Love Creeps

Seven

At the same moment, Alan had a painful erection, as he had had every afternoon that week, because an excessively sexy woman at whose apartment a film was being made in which Alan was acting, was doing everything she could to seduce him.

Alan was taking a few days off from his job to do a favor for one of his new friends, Bob, who had begged him to play a part in a highbrow independent feature film he was making. It was quite a big favor indeed, because it was tax season, and Alan had on average forty tax returns to prepare each week. Bob had succeeded in luring Alan by being very honest with him, telling him that even though he knew Alan was not a professional actor, he had wanted someone exactly like him — someone with a noble air. Flattered, Alan modestly proclaimed that was not him, even though he knew it was now, and acquiesced.

The filming was taking place in a luxurious apartment on Fifth Avenue and Eleventh Street. Alan tried to take advantage of the time between takes to prepare tax returns, but the seductive owner of the apartment had taken a liking to him and was driving him to distraction. His penis was annoyingly erect, a condition that shocked him and of which he disapproved, since he had a wonderful girlfriend, Jessica, and would never cheat on her. A month earlier, they had officially decided to make their relationship monogamous, not that it had not always been.

The day before, Alan had discovered a fun-filled solution to his tormenting lust. The apartment had very large, very private, comically lush bathrooms, and when his erection got in the way of his concentration, he would politely excuse himself with his cell phone, retreat to one of the far bathrooms, and call his girlfriend, who fortunately was spending her afternoons in his apartment, which made it convenient for them to engage in phone sex. They had done this before, on occasion, but it was particularly helpful this week.

“Why are you out of breath?” he asked, when she answered the phone.

“I’m exercising for you,” she said, and suddenly he heard an exercise video in the background.

Alan asked her to take off her clothes. She was always up for phone sex. As well as real sex.

“I’m taking off my underwear now,” she said, while moving up and down over a man, who had his penis in her.

“Are they off?” Alan asked, lying on the floor, on a giant, plump, pink mat, his own underwear and pants lowered to his thighs.

“Yeah, oops, hang on, they’re caught on my heel. There,” she said, easing herself down more slowly onto the penis of her afternoon lover, who knew not to say a word when Alan called. His hands were on her butt, trying to speed up the pace, but she liked it slow, particularly during phone sex with Alan, which she had engaged in before while cheating on him. The afternoon lover was not averse to this. He was sprawled on Alan’s white easy chair, the chair with no arms, which made it ideal for Jessica to straddle him in the way they both liked. The white chair had gotten gradually more stained with each passing day, but Jessica diligently scrubbed the stains after each ride, succeeding only, of course, in making them paler and larger.

Midway through the phone sex, which was even more real than Alan imagined, Jessica’s call waiting beeped. Not wanting to miss a call from her morning lover, she checked, but it was some guy with a French accent, asking for Alan, claiming to be an old friend. He said his name was Roland. She gave him Alan’s cell phone number, and added, “But I’m actually talking with him on the other line right now, so please wait a bit before calling.”

Thirty seconds back into the phone sex, it was Alan’s turn to announce he had another call coming in.

“Fuck that guy, I told him to wait,” Jessica said.

“Fuck who?” Alan asked.

“This jerk who just called and interrupted us. Just don’t answer it.”

“I have to. It could be my friend John, who’s in a terrible mess.”

“No, that wasn’t the name he gave me. I can’t remember it, but it wasn’t John.”

“It could be someone else in need. Hang on.”

Alan switched lines, and this time it was indeed his friend John, sounding very depressed.

Alan apologized to Jessica for having to stop things in the middle like this.

“Suit yourself, honey. It’ll be harder for you than for me,” she said.

Alan laughed. “Why?”

“Because I can finish. And you have to talk to John.”

“Have fun.” Alan zipped up his pants and switched back to his friend in need: a full-fledged stalkaholic from an SA meeting.

John was crying, saying he was on the verge of following the woman he had been trying not to follow for months.

Alan attempted yet again to persuade him to forget about the dumb woman. And he added, “Did you use the gift certificate I gave you for that massage?”

“No.”

“Well, use it, man, please. It helps.”

“I want to follow her.”

“She’s gonna call the cops on you again.”

John sniffled.

“Or just come here,” Alan said. “Come to the set. There’s a nice woman here, who owns this apartment. She’s very sexy, very hot. I’ll introduce you.”

“No one else interests me.”

