In the late afternoon of the third day, they lie in bed, the food between them in white cardboard cartons. The chow mein, perfect. The Szechuan shrimp, too spicy. Insanely spicy. She asks if he is perhaps trying to kill her. Just the opposite, he says. He is trying to save her. Save her from going to California.
He’s my boyfriend, she says. He needs me.
If there is a hell, she thinks, I’m surely going there. And then she adds “overly dramatic” to her list of faults.
I’m not talking about your boyfriend, he says. I’m talking about earthquakes. I’d hate to see you caught in one.
You can’t expect me to change my whole entire life based on three days, she says. It isn’t fair.
She blames her yellow curtains, through which the soft afternoon light is making this young man who is not her boyfriend look beautiful. She searches his face for a scar, a pimple. Some blemish to find distasteful so that she can focus on it when she remembers him. She hunts for a mole.
I hear there are wildfires, he says. You could get trapped. Your house could burn to the ground.
Please, don’t joke, she says. I don’t want any jokes right now. She sets the box of shrimp on the bedside table. I don’t want to think about anything, she says, and kisses him below his eye. His eyes are pale blue, like the Midwestern sky of her imagination, nothing at all like the cold dark waters off California’s rocky coast.
Then I’ll tell you something that isn’t a joke, he says, and kisses her, beginning at her mouth and working his way to her throat, the hollow of her collar bone, down her body lower and lower. Soon, she is clenching her teeth. She begins to moan softly as their third afternoon together slides slowly toward …
I turned the page and kept reading. The boyfriend has taken a trip to California to interview for jobs as a computer programmer. He is made out to be a decent person but a bore and an unsatisfying lover. The man with whom she has the affair is handsome and ambitious and bound for success in Washington, DC. He has always pined for her, and she for him, but neither one ever acted on their desires until now. He wants the story’s narrator to break up with her boyfriend and come with him to DC.
The story ends ambiguously, as if the character, or perhaps the author, hasn’t decided. Her boyfriend calls on the phone from Newark Airport, having returned from his trip. He says the interviews went well, and he can’t wait to see her.
I love you, he says.
She grips the receiver and squeezes her eyes shut, imagining.
I love you, she says.
He was looking at me, waiting for my verdict.
I shrugged. “It’s a short story. It’s fiction.”
“Bullshit,” he said. “It happened. I went to California to look for a job. She stayed here and had an affair. My God, Will, it’s so … detailed.”
He was right about that. The story, despite its lyricism, was overtly sexual. Its climax was not solely literary.
“You shouldn’t have gone through her things,” I said.
“That’s not the point.”
“It sort of is. I don’t see how you can confront her about this now without coming across—”
“She cheated on me, Will! And the way she describes me … my God, she thinks I’m a total loser. And bad in bed. She should just tell me, if that’s what she thinks. I can take it. But she shouldn’t cheat on me.” He was up now, pacing my small room. “And all the stuff about the other guy, the things he did with her … I’ll never get that out of my head. Not ever.” He went over to the bay window and cracked it open. He crushed his cigarette on the stone wall outside and dropped the butt out the window.
“She’s still planning to move with you to California, though,” I said.
“Yeah. That’s the plan.”
“And is that what you want, too?”
He was looking out the window. It was still drizzling. A few guys had come outside and were throwing a football around in the dimly lit courtyard.
“More than anything,” he said.
“Then you need to get rid of that story and hope she doesn’t notice it missing. Forget any of it ever happened. Leave it alone.”
“How can I? I mean, you read it.”
I shrugged. “Tell yourself she made the whole thing up. I mean, that’s a possibility, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, right. And I’m sure you figured out who the guy is. The guy in the story.” When I didn’t answer right away he said, “Come on, Will. Nolan’s moving to DC. And the physical descriptions … It’s him. You can’t pretend it isn’t.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not.”
Three woman had joined the football group. They seemed to be taking on the guys in a game. One of the girls kicked the ball, and the guy ran it back for a touchdown. Whooping and high-fives ensued.
“You can’t accuse him,” I said. “There’s no way.”
“How can you defend him?”
“I’m not defending anybody. I’m saying you’re getting your facts from a piece of fiction.”
“So you don’t think it happened?”