She fucked this spade dude, him saying, You know you need it, you know you do, you know you haven’t been getting it right; a professional dancer and photographer from New York who said, Wow, who are you, I can’t believe there’s someone like you in a place like this; this big guy, a bearded cocaine dealer who wore Big Mac coveralls and drove a vw van, trying three times with him before deciding he was both a chauvinist and impotent; a younger guy from France, an architectural student at USC who lived in a terraced house in Topanga Canyon and who drove a Mercedes-Benz.
“We went camping and watched the sunset and, well, I’ve sort of gotten involved.”
“That’s nice,” he said, a weak sick feeling starting to leak out into his voice. “I think that’s good.”
“It’s not serious or anything, don’t get the wrong idea, but I don’t think I’m ready yet.”
“Sure,” he said.
“I think we should try this a while longer.”
“All right,” he said.
There was a silence.
“You’ll call?”
“Sure,” he said.
“Okay, I’m glad you called.”
“All right,” he said.
“I don’t want you to take this too seriously. You won’t, will you?”
“No,” he said, “of course not.”
“It isn’t serious.”
“All right,” he said.
There was another silence.
“Well, I’ve got to go now,” he said.
“I will,” he said.
“You know I couldn’t sleep at night after you left. I tried to be there. I did try.”
“I know,” he said.
“I tried my best.”
“All right,” he said. “G’bye.”
“Bye.”
He hung up the phone. The change kicked down and vibrated inside the box.
“What she have to tell me all that shit for?”