“Why did you like me? At the wedding? What made you like me?”
Disdain. Anger. Fear? She was hard to read.
Andrew laughed, uncomfortable. “I mean, besides my devastating good looks.”
She lowered the banana slowly. Dropped it and smeared the mush of it on her bedspread.
“That’s gross.”
Dorrie’s eyes weren’t olive anymore. Now they were blue. An icy blue so pale that it made her look almost blind. Why wasn’t she saying anything?
“Seriously, why?”
Still nothing.
Andrew tried again. “I know why I liked you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. You’re different. I mean, I know that sounds kind of shallow, but it’s true. You’re . . .” How could he tell her that she was not the kind of girl he ever would have met at college? There probably weren’t even any guys like her at college. You were supposed to see the world when you were young, right? Well, Dorrie was definitely the world. She was an adventure. Did girls like it when they were called adventures? He wasn’t sure.
“I’m what?”
The photos in their frames behind her caught his eye again. “I wouldn’t have guessed that you were such a do-gooder.”
She glanced back. Shrugged. “It was a phase. I’m a lot more utilitarian now.”
“What does that mean?”
“Have you studied Malthusian theory yet?”
“No.”
“It’s okay, you don’t need to. It’s brutal and misinformed. But on a much lesser level, I kind of believe in it now. If your village needs a white person to come in and teach you how to dig a well, maybe you don’t deserve to last another generation.”
“So why all the pictures?”
“I’m a sucker for cute kids.”
Andrew shook his head. “I have to warn you, I’m not very good with snark.”
He laughed encouragingly, but she didn’t respond. Oh god, why had he said that? That was so stupid. What was snark, anyway?
And then, in a half second, no warning at all, she stuck her banana-glopped fingers in his mouth and flopped down on top of him, nestling her head in next to his ear.
“Do you like it?”
Well, he didn’t not like it. Andrew sucked dutifully, moving his tongue along the tips of her fingers. Dorrie wriggled on top of him, grinding her hips into his.
“Wait,” said Andrew, struggling to push her off. “You didn’t answer my question.”
She sat up again.
“Seriously, why?”
Andrew didn’t even know why he kept asking. He usually just let stuff like that go, but if she couldn’t tell him, well, if she couldn’t tell him, then she couldn’t possibly be in love with him, right?
“Dorrie?”
Nothing.
“Well?”
Nothing.
“This isn’t really good for my self-esteem here. Nothing?”
Nothing.
Until “Turn over and I’ll show you.”
“What? What’s that supposed to mean?”
She bared her teeth at him, and then, tender, soft, she reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, brushing his cheek with her knuckles as she drew her hand away.
“I don’t like this anymore.” He didn’t even know that those words were going to come out of him, but once he said them, they were truer than anything else he could have said.
“Aww, honey, what do you mean? We’re having fun here.”
“No.” Andrew shrugged her off. She was so light, actually. There was so little to her. “I’m not having fun. I thought you—”
“You thought I loved you?”
“Yes!” No. No, he hadn’t. He never thought it, but in trying to convince himself that it wasn’t necessary, he’d hoped it, and that was almost as true.
“Oh come on, you’re young, but you’re not a baby. You can’t possibly think that love works like that. You wanted to fuck and I gave you an excuse.”
“No!” Andrew flung his legs off the bed and then stood up. “I didn’t! I mean, I did, but not like that! I explained it!”
He had to leave. What was he doing here with this stranger? He started picking up his clothes and shoving them back in his duffel.
“Andrew! You don’t have to go.”
“I’m not handcuffed anymore, so . . .”
There. He could be sarcastic, too. Or ironic. Or whatever.
He continued packing up, going to the bathroom to retrieve his toothbrush and moisturizer, unplugging the cord of his cell phone and winding it up carefully before he looked in her direction. Sitting there on the bed, eyes wide, skin luminescent, she was perfection. He could put down his bag and just stay. She’d love him eventually.
“You’re really leaving?”
“Unless . . .”
If she just said one nice thing, just made one gesture towards him, just showed him something, he would stay.
“No means no, Andrew.”
He and his giant duffel barely fit through the warren of narrow hallways in Dorrie’s house. Which entryway had she used? Each door he tried was nailed shut in order to keep tourists from stumbling into her quarters. Finally, one of them gave way and he shoved through it, falling into a quartet of ladies in red hats and crazy purple dresses huddled over one of the pamphlets that talked about Dorrie’s family and how they made their money and beautified the city.