The Book of Joe

landing in the worn leather chair behind it.
    The light from her desk lamp picks up the soft blond down on the side of her neck that disappears behind her ears into her scalp.
    “Why would you say that?”
    Carly rolls her eyes. “I mean, what will we really say? You’ll tell me about being a big-time author, and I’ll tell you about running a small-town paper and then we’ll have a few awkward silences, which neither of us will be able to stand, so we’ll say anything to fill them until one of us inevitably brings up the past, probably you, and you’ll apologize for being such an asshole to me in New York and I’ll say forget about it, it’s ancient history, even though that’s not how I really feel, and then I’ll be mad at myself for not telling you, so I will, and then I’ll cry and you’ll think you made a meaningful connection when all you really did is make me cry.
    Again. And then you’ll be off, back to your big life and terribly interesting friends in the big city, and I’ll be here and everything will be just how it was before you came back, except now it will have this irritating little epilogue. And so I say again that it’s pointless.” She raises her eyebrows at me.
    “Don’t you think?”
    “That’s one way of looking at it,” I say slowly. “A neurotic and depressing way, but a way, I guess. May I rebut?”
    “It’s a free country.”
    I take a deep breath. “First of all, I’m sure it’s interesting running the paper and all, but frankly I couldn’t care less, and I’m not remotely interested in talking about being an author. I have no exciting friends or big life in the big city to get back to. As a matter of fact, I don’t even have a little life there.
    You’re probably right that the past will come up - how could it not - but I’m only interested in it as it pertains to the here and now. I was under the impression that I was avoiding the past for the last few years, but it turns out what I was really avoiding was the present and I’m firmly committed to not doing that anymore. There are good reasons for us to talk, to know each other as we are now, but I’m trying not to analyze them for the time being. I’m going on instinct here, which is something entirely new for me, and I promise, the last thing in the world I want to do is make you cry.” I pause dramatically to catch my breath. “It’s just lunch, for god’s sake. It doesn’t mean we’re engaged or anything.”
    A small grin pulls at the corners of Carly’s mouth, but she remains resolute. “I don’t know if I’m up to dealing with this right now.”
    “I said that once, when I was about nineteen,” I say. “Now I’m thirty-four.”
    “Jesus, we’re old,” Carly says wistfully, and I can tell I have her on the fence, her good judgment wavering in the face of my resolve.
    “I can see you’re conflicted. Let me make it easier,” I say, sitting down in one of the chairs facing her desk. “I’m not leaving here without you.”
    She stares at me and I stare right back and something in the air where our eyes meet clicks. “Come on,” I say. “How much damage could I possibly do over lunch?”
    After a moment, Carly closes her eyes. “Oh, well,” she says softly, more to herself than to me, and then stands up. She grabs her leather jacket off a coat tree and I follow her out of her office, back into the newsroom. If the Minuteman staff were interested in me before , they are now shamelessly gawk ing as we make our way back through the work space to the exit. “It doesn’t take much to excite this crowd, does it?” I mutter to Carly.
    “We reap what we sow,” she says, opening the door and stepping out ahead of me into the parking lot. “You gave my employees the opportunity to read the vivid details of how you deflowered me in the backseat of your car. I would say you’ve earned your share of stares.” I smile stupidly and try to ignore the traces of anger in her voice, like microscopic shards of shattered glass after a car wreck.
    The sky is overcast; fat, dirty clouds hang low and thick like pollution over us, the air heavy with the probability of rain. “Your car looks like it was in a bar fight,” Carly says, taking in the Mercedes’ busted taillight and jagged scratches.
    “We’ve both seen better days.”
    She looks across the roof of the car at me, wondering if my comment is inclusive of the car or herself. “Joe,” she says softly, “I’m not sure about