“I know what it’s like. You don’t have to tell me. Go get the massage.”

There was a loud knock on the bathroom door. It was the director, calling him for the scene. Alan was sorry to have to make the crew wait, but he felt it was his responsibility to talk to his friend until his obsession to stalk passed.

Roland paced, unsure how long he was supposed to wait before calling Alan’s cell phone. Sitting on their bed, Lynn was watching him.

“I think this is going to be good,” he said. “A chick answered the phone at his apartment. It could be a friend or relative, but even if it’s a girlfriend, it doesn’t mean his life is good. She was panting, and I could hear an exercise video in the background, which probably means she’s fat, trying to burn calories, which would explain why she’s going out with a guy like Alan: She couldn’t find anyone better.”

Lynn flipped through a magazine.

Roland glanced at his watch. Half an hour had passed. Enough. He dialed Alan’s cell phone. Alan himself, once again, did not answer. It was a man, asking Roland to hold on. Roland listened, straining his ear for signs of pathos. Suddenly he heard “Cut!” He frowned. Then he heard people clapping and saying, “Wow, that was great, Alan,” and a sexy female voice, “Alan, that was amazing,” then someone else, “There’s a call for you, Alan!”

Four days later, Alan was sitting with Lynn and Roland in a coffee shop. Roland had not said much about their reason for inviting him, claiming only that it would be nice to see him. When Alan had lightly pressed him for a more plausible explanation, mentioning he had forty-two tax returns to prepare that week plus a movie role, Roland had replied, enigmatically, “It would be good for all of us.”

Sensing Alan’s hesitation, Roland had handed the phone to Lynn, urging her to say something encouraging. Not knowing what to say, she blurted that she was from Long Island, too, and asked him what town he was from. He said Cross. She said she was from Stanton, the next town over. They chuckled politely.

After taking a day to think about it, Alan had accepted their invitation.

He was starting to wonder if he had not made a mistake, because their questions were getting strange. At first they had asked him simple things, like the plot of the movie he was in.

“A married woman falls in love with another man,” Alan had replied.

“What’s your part?”

“The other man.”

They asked him how he was doing, and he answered, “I’m doing well, thanks,” and they said, “It must have been hard for you, what we did.”

Alan couldn’t quite figure out what their intention was — to revive his murderous thoughts?

“Yes, it was hard.”

“Oh, boy, I can just imagine,” Lynn said. “Did you have to go into therapy?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm,” Roland said. “Did you ever have suicidal thoughts?”

“Yes.” Alan saw a twinkle in their eyes. So he added, “I also had murderous thoughts.”

They were visibly less interested in those. Misery seemed to be what they wanted to hear about. Less so the anger.

“And now? How is your life now? Are you lonely? Depressed? Unmotivated?” they asked, with an air of hopeful concern.

“No,” Alan said.

Roland scratched his cheek. After a time, Lynn said, “It must be hard for you to see us now. I mean, painful.”

“No. It’s almost the opposite. It helps me realize how much better I feel now. How much better my life is. You know, in a way, I should even be grateful to you both for what you did to me. If you hadn’t helped me reach bottom, I might not have kicked back up.”

It was nauseating how he was going on and on about himself, the little self-centered prick, Roland thought.

“That’s a very generous way of looking at it,” Lynn muttered. She was watching Alan closely. Within a few months, his body language had completely changed. He was calm, that was a big part of it. And he didn’t seem to hold a grudge, which was remarkable. He had risen above it. Wait. Was he on Prozac, or something?

“How’s your job?” Roland asked.

“Good.”

“Have you made partner yet?”

“No.”

“Supervisor?”

“No.”

“Still doing all the grunt work, huh?”

“Yes, but it’s fine.”

“Are you on any antidepressants?” Lynn asked.

“No.”

“But you’ve changed so much!” she said. “You don’t even move the same way. You seem less agitated, and you no longer make those silly facial expressions that were too drastic and too frequent.”

Alan was so well-adjusted that he barely felt the sting of that remark. Nevertheless, he did flag down the waiter, knowing there was a 25 percent chance of getting the result he wanted.

“Could you bring me a beer?” he said to the waiter.

“Could I see some ID?” the waiter asked.

Bingo. Alan glanced at Roland slyly, who already had a beer in front of him and hadn’t gotten carded.

Roland said to the waiter, “You think he looks under twenty-one?”

“You never know,” the waiter said.

