The Book of Joe

way to an abandoned stairwell and sit down with my head in my trembling hands, wondering what the hell is going on with me. Things are coming apart inside me, tearing loose from their foundations and scraping my innards as they fall.
    I need a plan, something to give me direction, but I can think only as far as the parking lot, which is where I’m headed when I run into Carly in the lobby.
    An old girlfriend is a gun in your belly. It’s no longer loaded, so when you see her, all you feel is the hollow mechanical click in your gut, and possibly the ghost of an echo, sense memory from when it used to carry live rounds. Occasionally, though, there’s a bullet you missed, lying dormant in its overlooked chamber, and when that trigger gets pulled, the unexpected gunshot is deafening even as the forgotten bullet rips its way through the tissue and muscle of your midsection and out into the light of day. Seeing Carly is like that. Even though we haven’t spoken in almost ten years, it’s an explosion, and in that one instant every memory, every feeling, comes flooding back as fresh as if it were yesterday.
    She’s carrying a small, elegant bouquet of tulips and baby’s breath, and as soon as I see her, I know she’s here to see me. She hasn’t yet noticed me, and I have to fight the overpowering impulse to duck back into the stairwell and hide until my stomach stops its nervous acrobatics. Dressed in a white pullover blouse that’s tucked into a short gray skirt emphasizing her trim waist, she looks pretty much as I remember her, the only change being her hair, which she always wore short and off her face. Now it hangs at a luxurious shoulder length, framing her face and somehow emphasizing its simple, graceful aesthetics. When she sees me, her tentative smile falters as she takes in my bruises and reddened eyes, still a bit raw from the absurd crying fit I just had. For a minute it appears as if she’s ready to turn on her heel and flee, but she waves the bouquet at me, her face breaking into a small, wry grin as she approaches. There seems to be some genuine warmth behind her smile, and as I look at her, registering with satisfaction that her eyes still contain those little flecks of yellow, I feel a familiar flutter in my chest, a highly irrational burst of euphoria. Before I know what I’m doing, I step forward and hug her tightly.
    I want the hug to last forever. I want it to be one of those intense, slowly building movie hugs that start out awkwardly but then, on some nonverbal cue, come into their own as the feelings behind them are suddenly released, and we just melt into each other, all the distance and bad feelings between us unable to withstand the epic nature of our universal connection. A nothing-matters-but-this-very-instant hug. Within a second or two, though, it becomes evident that this particular hug has maxed out at awkward.
    Carly exhales softly, clearly taken aback, but recovers quickly and hugs me back. “You look great,” I say, stepping back as I release her.
    “You don’t,” she says, still grinning as she hands me the flowers.
    We smile, and it’s comfortable for a few seconds, just like old times, but then it gets weird, so I look away and thank her for the flowers.
    “They’re for your dad.”
    “Yes. Of course.”
    “Of course,” she repeats awkwardly, and now I can feel every day of the years that we haven’t been in touch. “How’s he doing?”
    “Not good,” I say. Even under the auspices of a genuine medical crisis, the small talk is offensive to me, a yardstick for the immeasurable distance between us, pebbles dropped into a bottomless well while you wait to hear the faint splash from below. “I think of you,” I say, my voice, so unreliable lately, tripping on the threshold of the last word. “A lot.”
    “I have that effect on many men,” she says, and we smile, not at her joke but because of it.
    “How have you been?” I say.
    “Fine, I guess,” she says, simultaneously shaking her head and flexing her eyebrows at the abject worthlessness of the question. As if ten years could be encapsulated into short answer form. As if she would even want to try.
    “I guess what I mean is, how are you. Really?”
    “I’m good,” she says. “Hit a few rough patches here and there. ’Ninety-eight was a particularly gruesome year, but these days I’m okay. And you?”
    “Apparently, I’m a controversial novelist.”
    She laughs. “You, of all people, should