, and you're perfectly fine and happy without him? Actually — happier without him. Ouch. Talk about guilt. The movie has a novel solution. You give him what he wants — sex on the beach — and then you kill him — and he wants you to — because there is no life without you. And you walk away feeling free and unburdened. Because if he had lived, he would have dragged you into hell with him. I love it when life is that easy."

Happiness And Cheer

Christmas is the new Valentine's. Snow. Christmas lights. Diamonds. So romantic. The perfect time to propose. Which Jack did. To his astonishment, Kirsten accepted. Jack cried. For over an hour. Kirsten thought she might have to take him to the emergency room because he got all congested and couldn't breathe.

"It was under the mistletoe," Kirsten explained. "There was nothing I could do."

"It's a miracle. A Christmas miracle," I said.

"He wore me down."

It was hard to tell what Kirsten was feeling. Happy? Irritated? Shy? I think she was happy. Really happy. She had that glow, of being in love. Even she couldn't hide that.

In contrast, Jack was so obviously happy, it was obscene.

"I dunno — maybe I should propose," Carter joked. I decided to avoid Carter as much as I could until Christmas was long gone and the snow had melted.

For Christmas, Jack flew Kirsten to Acapulco. He really was the complete package. In my next life, I hope Jack falls in love with me. I could use some wooing. Love me, Jack, love me.

I wondered what Rafe was doing. Was he still in France? I'd even lost touch with Debbie. I hoped the plumber was treating her right. New Year's Resolution: call Debbie. Keep in touch. Maybe she'd heard from Rafe. She'd sent me tickets to a musical she was in but that was months ago. I didn't go. I should have.

At home, Carter was having an unbelievable Christmas with my parents. My mom seemed possessed by the idea of giving Carter an idyllic Christmas. Carols, fires, roasting, chestnuts, marshmallows, gallons of hot chocolate, watching every Christmas movie known to mankind — the house looked like a movie set.

"I don't know what you've done to my mom, Carter —"

"Isn't she wonderful?" he said. "I love your mom."

"This isn't my mom. It's a Stepford Mom."

Carter had turned my mom into a fantasy. She even looked younger, seemed younger. When I touched her, she felt younger. And happy. In a buzzing, bizarre way.

The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg

Once, Rafe and I decided to run away from work. It was one of those days when just breathing the office air was torture. So we snuck out and went to a cafe. Someone had left the entertainment section of a newspaper on the table. They'd circled something, and when we looked at it, it turned out to be _The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg_. The movie was playing at a nearby theater in thirty minutes. Neither one of us had seen it. We rushed over and sat down in a practically empty room.

Afterwards, we walked around, the haunting music playing between us.

We never talked about the movie.

Would Rafe go on and have a perfectly happy life? Pretty, devoted wife, a cute son? Great piano? The business doing just swell? I didn't want an accidental meeting. To see him happy while I was still wondering where my happiness had gone.

The Couple

Kirsten and Jack came back from Mexico the week after Christmas and I was glad to see them. After the treacly Christmas I'd had, I really needed a good infusion of Kirsten's caustic wit. Nicely tanned, Kirsten had her one-carat diamond and Jack had his smile.

"Engagements seem to really agree with you," I said to Kirsten. "You seem so, so — serene."

She just smiled.

"Have you decided when?"

"Valentine's Day."

"Valentine's Day? This year?"

Kirsten nodded.

"Jack's taking care of everything," she said, smiling.

"What about the wedding dress? Bridesmaids, cake? Isn't it too late to find a venue?" Weddings were such decision hell. One of my friends took three months deciding on the floral arrangements alone. I felt nauseatingly stressed just thinking about it. And it wasn't even my own wedding.

"Jack's taking care of everything," Kirsten said serenely.

"I love Jack," I said.

Praxis

A few days after New Year's, Jack came pounding on my door.

"What's going on?"

"Kirsten — Kirsten — have you heard from Kirsten?"

He was all wet, perspiration running down his face.

"No. What's going on?"

"She's gone. She's gone."

"Gone?"

"She packed up. Her clothes are gone. I found this on the kitchen table."

He had the engagement ring clutched in his hand.

"Where would she go? Can you think where she'd go? I have to find her."

I didn't have a clue where she'd go. I didn't even know where her family lived. The truth was, I didn't know very much about Kirsten at all. We'd never really talked about anything. Not about ourselves. We'd just talked movies.

"She didn't leave a note?" I asked.

"No. Just the ring."

And then it made sense, how serene she'd been. That she'd let Jack plan the wedding. No woman would let a guy plan her wedding. What was it that she'd said? _The second I thought I was really in love I'd run clear across to the other side of the universe_.

He was never going to find her. I was never going to see her again. Like Rafe. She could have left a note. Said goodbye. She was the one who made me buy the Volvo.

I drove home, to talk to Carter. My mom was home too. Her car was in the driveway.

"Mom? Carter?"

I thought I'd find them in the living room or the kitchen. Everything was quiet. Unreal.

"Susanna?"

Mom came running down the stairs. She looked strange. She kept touching her hair.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. She couldn't quite look at me.

