Free City Boy by Jean Thompson

were having a tough time.”
    “I was a lunatic. I try not to think about it.”
    “You don’t think I feel bad too? Hey, you want to go back inside and get a discussion group going? ‘When gender games go wrong.’”
    She bent her head to root around in her purse, as if there was something in there that could render her invisible. Her hair was pulled tightly back from her face with a clip. She wore a long black sweater, big and shapeless, the cuffs unraveling. She gave the impression of trying to hide inside it. She was still beautiful, she would never be anything else, but her new, subdued aspect hung over her like a veil. He hated that she had been unhappy, hated that he’d had any part in it. She murmured, “I’m sorry about what happened. I said it then, I’ll say it now.”
    “I’d like to get beyond sorry. There’s gotta be a way.”
    One of Chloe’s friends approached, then veered away, sensing trouble. She was on the verge of flight, he knew he had only one chance to find the right thing to say. “I know you’re sorry, let’s, you know, stipulate that. I’m sorry I didn’t behave better myself. But you know what,ever since, it’s like my whole damned life’s been in suspended animation. I can’t even say what’s supposed to happen next with you and me. But if I’d never seen you again, I’d spend the rest of my life wanting to. So kick me in the head or whatever you need to do so I can just get over it.”
    He waited, as he had once before, for her to make up her mind. What he’d said was true, although he hadn’t known it until he’d heard himself speak. His life had stopped, she’d stopped it, he was waiting to see if she would start it up again, give it back to him. He felt almost serene, balanced there between one possibility and the other. My heart was in my mouth, people said, but his heart had come out of his mouth and floated free.
    Chloe said, “You don’t even know me. You don’t know me at all.”
    “Not a problem.”
    “If I started acting like a normal human being, you probably wouldn’t recognize me.”
    Jack smiled and shook his head. She sighed. “All right, so what do you want to do? Is there some kind of plan?”
    “I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” Jack admitted.
    “Well …”
    “We could have ground rules,” he suggested, and when she looked alarmed, he added, “No poetry.”
    “Good thinking.”
    “I don’t write like a theorist. You’d have to accept that.”
    “I’m not really attached to that stuff anyway,” she admitted.
    “All disputes to be arbitrated by a panel of prominent feminist scholars.”
    She giggled. Oh lovely sound. “Coffee,” he suggested.
    “It would have to be some other time. I really have to get home.”
    This was slightly disappointing, but Jack told himself it was a part of normal courtship. Normal, that was the ticket. He wasn’t even going to hold her hand without informed consent. “Uh, phone number?”
    “Hold on a minute.” Again she dove into her purse, came up with a pen and a scrap of paper. “Here. Let your fingers do the walking.”
    They both looked away, perhaps remembering where his fingers hadbeen walking the last time they met. Then they laughed, covering it up. “All right then,” Jack said briskly. “I’m gonna go for the clean exit here. Good night, nice to see you again.”
    Chloe said good night also. She seemed relieved. He was too, he had to admit, he didn’t think he could have talked another thirty seconds without catastrophe. He was already walking away when he stopped and turned around. A milling crowd of women took up the space between them, and he had to shout. “Chloe? Do you remember my name?”
    “Why, did you forget it?”
    The crowd goggled at him. He saluted Chloe. Good one. “You’re Jack,” she said. Smiled sideways and waved good-bye.
    Jack’s friend had been watching from a distance. “All right, who is she?” she asked, once they were outside.
    He told her