“I’m sorry, I’ve lost my driver’s license,” Alan said. “Can I have the beer anyway? I’m thirty-four, a year older than this man, and you didn’t ask him for his ID.”

“I’m instructed to follow my judgment,” the waiter said. “I shouldn’t sell you the beer without ID.”

“That’s fine, no problem,” Alan said. “I’ll have a Coke.”

When the waiter had left, Roland asked Alan, “Do you still have that rat?”

Alan smiled. “Yes, Pancake is a wonderful pet.”

“You know,” Roland said, smiling and stroking Lynn’s hand resting on the table, “I was telling Lynn the other day that I thought perhaps we should let you have that weekend with her.”

Lynn stared at Roland in shock.

“I’m … flattered,” Alan said, looking uncomfortable, “but I’m in a relationship now.”

“Lucky her. Or him?” Roland said.

“Her,” Alan said.

“Is it that girl who answered the phone when I called your apartment?”

“Yes.”

“Is she fat?”

“No, why would you ask that?”

“Oh, because she was clearly exercising, you know, aerobics video in the background, panting, so I figured, hey … she must be fat, trying to shed the pounds.”

“When you called, she was actually on the phone with me — as she told you — and the reason she was panting was that we were having phone sex.”

Roland and Lynn looked slapped.

“What does she do for a living? Does she have some kind of sex phone line, or something?” Roland asked.

“No. She’s a private detective.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes. And she owns a gun.”

Alan could see them absorbing this information.

“So she’s a professional stalker …” Roland mused. “What a perfect match for you. How did you meet her?”

Alan hesitated, and finally confessed, “I was coming out of an SA meeting … that stands for Stalkaholics Anonymous … and she was coming out of her meeting in the next room, and we met in the hallway.”

“What kind of meeting was hers?”

Alan was reluctant to disclose so much to these problematic people. But finally, he did, because he was not entirely ashamed of the information. “Sex Addicts Anonymous.”

Roland’s eyes were like Ping-Pong balls released underwater. “She’s a sex addict?”

“Was.”

“Aren’t you afraid she’ll cheat on you?”

“No. She’s doing much better now. Just as I am.”

“She must be pretty freaked out by your rat.”

Alan frowned and shook his head. “No, women with guns don’t usually mind rats.”

“You mean because they can shoot them?”

“No, it’s just a gutsier category of women.”

They asked him more questions about his life, and they began sounding to Alan as if they were trying to guess the answer to a riddle. And it was clear to Alan that the riddle was: What, in Alan’s life, still sucks? They were having such a hard time coming up with the answer that Alan decided to give them a hint, in the form of another riddle. He clasped his hands on the table, and said, “What is greater than God, more evil than the Devil, the rich need it, and the poor have it?”

“I’ve got no clue,” Roland said.

“That was the clue,” Alan said.

“What was the clue?”

“The riddle I just told you.”

“The clue to what?”

“To the larger riddle.”

“What larger riddle?”

“The one you have both been trying to guess since we sat down.”

“And what is this larger riddle?”

“I don’t need to tell you. We all three know what it is,” Alan said.

“Well what’s the answer to it?” Roland asked.

“The same as the answer to this smaller riddle. I’ll let you figure it out. Supposedly, third-graders more often guess this little riddle than do graduate students.”

On the drive back to the country, Roland was in a bad mood trying to guess the riddle. He was repeating it to himself out loud while driving. Lynn was looking out her window quietly, lost in thought. Softly, she finally said, “It’s nothing.”

“What?” he said, turning toward her angrily. “What are you saying? Speak up!”

“Nothing.”

“You said something. Have the courtesy to tell me this thing which you impolitely mumbled, nom de merde!”

“Nothing, that’s—”

He raised his hand to hit her. She raised her arm to shield her face. The car swerved. She screamed. Horns honked. He pulled over on the side of the road.

“Now tell me what the fuck you were saying,” he said in a quiet, chilling voice.

Eyes wide with fear, she chose her words carefully, making sure not to begin her reply with the word “nothing.”

“The answer to the riddle,” she said, “is the word ‘nothing.’ That’s what I was trying to tell you.” She waited, still worried he might hit her. But instead, he looked at the steering wheel and made little sounds as he went over the riddle in his head. “Hmph,” he finally said.

Lynn quietly added, “And what is wrong with Alan’s life? Nothing.”

“Oh, he thinks he’s so clever, the little prick, with his ri-dull.”

Lynn stared at Roland.