"I wanted to talk to Carter. Is Carter upstairs?"

She stopped me from going up.

"Carter?" she called out. "Carter? Susanna's here. Come downstairs."

"I'll be right down!" he shouted.

"Want something to drink?" Mom asked me, going into the kitchen. "I made cardamom buns this morning."

"Maybe later."

Carter came rushing down.

"Hey, what's up?" he asked. He was a little breathless.

"It's Kirsten. She's gone."

We sat down to talk. I felt so odd. Out of place. Not wanted. I was hysterically talking about Kirsten but I was also stepping back, my brain unplugging. Like the way it had before when I was fired.

I got up to go.

My mom rushed into the hallway. "Susanna? Are you leaving? Aren't you staying for dinner?"

"I have to go," I said. I couldn't think. I couldn't breathe. "I need to do something."

Every cell in my body was screaming for me to run.

"Come tomorrow then," she said.

She wasn't at all sorry to see me leave. She was relieved.

On my way home I thought about Kirsten. And what ended up running through my head was this conversation we'd had during one of our movie nights, about great Hollywood pairings.

"I've never liked Katharine Hepburn and I really hated her with Cary Grant," she said. "They brought out all the wrong things in each other. Edgy, wiry. They got on each other's nerves and they get on my nerves. The only time it worked was in _The Philadelphia Story_. That couple _had_ to get a divorce. Deborah Kerr worked well with Cary Grant. She had a wonderful way of softening him, making him less brittle and very, very warm. But I like him best with Irene Dunne. I love Irene Dunne. She was in this fantastic world of real women. Irene Dunne, Myrna Loy, Barbara Stanwyck, Jean Arthur. After the war, real women die. You just get sex fantasies. And now cutesy. Cutesy. I can't think of one real woman after 1985. Before then, you got a few every couple of years. Usually out of the theater. Kathleen Turner. Jessica Lange. Now even the men are cutesy. You know what was so great about Irene Dunne? The way she could really stick it to Cary Grant. She was his equal in every way, in cunning, humor, wit, heart. She had this look she always gave him, this look with a smile: _You think you're so swell, don't you?_ And he'd look at her, grinning, saying: _Yeah, I do think I'm swell. What are you going to do about it?_ They got such a thrill from each other.

"You know what's a really surprising pairing? Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn. I mean, you think it'd be a disaster. Huge age difference. She's tall and willowy. He's short and stout. But they're wonderful together. That scene at the tennis court. When she's all moony about the stupid brother and Bogart walks in, kisses her — that look of astonishment in her eyes. Astonishment because he's just sent her to the moon. Humbug Linus! I keep thinking why does it work? It shouldn't. But it does. Even they don't understand it. But they just go with it. They just go with love and it's wonderful."

Carter. My mom running down the stairs. That strange energy. The way she stopped me, her hand on my arm as I tried to go up to Carter. Carter, sitting opposite me, nodding, asking questions, reacting just the way he should, but not really there at all, not really looking at me. Neither wanted me there.

But it wasn't just that. What was it?

It was Carter. And my mom. This woman I thought was my mom but really wasn't. It was Carter and this woman. Coming down the stairs. The way they were connected.

Zhou Yu's Train

Directed by Zhou Sun

Adapted from a novel by Cun Bei

Are we like a poem, a short hand of words curtained together, evoking a mood, but in the end, impenetrable? We follow the clues to our lover's heart and what we find isn't him at all but ourselves. We fill every part of his life, every part of his past and even become his other loves. Do we fall in love to find ourselves, and if we do, feel betrayed and run away?

Brett Again

The first time we met was at Kimmie's. Kimmie and I used to share an apartment on the West side. She'd had this dream of buying a country cottage in Dutchess County. After years of squirreling away money, she found something next door, in Ulster County, a small house on half an acre of land with an even smaller house adjacent. She rented the smaller house to a superhunky gay guy doctor to help pay for the mortgage and became a satisfied landowner. About every ten weeks or so, she'd invite a bunch of people over for the weekend. That's how I met Brett. I think Kimmie knew Brett from college.

Brett wasn't the kind of guy you noticed when you first came into a room. But he was the one you ended up talking to, laughing with — and then a whole world of shared jokes opens up and you realize you're in love with him.

I did love him.

Bright Future

I'm back in New York now. Living in Carroll Gardens, doing the commute thing into midtown every day. I got a job at a bank, on the corporate side. Global strategy. It makes me laugh to say it. I'm always on the verge of being shipped out to Tokyo or Beijing. The job keeps me pretty busy and that's my excuse for never calling home. I never talk to Carter. Just thinking about him and home makes me violently ill. I'm not being dramatic. I actually get this awful feeling in my stomach and I think I'm going to throw up. Everything just cramps up.

Understanding

Does love excuse everything and anything?

Old Friends

I finally had lunch with Kimmie. She'd heard from a mutual friend that I was back in town.

"So why didn't you call me?" she demanded when I finally returned her phone calls.

I didn't call anyone. I ran into our mutual friend on a crowded crosstown bus. The dangers of public transportation.

