Dept. Of Speculation

38

Her ex-boyfriend calls her. He says he wants to talk. She meets him on a bench in the park. She has been up all night, thinking, testing out conversations. “You look great,” her ex says. “Amazing actually.” Everyone has been saying that to her lately. That she looks radiant, glowing. She refuses to mention the yoga. It isn’t that. It’s that the scrim has fallen away. All right, all right, maybe it’s the yoga. It’s true that it’s hard to work the scrim thing in conversationally. She smiles at him. He sits beside her, their knees almost touching. They talk about little things. He is smart and funny as always and now, incredible bonus, no longer a speed freak. People walk by with their dogs. Leaves fall prettily. The wife alludes to her situation, obliquely at first, then nakedly. As she talks, her ex is looking at her, smiling, laughing, but then suddenly she sees his eyes dart away. It is possible that she is talking too fast, that her hands are shaking. “My heart is like a paper bag,” she says. “See?” She sees him register that she is not what he had thought she was. Something crosses his face. Fear? Pity? She forces herself to stop talking. He is twitchy now, ready to leave and go to a meeting, she thinks. “I think I need a sponsor,” she says. “That’s what everyone says,” he tells her. They stand up. Then there is a long walk to the subway. She should take another path, walk another way. Someone else would make an excuse, exit gracefully with a wave. But no, horribly they round the corner, horribly they pass the arch and the benches and the newsstand. “Take care,” he says as she lurches oddly away. It hurts her eyes to look at these buildings. Greener, she thinks. There are the trees and the water. The expanse of lawn, overly peopled. She walks through the park, holding herself carefully. There is a sense of being unprotected in an open space. I am at the mercy of the elements, she thinks.

What Kafka said: I write to close my eyes.