He started the car, muttering, “His stupid riddle that’s so dumb only third-graders can guess it. Third-graders and Lynn.”

Three weeks later, Alan was making love with his girlfriend when the phone rang.

“Don’t answer,” she mumbled, her mouth full.

“I have to. It could be my friend Martin, who’s been feeling suicidal lately.”

Alan answered the phone, and Jessica stopped what she was doing, out of respect for this suicidal Martin, in case it was him.

But instead, Alan said, “Lynn?” with surprise. He sat up a little.

Jessica immediately resumed what she was doing. Alan tried to push her away, but he knew it was futile.

“Yes, it’s me,” Lynn said, “How are you?”

“Fine, and you?”

“Um, not so great. That’s why I’m calling. I just wanted to ask a little favor. Um …” and she began to talk to him about Roland, and how she didn’t think he was doing very well.

Alan felt awkward being on the phone while Jessica was tending to him so devotedly and exquisitely, but he didn’t see how he could interrupt the call with Lynn, who sounded quite upset.

He found an opening and said, “I’m sorry to hear things aren’t going so well. You said you had a favor to ask?”

“Yes, you see, um, I was really impressed by how much you’ve changed, how much happier you seem to be. It’s miraculous, the way you’ve turned your life around, except I’m sure it’s the furthest thing from a miracle, considering all the work you’ve probably put into it. And so I thought to myself, if Alan can do it, anyone can do it. No offense, Alan.”

“None taken,” Alan said. He started playing with Jessica’s gun, which she had discarded with her clothes in a heap on the floor. After taking out the bullets, he twirled the gun around his finger. Jessica was still occupied with him.

“Anyway,” Lynn said, “I was wondering if you would mind having a meeting with Roland, but this time one-on-one, where you could perhaps advise him, or I don’t know, just do some good.”

At first Alan wondered if this was a practical joke, but he had become good at recognizing genuine misery.

“Does Roland know about this?” he asked.

“No.”

“And you think he’d be interested?”

“No. Never. You’d have to trick him into it, make it sound like you’re having some problems and want to confide in him. Make him feel like he’s doing you the favor, not that you are doing me a favor. Then I think he’d go for it.”

“Hmm. Listen, I’m flattered that you think I’ve changed so much, but you know, I really have a lot of work. I wish I could help, but I just don’t have the time.”

There was silence on her end. And then, softly, she said, “You were my last hope. I’ll have to end it with him.”

“Is it really that bad?”

“It’s worse,” she said, and he could hear her cry. “He’s verbally abusive. Sometimes almost physically, too.”

“Well you should leave him, then! Get outa there!” Alan said, aiming the gun at the clock on the wall as if it were a head.

“I can’t … quite. I keep thinking it will get better,” she said. “If only there were some beneficial influence on him.”

Apparently fed up, Jessica got off him and walked away.

“Okay. I’ll do it,” Alan said, eager to get off the phone and recapture his girlfriend.

“Thank you so much,” Lynn said.

“Sure. Oh, but what type of problem should I say I’m having?”

“Anything. Like, that … you’re afraid your girlfriend might be cheating on you, or something.”

The next day, as Lynn walked into the house carrying bags of groceries, Roland pranced into the kitchen in his boxer shorts and said, “Guess who called?”

She hadn’t seen him this cheerful in a long time. “Who?”

“Alan.”

“Really?”

“Yup.” Roland plucked a grape from a bag, popped it in his mouth.

“Why?”

“It seems that I was right. No one’s life is perfect. His is not, despite that little show he put on for us, and his stupid riddle. He’s having some problems.”

“What are they?”

“Wants to meet up with me, man to man, to confide. What a loser.”

Lynn placed the milk in the fridge sadly.

Roland went on. “And so I very cleverly thought of something we could get out of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, in exchange for doing him this favor, I asked that he let us see his apartment.”

“Why?”

“So that we’ll have something to amuse us afterward. In case his problems aren’t enough.”

“But if he wants to see you man to man, I can’t go with you.”

“We can still meet him at his place, then you can go off and do something else while I have lunch with him.”

“I don’t feel like going into the city.”

“You’re such a drag. I want you to come. I did this for you.”

“Did what for me?”

“Got him to agree to let us see his apartment! I did it for the sake of our relationship, so that you and I could hopefully have a little rapprochement, through laughter. If you don’t come with me, I’ll take it as a sign that you have no interest in our relationship.”