I think I'm still hiding out. Why I didn't call. Or maybe it's because I'm not the old me anymore. Or maybe because I'm afraid — I suppose of having to explain myself, what I'm doing back, what I've been up to, what I'm doing now. It's not like I can even explain these things to myself. Things are so confused, I keep wanting to dial up that psychic who's always advertising on late-night TV.

When we did have lunch it wasn't as bad as I had imagined because, really, it was just Kimmie doing all the talking, explaining herself, her life. She'd met a guy and they were going to get _married_ but she cheated on him (apparently he was a missionary-position-only type of guy) and now she's met another guy and they're thinking about getting married and how she's desperate to have kids. It was nice listening to her talk and not having to do much thinking.

And then she started talking about Brett. How he thought of me as the "girl who got away".

"Do you want me to tell him you're back?" she asked. "Do you want him to call you? I always thought you guys were really great together. So absolutely gorgeous. Think how gorgeous your kids would be. So jealous."

I was noncommittal. But as I walked to the subway station, my old feelings for Brett came back to me in sumptuous waves. I wanted to see him. Be with him. We'd move back in together and we'd get married and have kids and he would set our agendas, structure our lives and I would fill in the blank spaces with soft-scented soaps — it took me a few seconds to realize that I had stopped walking, that right in front of me, also frozen, was Rafe.

We were in front of the downtown MoMA store. His apartment is just a couple of blocks away. At first we couldn't believe our eyes and we just stood there, staring at each other with our mouths half opened, even our words stopped from disbelief. Rafe said later he was always looking into crowds, looking for my face and seeing me there was too bizarre. Like I'd finally stepped out of his imagination. When we began to move, it was simultaneous. We were holding each other and couldn't let go.

Fate

We're still not sure if we believe in it.

Kirsten once said to me that falling in love was a purely narcissistic endeavor. You see in the object of your affection yourself, all your desires, all your wounds, and in seeing yourself you think you are seen, for the first time, and in being seen, you think all your sadness, all this profound loneliness will disappear forever. She makes love so impossible.

Rafe's still with the wine company. He's based in New York but half the time he's in France. We have our old relationship mostly and I don't mind. The thing is, we know that at least fifty percent of all future possibilities are bad so we're holding on to where we are, just on this edge of the fifty percent that's happy. And it's nice. It's really nice.

Repudiation

How do you really know anyone anyway? We don't ever really know ourselves. Every act repudiates everything we think we are. And what we are is defined by everyone around us and we know nothing of them and nothing of ourselves so here we go. One leap of faith after another. A series of assumptions. But who knows? Maybe a series of wrongs do make a right. My calculus teacher once wrote that on my exam paper — he couldn't believe I'd arrived at the right solution when every step preceding it had been wrong. So go ahead and love whoever the fuck you want. It's all the same in the end anyway.

One last thing. I saw Kirsten. At a bar in Tribeca. She was with an unbelievably gorgeous guy and looked fantastic. I went right up to her and she looked at me with bewildered eyes and claimed she'd never met me before and didn't know who I was. Maybe I didn't either.

So what I'm finding out is this. Just because you love someone doesn't mean everything is going to be all right, even if he or she loves you back. It just means that you love somebody. The beginning and the end. I'm not sure why we want more.

Nights Of Cabiria

Directed by Federico Fellini

From a story idea by Federico Fellini

My last film. Prostitute-with-a-heart-of-gold movies usually make me blanch. But Giulietta Masina makes this film so much more than a stupid cliché. Two moments when she's beatific: when she's at the church praying fervently for her life to change; at the end, when everything — money, house, love, dreams, pride — has been stripped brutally away from her. She's escaped death but what has she to live for? And then the fairies come, festive children playing instruments, and there's this look on her face — final delusion or rebirth?

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Act of Creation & Other Stories

Mary ran her cake business in a way she could never have run her marriage. It was by appointment only, full deposit, partial refund (and this purely at her own discretion). Business was terrific and she had to turn down job after job. She only made cakes, custom-ordered weeks in advance—months if you wanted a wedding cake. Mary wasn't at all temperamental—she'd make any cake you'd like, any design you wanted no matter how banal. But what she was really known for, what people sought her out to do, was her beautiful confectionery sculptures, eerily real and heartbreaking to eat.

Seal Skin

I had told myself that I would not cry. That I would hold on to my anger so tightly, there would be no space for pity. And I did not cry, until the plane was in the air, and I was alone, and he was with her.

It was just a single tear, dropped because of a second of distraction—the remembrance of how much he had loved me.

And then there was another tear, and another, and another, and the man sitting next to me told me it was not an uncommon thing. People often cried on planes. Human migration tended to coincide with physical and emotional turmoil. It is not an uncommon thing, broken hearts, he said. His voice was like the waters surrounding a sacred temple, ancient, primordial; his voice was that ancient thing inside of me. I needed to hold him.

He asked me my name. Lily. He laughed because he could have guessed it, it was so natural to me, and for the first time, I felt it was my name and I was glad.

His name was Brenn. There was so much of him that seemed old, so much of him that seemed young, I could not guess his age. He was a beautiful listener and he listened to every part of me so that I was telling him my entire story.

I was all brittle fragments:
