Lullaby.

That summer, in the late evenings, after an hour of anxious tossing, chasing sleep across the pages of a John Irving novel, she’d turn her pillow over, dial his number, and set the phone against her ear.

And on the nights he could make it home in time, he’d answer - hear her pull the sheets up underneath her chin, humming, softly, more often than not, the song she’d want him to sing – and he’d begin.

moon river
wider than a mile
i’m crossing you in style
one day

oh dream maker
you heart breaker
wherever you’re going
i’m going your way

two drifters
off to see the world
there’s such a lot of world to see
we’re after the same rainbow’s end
it’s just around the bend
my huckleberry friend
moon river and me

Sometimes, as they made their good-nights, she’d mention that maybe she should get around to seeing that movie. But the dreams that would follow, that filled her head so inevitably soon afterward, would displace the resolution - one that she never had any intention of keeping.

Long after she’d hung up, he’d trace small circles on the back of the receiver with his thumb and mutter to himself the things he would remember to say the next time he’d see her - he would remember the next time. He would.

And after a minute, he'd put the phone up, and turn, and open, and stare into the empty fridge.

continued...

Coeur d'Alene.

Our last true conversation ended badly, as we came back from the winery, with her driving, of course, and crying into the steering wheel. “I think I love you,” she said, sobbing. And after a pause came something from me worse than a lie: “I love you, too.”


And that makes me think of an evening I had with Jenny Hour:

“I’m looking back on the kind of women I’ve dated – “

“You don’t date women.”

“What do I do?”

“I don’t know what you do with them. I don’t want to know.”

“What would you call what we do now?”

“It definitely isn’t dating.”

“What is it, then?”

“Something that definitely isn’t dating.” She picked up the glass of water off the nightstand and took a long sip. “We haven’t even had dinner yet.”


I think about the first night I kissed her, at the end of the summer after she returned from Czechloslovakia – she had spent a year in Prague. “I missed washing machines so much, you have no idea.” I didn’t, but laughed anyway.

And then I think about the night we almost kissed on the couch of the same apartment I would live in, a summer later. It was her and Reneé sharing rent then, and they never turned on the air conditioning – she explained how her thin skin let the cold creep into her. Plus, she said, as she mussed my hair, my head lying in her lap, this is cool in comparison to Atlanta. I looked up, suffering happily, and reached up to touch her face.


She drove me to put a hole in a wall, and I’m not a hole-puncher type. Technically, it was not me, exactly, but the doorknob of the door that I kicked open after she broke up with me.

I needed a drink, and my friends were nearby, and they had liquor, and a door I knew I could kick with impunity. I still owe Joe $20 for spackle.

It was a big hole. I didn’t talk to her for a year.

continued...

Things I should have said.

These pants do feel a little tight in the crotch, actually.

I don't think I can hold that end of the piano all by myself.

Clearly, you're a jackass. A racist jackass that likes to have sex with his sister.

I...have speak English...berry not well.

Dude. She's making out with that guy right over there.

You don't seem anything like your wholly annoying but totally hot character on television.

No.

Pierogis ROCK.

Antonyms, synomyms ­ - fuck the grammar, let's have sex.

I think I'll try the chicken.

How many times have you tried this home perm thing, Mom?

I'm going to sleep now.

I've never read any Tolstoy, actually.

He's a total schmuck.

I'm waiting for the next song.

If you don't hold on for a second, I think I'm gonna pass out.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

New York.

Warren G. Harding.

I love you, too.

Letters from Little Rock, Postcards from New Albany

Looking out the window, with Colorado gliding past and underneath her, she followed the progress of a plane, a glint in the distance, jet wake bright beneath the stars, descending towards Denver, plunging into the cumulus, like the faithful into a dream. She watched clouds describe snowdrifts on the moon, smiled as she spun an image in her mind’s eye: The elf-queen thrust her wings behind her as Bradlien, shot through with the goblin’s arrow, fell away, into the shimmering fog. She sped towards her wounded love, hope and despair billowing behind her.

She would make a fine elf. Something to think about if accounting wasn’t exciting her after a few years – and what are the odds of that? She imagined showing up to the Monday 10 o’clock in a black pantsuit and a pair of small, tasteful, but obviously powerful, translucent wings. With matching pale lavender eye shadow. Just a hint. Tasteful. She snickered quietly. The adolescent sitting next to her prayed to God she wasn’t laughing at the small erection he’d been trying to hide since he’d boarded, and he shifted his backpack up onto his lap nervously, fumbling for headphones.

Would hat-head be a decent trade-off for the power of flight? Because you’d need a hat. The laughter that followed caused a dull ache to creep into her temples. She groaned quietly. I bet elves don’t worry about hangovers. I bet elves booze up and careen around the sky and wake up underneath a tree, or passed out in the upper branches, covered in pixie dust and puke, sporting tattoos of mysterious origin, whooping in anticipation of their next airborne bender.

She asked for some water, and caught a nervous glance from her rowmate as he handed it down. “Thanks,” she said, trying a small smile. The tightening in his pants lessened suddenly. He stopped drumming the lid of the CD case perched on his tray table. He glanced sideways at her, incredulous. He pulled his hands down, gripped the armrests his rowmates had surrendered early in the flight. She smiled again, and toyed with the possibility of torturing this boy for the last 2 1/2 hours to San Francisco. He closed his eyes carefully and forced himself to think of cold, wet, uncomfortable places.

continued...