“Anyway, it’s not like that,” Pru told Fiona. She wasn’t ready to get publicly excited about him, not yet. Not until she had more solid evidence that this was going somewhere. “I’m just the sympathetic listener. You know, a friend.”
“Nooooo!” Fiona cried, throwing back her long ballerina neck. “The comfort girlfriend! That’s even worse! Rebound, at least it’s sexual. But comforter, once you’re that, you’re like his mother.” She downed the last of the margarita, and shuddered. “And believe you me, missy, that’s the last thing you want to be. Somebody’s fucking mother.”
“Anyway,” Pru said, “I’m not convinced I could have a real future with a man who smelled my morning breath, without having had sex with me first.”
“Please,” said Fiona dismissively. “It’s just a matter of time.”
Pru shook her head. “I don’t think so, Fi. He’s seen me at my absolute worst. The man has his pride, you know.”
“You go to him right now,” Fiona slurred. “Right now, before it’s too late, and jump his bones!” She punctuated these last words with a swizzle stick she’d been mangling.
Fiona clearly had a skewed idea of her life. She acted as though all Pru did was go out and meet men, everywhere she went. Married people, thought Pru, never pictured single people as they really were, eating dinner from a tin with the cat on the table. For the millionth time that day, she pictured John waking up next to her: “Hey.”
Fiona turned to the guy sitting next to her. “Can I bum a cigarette?” she said, smiling broadly. He gave her one and slid over a pack of matches. She lit it, closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply. “Oh, yeah,” she said, exhaling a stream of smoke. “You know what I’d really love? A joint.”
“Heroin?” Pru called out, looking around the bar. “Methamphetamines, anyone? Nursing mom here!”
Fiona grinned and pointed the cigarette at her. “Listen, just don’t let on that you’re in love with him right away, that’s all I’m saying. I know you don’t want to hear this. I didn’t want to hear it either. But you can’t expect him to marry you if you don’t let him chase you a little bit.”
“I’m not looking to get him to marry me, Liz Taylor. So, hush up.”
After another round, when Fiona stood up and started doing her Axl Rose dance, Pru announced that it was time to go home.
She saw Fiona to her door and then started up Eighteenth Street. Pru wasn’t stupid. She didn’t confuse love with sitting out a cold night in a dead van. Not real, lasting love, anyway. Maybe rebound love, like Fiona said. And that might be okay, she thought, as she walked. Getting-each-other-through-a-bad-time love. The kind of love that could turn from platonic to “more” to platonic again, as easily as a leaf turns in the breeze. She wouldn’t even want him to real-love love her right now. She wouldn’t trust it. She’d taken freshman psychology in college, after all, and was familiar with the way baby ducks imprint on the first adult they see after birth. Even if it’s not another duck, but, say, a cow.
So, I’m way ahead of you here, Miss Fiona, she thought, turning onto Columbia Road. Unless, of course, John really did real-love love her right now. It didn’t seem entirely implausible. Perhaps a little soon, on the heels of his divorce. Fiona was right, one did like to put another relationship between oneself and the ex. A little palate cleanser between courses, as McKay called the little twenty-two-year-old who came his way right before Bill. An amuse-bouche. But what if it was happening now? What if it had happened already? Look at Patsy and Jacob and their twenty-second courtship! Maybe John felt the same way as she did, after all. Would that be so terribly bad?
She found herself standing in front of the Kozy Korner. There were lights on inside. She pushed open the door and went in. John was standing behind the counter, washing up. She noticed, with a little thrill, that otherwise the place was empty.
“Hey!” he called, happily, when he saw her. “I was just thinking about you.”
“Were you going to ask me to come up and listen to your Queen albums?” said Pru, swinging her purse as she strolled toward him, smiling.
Just then, a girl came out of the bathroom. It was the exclaiming-over-the-cheesecake girl, the one who’d taken Pru’s seat at the counter. Sexy Yoga Babe.
“Oh,” Pru said, with more obvious surprise than she could wish. She abruptly stopped swinging her purse and it hit her in the knee. “Hi.”
“Hi,” the girl said, pleasantly.
The girl was in date dress—silky top and skinny jeans, sparkly, strappy shoes. Of course, with a girl like that, thought Pru, such an outfit could be a taking-out-the-garbage dress. She turned to look at John. He was in date dress, too, a black sweater and gray trousers. She hadn’t noticed this before.
There was an awkward, polite pause before John remembered to introduce them. The girl’s name was Gaia. Gaia stood with poise, her arms resting comfortably at her sides. Pru’s own arms, for all she knew, were flapping like a chicken’s.
“Maybe another time?” she said to John.
He smiled easily and said, “Sure.”
She backed out of the diner and hurried home, a little stunned and now feeling the wine she’d drunk. She remembered what he’d said about Lila: I still sleep on one side of the bed, and she’s dating already. Didn’t that imply that he was not dating? Hadn’t he said that just yesterday? What, had he