Lynn sighed. “Okay, I’ll go.”

He leaned his body against hers, pressing her against the fridge, and lifted her skirt. The magnets squeaked, digging into her back. She tried to resist him, slightly. He persevered. There was really only one type of occasion left in their daily lives when she didn’t find him repulsive, and that was when he pretended to force himself on her. But the appeal of even that was fading.

“Not a bad little place you’ve got here,” Roland said, standing in Alan’s living room, as Lynn looked on. “This white chair seems out of place here, though. It’s dirty.”

“I know,” Alan said. “It’s my white elephant. I keep meaning to get rid of it, but I can’t stand the thought of just throwing it away. Do you know anyone who might want it?”

“Lord, no. Just dump it. And that rat, too, in my opinion. Okay, shall we go to lunch?”

“Yes,” Alan said. “Lynn, will you be all right on your own? Feel free to stay here while we’re out, if you want to rest. There’s plenty of food in the fridge.”

Lynn started objecting, but Roland cut her off. “That’s so nice of you. I’m sure she’d like to rest a little before walking the streets.”

Lynn rolled her eyes at Roland’s fondness for incorporating lame insulting double meanings in his comments about her.

“Okay then. Let me just go to the bathroom, and we can go.” Alan left the living room.

Roland whispered to Lynn, “When we’re gone, rummage around a little. Try to find stuff we can laugh about later. Believe me, we need it.”

The two men left Lynn alone in the apartment. Roland dropped a button on his way out.

Ray the homeless man had been surprised to see Lynn and Roland entering Alan’s apartment building and was even more stunned to see Alan and Roland leaving together with Lynn still inside. He wondered what it all meant, but he suppressed his curiosity, telling himself that whatever the explanation, it was bound to contain a core of triviality. Strange people were just trying to tantalize him, and he was determined to resist.

“So, what’s your problem, little buddy?” Roland asked, biting into a cheeseburger.

That French accent didn’t mix well with his Americanisms.

“I’m afraid my girlfriend might be cheating on me,” Alan said, not having had the time to come up with a better pretext for the meeting.

“Hmm. I’m sorry to hear it. But before we get into that, I’ve always wondered, why is being a sex addict a problem?”

“It gets in the way of work and relationships.”

“How did it get in the way of her work as a private detective?” Roland snickered. He was capable of snickering in a normal fashion.

“For example, she was hired to follow a man to find out if he was having an affair. And even though he was not, he ended up having one with her.”

“Oh, I see. And you said you met her when she was in a Sex Addicts meeting next to your Stalkaholics meeting? How did you start dating?”

“The two meetings let out at the same time, and you can often see the stalkers and the sex addicts eyeing each other. It’s not uncommon for members of one group to start dating members of the other.”

“Please go on.”

“There’s a lot of tension when the stalkers and sex addicts mingle in the hallway. Many of them scurry away like criminals, trying to resist their temptations. She, being a professional stalker, liked the fact that I didn’t seem ashamed of my addiction. That was important to her, since my addiction is her profession, and she didn’t want to be with someone who was ashamed of what she did for a living. It’s kind of ironic since she’s ashamed of her addiction.”

“She’s ashamed of being a sex addict?”

“Oh, horribly. In fact, she’s in complete denial of it. Not at first, she wasn’t. Later, when she started getting her addiction under control, she no longer wanted to think of herself as a sex addict and became convinced she no longer was. I had to constantly remind her of the twelve-step belief that an addict is always an addict.”

“Well, maybe she isn’t one, any longer,” Roland said.

Alan gave him an exasperated look. “One of our ongoing battles is she wants me to dress up as a pink rabbit and go to Central Park and have sex with her in public.”

“Is she nuts?”

“No. She’s a sex addict.”

“For everyone to see? In the middle of the crowds?”

“Yes, but hidden by the costume I’d be wearing, so it wouldn’t be obvious what we were doing.”

“Do you guys have sex a lot?”

“A fair amount. She’s like a very lovely patient who needs to be administered to. The Sex Addicts Anonymous meetings have helped her a lot, though. She’s doing so much better. She’s had relapses in the past, but not since I’ve met her, and I don’t think there’s much chance of one happening at this point. I really trust her.” Alan caught himself just in time. “Except, of course, that I don’t.”

Roland nodded. “So what makes you think she’s cheating on you?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s just my paranoia.”

“You brought me all the way over here for your paranoia? No, man, tell me the truth.”

