that way.” No, that wasn’t good. He could show her the money in the canvas bag and say, “I was out of money, so I had to drive to my bank to withdraw some cash. You have to do that in person. It’s my bank in … where? Arizona? Five hours each way, driving through the night, over the speed limit each way. When I got here you had fallen asleep.” He pushed the couch out a bit and snatched up the canvas bag.
The weight of it made him remember the gun was still inside. He took out the weapon and put it into the pocket of his suitcase in the closet, set the bag of money on the couch, and zipped it closed, then began to practice his story silently in front of the full-length mirror on the closet door.
He had trouble with his lines, because her afterimage was still floating in his vision. She was tall and long- legged, but her thighs and hips were slightly large for her body, so he’d always thought of them as imperfections. But just now she had been as appealing as anyone he had ever seen. He had the sense of an opportunity forever lost.
Lila came out of the bathroom wearing a big towel around her and another on her head. He studied her for any hint of eroticism, some slight, subtle, and maybe tentative signal. He took a step toward her and she recoiled, her eyes fixed on his arms and hands, not his face. He stepped back and she went to the closet for jeans and a top, to her dresser for everything else, and back to the bathroom and locked the door.
In a very short time, she came out dressed, with her long blond hair hanging in wet corkscrew curls. She said, “Are you waiting to say something to me?”
“I’m sorry I got home so late. I was—”
“It doesn’t matter what you were doing.”
“But it does matter.”
“Not to me.” She brushed past him and sat down at the kitchen table, her forearms folded and resting on the Formica surface. He lifted one of the cups of coffee out of the tray and set it in front of her, but it was invisible to her.
He sat across from her, lifted the other cup of coffee, and set her an example by sipping it. “It’s still warm.”
“It’s time to talk.”
“You’re right. I was thinking this morning when I took Eldon out for his walk that we have to talk.”
“You don’t. I do.”
He sat up straight in his chair, his shoulders held in a stiff cringe, nearly high enough to touch his ears.
“This relationship has gone on a few weeks now.”
“Oh, shit.”
“What?”
“When you say ‘relationship’ like that it sounds like you’re thinking about breaking up with me.”
Her head tilted a little and she looked at his face for a second, then away. “When we were in high school, we didn’t even date. When you turned up again after all this time, I was interested—flattered, curious maybe. And maybe since high school, I’d seen such a pack of assholes that you seemed better than you used to, like something I’d overlooked at the time. But since you’ve been in the apartment, you’ve ended up on the couch more times than in the bed.”
“I didn’t want to.”
“We just don’t actually like each other enough for this.”
“That’s not true,” he said. “We like each other a lot. We’re still just getting used to each other, learning to communicate.”
“I’m not going to let you tell me what my feelings are.”
“This is about last night, isn’t it? I had been feeling bad because you had been paying for everything all the time—rent, food, and so on.”
“Thanks for leaving me the money. We can call it even.”
He continued. “So I went to the bank to get some.”
“I said thanks.”
“Not that money. I needed to get more.”
“At two A.M.?”
“Of course not. I left right after you went to work, and I expected to be back before you got off work.”
“Jesus, Jeff. You expect me to buy that. What bank is open that late?”
“Bank of America. In Las Vegas. The banks are open later there, because they don’t want to keep anybody from doing anything on impulse. I needed the money because I wanted to do something for you. I’d been traveling around a lot, and so that account was the only one I had left open.”
“If you say so. What held you up?”
“Traffic. You wouldn’t believe it, but there was this accident right as I was coming out of the low desert up into the high desert on Route 15. You should have seen it. A big rig jackknifed across the road and ruptured its tank, so the actual road was on fire. It was around a bend, so all these cars didn’t see it at first, and there were five or six cars banged up, most of them before the fire started. I was stuck with everybody else just sitting still for hours. I sat there thinking about you, and feeling sorry that I hadn’t brought my phone with me.” He smiled with a vulnerability he had never shown her before. “I kept picturing you. You know, in those—”
“I’ll bet,” she interrupted. “I found your phone a few minutes after I got home. I called you and your duffel bag rang. Are you sure you didn’t leave it here so I wouldn’t ask you questions?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“You have any proof you were in Las Vegas?”
“I … Oh, I know.” He got up, went to the closet, and pulled out the canvas bag. He held it in front of his chest and pointed at the words printed on it. “Bank. Of. America.” He tipped it a bit so she could see a bit of the green currency.
“Great. I’m so glad you’re not destitute. This makes me feel so much better.”
Jeff smiled uncomfortably. He wasn’t quite sure that he had succeeded in meeting all of her objections, and he was wondering whether making up with Lila was what he really wanted most, and why he was trying so hard. But then he remembered the sight of her when he had walked in this morning. “Feel better?”
“I do. I’d like you to get your stuff together and leave.”
“Can I just say something?” He went on before she could answer. “I can see that my getting in that traffic jam in the desert last night was the most important moment of my life. All the time while I was sitting in my car, with the night lit up by those big gasoline flames, all dark orange with a blue ghost flickering around the edges, I was feeling desperate about getting home here to you. I was picturing you wearing what you actually were, with that beautiful, smooth white skin and golden hair and the face of an angel. And I realized right at that moment that I was seeing what I wanted most in the world. It was like that guy in the Bible, riding his donkey and he gets like a stroke, knocked right off his donkey onto the road. He gets up, and he’s a new guy.”
“Saul. When he gets up he changes his name to Paul.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, I am. Didn’t you go to Sunday School?”
“But that was just what happened to me. I got forced to sit still in the desert for a while and think about who I’d been and who I wanted to be. I realized that I may never be rich or famous or even an okay guy. But I would be happy forever if I only had you. After I sized up the situation, I had to turn off the radio to save the battery. I just stared into those flames and I saw you. It felt like a vision. I could see you in exactly the same clothes you had put on, waiting for me.”
“That’s not exactly magic. You laid them out for me.”
“I got so concerned about you and what you must be feeling.”
“What was I feeling?”
“At first I pictured you all ready and fresh and pretty, waiting for me, in a mood for romance.” He saw her eyes and kept talking rapidly. “And then, I thought that you would know it wasn’t like me to be thoughtless and leave you waiting, so you would get worried. I pictured you looking scared and sad, maybe calling the police and the hospitals. I actually got out of my car and walked up the line of cars that were blocked, asking people if I could use their phones. But it was dark and I was just this darker shadow coming out of the night. I might be a psycho or something. They all rolled up their windows. Some wouldn’t even look at me. Finally one of the highway patrol cops that were keeping people away from the fire ran up and yelled at me to get back in my car.”
