Free Frog by Stephen Dixon Page A

vagina hurts from last night. You were too rough. I couldn’t do it again for a day.” “So we did something? I was afraid I just passed out.” “To be honest,” she says, “it was horrendous. Never again when I and the guy I’m with are that stoned.” “It’ll be better. I can actually stay for two more nights, get some work done in your school library simply to keep busy and out of your hair all day, and we’ll both stay relatively sober throughout.” “No, it isn’t a good idea. Where’s it going to land us?” “Why, that you’re way out here and I’m in New York? I’ll fly out once a month for a few days.” “Once a month.” “Twice a month then. Every other week. And the entire spring break. Or you can fly to New York. I’ll pay your fare each time. And in the summer, a long vacation together. Rent a house on some coast. A trip to Europe if that’s what you want. I don’t make that much, but I can come up with it.” “Let’s talk about it again after you get to New York, but you go this afternoon as scheduled.”
    He calls from New York and she says “No, everything’s too split apart. Not only where we live but the age and cultural differences. You’re as nice as they come—sweet, smart and silly—but what you want for us is unattainable.” “Think about it some more.” He calls again and she says he got her at a bad moment. He writes twice and she doesn’t answer. He calls again and her housemate, after checking with her, says she doesn’t want to come to the phone. Howard says “So that’s it then. Tell her.”
    He’s invited to a picnic in Riverside Park for about twelve people. He doesn’t want to go but the friend who’s arranged it says “Come on, get out of the house already, you’re becoming a hopeless old recluse.” He meets a woman at the picnic. They both brought potato salad. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” he says. “I was told to bring the cole slaw. But I didn’t want to make the trip to the store just to buy cabbage, had a whole bag of potatoes around, so I made this salad. Anyway, yours is much better. You can see by what people have done to our respective bowls.” “They’re virtually identical,” Denise says. “Eggs, celery, sweet pickles, fresh dill, store-bought mayonnaise, maybe mustard in both of them, and our potatoes cooked to the same softness, but I used salt.” She gives him her phone number and says she hopes he’ll call. He says “I wouldn’t have asked for it if I didn’t intend to. Truly.”
    He was attracted to her at the picnic but after it he thinks she was too eager for him to call. Well, that could be good—that she wants him to call, is available—but there were some things about her looks he didn’t especially like. More he thinks of them, less he likes them. Nice face, wasn’t that. But she seemed wider in the hips, larger in the nose, than he likes. Were her teeth good? Something, but nothing he can remember seeing, tells him they weren’t. She was friendly, intelligent, no airs, good sense of humor. But if she’s wide in the hips now, she’s going to get wider older she gets. And noses, he’s heard, and can tell from his own, grow longer with age. Everything else though…
    He doesn’t call her that week. On the weekend he bumps into a friend on the street who’s walking with a very pretty woman. She can’t be his girlfriend. The friend’s married, much in love with his wife. And he has two young sons he dotes on and he’d never do anything that could lead to his being separated from them, but then you never know. Howard and the woman are introduced, she has a nice voice, unusually beautiful skin, and the three of them talk for a while. Her smile to him