“It’s just a feeling I have. But I’m probably wrong.”

“Give me some facts.”

Not having expected Roland to be so pushy, Alan had not prepared any facts. So he had to improvise. “Oh, there’s that chair. My white chair. It has some spots on it.”

“Damn you, I can’t believe you dragged me to the city for this.”

“Well, how do you explain the spots?” Alan stabbed at his spinach salad. “They look as though they’ve been washed.”

“So? Do people only scrub off sex spots, not food spots? What makes you think they’re sex spots and not food spots?”

“I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I have. I told you it was my paranoia.”

“What else?”

“Hmm. The fact that sometimes when I call her, she’s out of breath and when I ask her why, she says she’s exercising, and only then does the aerobics tape start playing in the background.”

“Maybe she turned off the volume to answer the phone, then turned it back on when she heard it was you. What else have you got?”

“Actually, once when she said she was exercising, I told her to undress so we could have phone sex, and she said something like, ‘Hang on, my underwear is caught on my heel.’ Her heel? She was wearing heels while exercising?”

“Maybe she meant the heel of her sneaker or the heel of her foot.”

“Right. Or maybe she meant the heel of her red pumps, which she only wears while having sex. Or maybe she lied and was already naked, already having sex, with someone else, on my spotted white easy chair.”

“Too bad you can’t ask the rat. He probably saw it all.”

Alan didn’t answer. He was looking down at his food, playing with his spinach salad.

Roland said, “Jeez, man, I’m sorry. It sounds like she probably is cheating on you.”

“No, I’m sure she’s not. It’s all in my head.” Abruptly, Alan raised his hand, flagged down the waitress, and ordered a beer, hoping to get carded, but he wasn’t.

Finally, he said to Roland, “So anyway, how are things with you and Lynn?”

“Hmm. Not so well. My problem with Lynn is that I can’t get over the fact that she used to stalk me. It’s hard for me to respect her. Scratch that. It’s impossible for me to respect her.”

“That’s a shame. You may lose her.”

“Pff! Where do you get off?”

“I don’t mean to sound presumptuous, but isn’t it the same story with lots of folks? If only you hadn’t succeeded in winning her over so thoroughly, you’d probably still be crazy about her?”

“It’s not just that. It’s also what I said. I don’t have a problem with people, like your girlfriend, who stalk for a living, who stalk for profit. But when people stalk for pleasure, that bugs me. It’s the same as with hunting. Hunting for pleasure is sick. Hunting for food is fine. And it’s the opposite of sex. Sex for pleasure is fine. Sex for profit is wrong.”

“But she was only fake-stalking you. She was forcing herself.”

“I don’t buy it anymore. I think that was her ploy to get me.”

“That was her ploy to want you. Not to get you.”

“I said I don’t buy it anymore! Also, this will probably sound sick to you, but the fact that you wanted her …”

“What?”

“Well, that added some spice for me.”

Alan just stared.

Roland added, “Now that you don’t want her anymore, it’s not the same. You don’t want her, right?”

Alan hesitated. “She’s … a very desirable woman.”

Roland snorted. “That answers my question.”

Alan tried to reason with him, sang Lynn’s praises, but it didn’t seem to do much good. He gave up and drank his beer.

Back at the apartment, Lynn did not rummage or snoop. She sat on the armless white easy chair, flipped through some fashion magazines she had brought with her, made a few phone calls from her cell phone. And then she thought.

When the two men returned to the apartment, Lynn raised her eyes, but not herself, from the white chair, and said, “I’m sorry, but it’s over, Roland. I’m not going back to the country with you. I want out of this relationship. I called Patricia. I’ll be staying with her.”

“Lynn, are you sure about this?” Alan asked. “We talked at lunch.”

“Very constructive, I’m sure,” she said.

Alan could not, in all good conscience, tell her that it had been very constructive. “I don’t know,” he replied.

“Well I do,” she said. “It’s better this way.”

Roland’s pride did not allow him to show that he was stunned, did not allow him to say much more than, “Okay, then, if that’s what you want. I’m off.”

When the door closed behind him, Lynn cried. She cried in Alan’s arms. “I don’t know why I’m crying. I’m not really sad.”

“It’s okay,” Alan said, holding her nobly.

When Ray saw Roland leaving alone, he didn’t know what to think. He tried not to think. He distracted himself by thrusting his cup at passersby more vigorously than usual.