“Just park and I’ll walk with you,” Mark said.
“No point in both of us getting soaked,” she said.
Maggie had pulled over at the curb of a squat brick building with neon cacti and sombreros in the windows.
“Seriously,” he said. “Just park. We’ll go in together.”
The wipers, still hiked up to their fastest speed, went quiet when Maggie put the car in park, and now the front windshield was a streaming mess of water and neon.
“This is stupid,” she said.
Gerome stood up in the backseat. He yawned.
“I’m not getting out without you,” said Mark.
“Fine,” she said.
The truth was he made her nervous when it came to parking. He should have just gotten out of the car like she wanted, but what kind of husband left his wife alone to park in the rain?
The lot was surprisingly full. Maggie circled it once, then twice, passing up two different empty spots.
“You hated those spaces?” Mark said.
She shook her head.
“There’s one,” he said. “Another one.”
She was still shaking her head.
“You’re mad?” he said.
“Stop talking,” she said.
“Park,” he said.
She slammed on the brakes. They were back at the curb.
“Get out,” she said.
He laughed because it was ridiculous. “You get so worked up.”
“You treat me like a child,” she said.
“You act like a child.”
“I’m not hungry anymore,” she said.
Gerome gave a little yowl.
“Well, I am,” Mark said. “So park the car.”
He could see Maggie was on the brink of laughter but determined not to let it out. With his forefinger and thumb, he zipped his lips shut then swallowed an invisible key. She put the car into drive and did another lap.
“So you know,” she said, “it’s not that I think I can’t park with you in the car.”
He pointed to his lips and shrugged, eyes wide.
“I just want a spot where I can still see the car from inside,” she said. “I want to be able to check on Gerome.”
“You think someone is going to steal the dog?”
“I thought you swallowed the key,” she said.
“In this weather?”
“So you didn’t swallow the key,” she said. “You were lying.”
“I keep a spare in my pocket,” he said.
In spite of herself, she laughed. “Should have known,” she said.
A car backed out of a spot immediately outside the front windows of the restaurant. Maggie put on her turn signal and pulled in.
“I try to get mad and you turn instantly charming,” she said. “I married a snake oil salesman.”
“You break it, you buy it,” he said, which was something she’d whispered to him on their wedding day. He’d never forgotten. It had become something they both said now and then—a way to acknowledge the fleas and ticks of their relationship, but also to acknowledge how good they had it: Elizabeth and muggers be damned! Or that was his take on the saying anyway. That’s how he imagined she’d meant it when she said it the first time and how he meant it anytime he’d said it since.
“Gerome’ll be fine,” said Mark. He put a hand on her knee.
“He’s just a dog after all,” she said.
“That’s right,” he said.
“Just the world’s best dog,” she said.
They both turned inward in their seats to look at the dog. He was still standing, staring at them, dread in his eyes. He was just a dog, but he knew they were about to leave him in the car alone, the rain pounding the roof.
“Should we make a run for it?” Maggie said.
“Now or never.”
Ten seconds later, they were standing under the canopy of a Mexican restaurant somewhere just east of Chillicothe. Mark’s jeans were drenched. He looked down at Maggie. Her legs were glistening from the rain. He wanted to run his hands up and down them, an animal desire for ownership.
“You’re a mess,” he said. He felt suddenly lusty.
“Let’s get inside.”
They took a booth along the front windows, which were fogged. They could just barely make out their car and, inside, Gerome, who was still standing. But he’d give up in a minute or two and pass out. Then, when they returned, it would be like they’d never left at all.
Maggie scanned the menu. “Do you think this is safe?” she said. “Like, do you think we might get sick?”
Mark sighed. The Maggie he knew didn’t ask questions about the safety of food. The Maggie he knew had made them go to Mexico for their honeymoon because she’d read about a no-kill shelter in need of supplies and thought it would be fun to do a little volunteering while they were supposed to be celebrating their marriage. “Just wait,” she’d said. “Just wait and see how much more you enjoy life after you’ve done some good for no reason other than that you can.” While they were down there, she’d eaten everything she could get her hands on—from a cart, from a trolley, from the back of a truck. Her digestive tract was indestructible. That was his Maggie. This one Mark wasn’t so sure of.
“Do you know what you want?” he said.
“Do you want to split something?” She ran her finger up and down the page.
A waitress appeared.
Mark looked up. “What’s good?” he said.
The waitress leaned toward him so that her cleavage was showing. She pressed her index finger onto his menu, next to a blurry picture of a plate piled high with food. “Spinach quesadilla,” she said. “Popular.”
When she removed her hand, the sweaty crosshatch of a fingerprint remained. With his thumb, Mark smeared the small grease stain away.
In the back of the restaurant—the kitchen, maybe—there was a small explosion, or what sounded like an explosion. The place went quiet. A few seconds later, the lights flickered. A few seconds after that, the lights went out altogether. The restaurant was pitch-black.
“Mark?” said Maggie.
“I’m right here,” he said.
“Shh. Just wait.” It was the waitress. She was whispering. She had leaned down even lower, her face close to their table. Mark thought he could feel her breath on his forehead, taste its salty foreignness in his mouth. His lustiness intensified and he pushed himself down into his seat. He considered sucking his thumb. “Just wait one second,” she said. “The electrical panel. It’s been popping all night.”
A minute later there was the sound of another small explosion, and then the lights were back. Then, a moment after that, a sound system started up, the televisions behind the bar powered back on, and the place filled with a sort of Mexican ska that hadn’t been playing before. The other diners—who Mark now realized must have been moderately to very drunk—cheered. The waitress beamed. “Told you,” she said. But it wasn’t addressed to them so much as it was to the pad in her hand and the people around them.
Mark looked at Maggie. She was sitting dead still, her posture perfect, her lips pressed together so that he couldn’t see that cherished gap. Her shoulders were high and tensed. Her immediate atmosphere had gone cold.
“Maybe we need a minute?” Maggie said. “I’m not ready to order yet.” She was looking at Mark, imploring him with her big eyes. What they were saying—her big doe eyes—was, Let’s get out of here, let’s go right now, let’s leave before there’s trouble and we all wind up dead, dead, dead. But he couldn’t do it. He was tired. He needed some food and maybe a quick beer to help with the tension in his knees.
The waitress—petite, dark-skinned—was still standing there. She didn’t have the body type or facial features that, twenty years ago, Mark would have found attractive. But now, a middle-aged man, he was able to see the appeal in the roundness of such a jaw, the fullness of such a thigh.
“One Corona,” he said.
“What are you doing?” said Maggie. “I thought you were driving next.”
“I am,” he said to Maggie. To the waitress he said, “And a lime.”
The waitress wrote it down. She didn’t care about Mark and Maggie or who was driving next. For that matter, neither did she care about the jumpy electric panel in back or the encroaching storm outside. What she cared about was the tip jar and her next shot of tequila and her two or three little babies waiting for her at home. What she cared about had nothing to do with them, and for that—for her supreme, nearly palpable indifference—Mark felt his entire heart open up.