him with Kelly Kyle, doing whatever men did with tits that were that much bigger than her own, whatever it was that boys in school had been dreaming about since they were nine years old, fantasies she’d never understand and would never be able to grant someone herself. She imagined herself back with the busboy, the busboy and the bartender, less anything specific than his watching her, his walking in on her now. Him or the bartender. Either of them: college-aged, Jenna-aged. She imagined Jack and Jenna. She imagined Jack and Jenna in that skyrise apartment down the rainy beach. She imagined them there now, screams and laughter. Jenna Saisquoi. Whitney knew she’d be loud. Whitney knew she’d be a performer. That blonde hair thrown around like a sparkler. That perfect little taut body put to good use. Curling up inside the shape of Jack, consumed, subsumed. All the work to earn her place in that big bed. She imagined Will this time, Will with Jenna, back at their Airbnb. Will with a look of concentration, of gratitude, like she’d never seen on his face before, a sense of having leveled up to something extra special, forbidden and golden-glittered, a taste of something made with lots of butter and chocolate and steamed milk. Someone who, at the very least, knew what she was doing in a youthful and unmoored kind of way, who might rub off some lavender-scented lotion and leave the smell on his skin for a few days. Who would leave a hole in him that couldn’t be filled the old way ever again, certainly not by the likes of Whitney. That was enough, that thought. That emptiness, that hole at the center of each of them that might not be satisfied by the other anymore. That was enough to do it. She sat there breathing heavily, her eyes still closed, her brain a little dizzy, her bladder still full. That final thought—that helplessness, that powerlessness, that realization that it might be something they’d have to cope with for the rest of their lives—almost made her cry. She peed and she washed her hands and her body looked back at her in the mirror, and it looked slacker to Whitney than it had even ten minutes ago, her skin splotchy and red, lines everywhere she looked. Her head was empty. She was getting so old. She was almost thirty. She was drunk. She walked back to the bar and sat back down in her seat near the window. She sipped her drink and checked her work email. She typed out responses without reading them through and sent them having forgotten where the responses had begun. She looked up and out the window. The rain had stopped. There was still the thick ash, but it wasn’t pouring anymore. Will texted a sun and a running girl. She texted a thumbs up. She paid her tab with two twenty-euro bills that she’d slotted into her cellphone case for an emergency. The bartender thanked her for the tip and wished her a pleasant afternoon and smiled one final time. Whitney hit the street, she mapped the distance, she balked at the mileage. A cab was waiting at the curb. She gave the address with practiced pronunciation. She got carsick on the way and shut her eyes.
Will woke up to the buzzer. He’d nodded off after he’d poured a fresh drink. He couldn’t have drifted long—ten or fifteen minutes. His head was scrambled when he pressed the intercom and met Whitney at the front door. He couldn’t tell for sure but she seemed loose herself. She smiled at him dolefully and moved past him into the kitchen, where she steadied herself on the counter.
“Are you okay?” he said.
“I had some drinks at the hotel,” she said. “I don’t know why.”
“Really…” he said.
“Really,” she said. “Is that okay?”
“Sure, whatever you want.”
“That’s what this is, right?” she said. “A big old vacation…”
“I guess that’s right.”
“I had one, and then I had three.”
“What if I told you that I had one and then I had three, too?” he said.
“You’ve been drinking here by yourself?”
“So were you.”
“I was in a hotel bar. I was waiting out a storm. Not just…”
“What is this? What are you doing? I was hoping we could start today fresh.”
“I just didn’t know that you…never mind, this is dumb, forget it.”
“So, what then?” he said, and he could tell that she knew what he meant.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what that was last night, or what any of this is. I’m just ready to go home.”
“I’m ready to go home, too. I’m very ready. I feel like I’ve had too much time to think about stuff while we’ve been here. I feel my brain dying. I can’t even answer emails without getting anxious. I need to figure this out. I need to find something else for real.”
“At least you know for sure.”
“If a consequence of being stuck here is finding something a little more—”
“Sounds like a positive thing.”
“It’ll make things better for me and it’ll make things better for you.”
“How can I join in? What reckless decision can I make?” she said.
The slackening of tension came as such a relief to Will that he mistook the détente for resolution, as a new and welcome invitation to walk through the un-walk-through-able door.
“Well, to start,” he said, “you can finally say yes to me. We can start telling people that we’re engaged. I don’t know why we’d put it off any longer. I mean, I know the reasons. And parts of all those reasons are maybe still there. But what is putting this off another month in the scope of all time? Why put it off when what we’re doing is committing to, you know, forever?”
She looked at him sadly, like she wished he’d said anything but this.
“But the logic works the other way, too…” she said, moving to the kitchen to pour
