Free Mendocino Fire by Elizabeth Tallent Page B

consciously unequal moment they’ve experienced, her inflicting this brief interval of suspense upon him. This is the answer to the rightful affection in his voice: for her part, no affection, none, and the absence of reciprocal affection lets in sex. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.”
    He says, with the satisfaction of someone too intelligent to be flattered (who is nonetheless pleased), “We look alike?”
    She’s not going to tell him what it is. She wants no self-consciousness to intrude in his way of setting his coffee cup down or she’ll never get to see it again. She says, “There’s something.”
    â€œIs that good?’
    â€œI’m surprised.”
    â€œGood surprised?”
    â€œI can’t tell.” She considers. “Good, I think. I haven’t thought about him for a long time. Can you go years without thinking of someone you once loved? It makes a life seem very long.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThat you could love someone for years. Then forget them for years .”
    â€œThen remember them? I’ve felt that. There was this girl—my first wife.” He’d like her not to have caught girl , a word potentially problematic: his status in the office has much to do with his being deemed progressive. “We were married three weeks.”
    â€œThat long?”
    â€œNo one takes this story seriously when I say three. It was a mistake, but at the same time, we were serious, we were in deep. And I guess I haven’t done that that many times.”
    In his voice, the sudden amplitude of truth telling, the sense of language widening out, of constraints loosening. This, the shift to self-delighting spontaneity, is what she’s always hoping for in her dealings with others: she sees that now, even as she recognizes her inward wish to end this conversation before the rapport between them twists toward franker, sexier seriousness. When she prods her empty torte plate across the counter, it’s so that the scrape of china across Formica will stand in for her voice, so that he will be interrupted by something other than her protest, and also so that, theatrically, she can read her watch. “God! I’ve got to run.”
    He says ruefully, “You stopped it.”
    She’s shrugging into her coat. There’s a cottonwood leaf on the coat’s shoulder, and he picks it off. He rubs his palms together, the stem between them, and the leaf twirls. Says, “Okay. Something happened. I understand something happened, but not what. You’re not going to tell me what, are you?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œAt least you don’t lie. At least you don’t say, ‘Nothing happened.’” He shakes his head. “I’m lost.”
    She smiles. “You know when to leave things alone.”
    â€œBut I don’t know. It’s you who’s decided to leave. There’s only one of us who understands what just happened. But okay. I guess you know what you need to do.”
    She smiles again, not as pleased with him as she was a moment before, not as pleased as she was with herself. “I’m still learning.”
    But it’s not true—or, rather, it’s so newly true that she can’t accept it. Sitting down with him, fifteen minutes ago, she would have said with perfect conviction that she knew all she needed to know about herself. It’s odd to think that her sense of herself has ruptured, that she must now conceive of herself as still learning , as unfinished and anxious, necessarily vulnerable to surprises and intrusions, because it’s only by the narrowest of margins that her decision to get out the café door triumphed over her desire to lean nearer, to prolong her smile until its very duration transformed it into proof of willingness.
    Outside, the high-altitude October radiance causes a darker blue to melt across the photosensitive lenses of her sunglasses.