The Leftovers

tighties with orange piping, unusually stylish.
    “Nice undies,” she told him.
    “My mom got them at Costco. Eight-pack, all different colors.”
    “My mom used to buy me underwear,” she said. “But I told her it was weird, so she stopped.”
    Max rolled onto his side, propping his chin on his hand, studying her with a thoughtful expression. Now he really did look like an underwear model, if there was a world where underwear models had hairy pipe-cleaner legs and bad muscle tone.
    “I forgot to tell you,” he said. “I saw your mother the other day. She followed me home from my guitar lesson. Her and this other woman.”
    “Really?” Jill tried to sound casual. It was embarrassing, the way her heart leaped every time someone mentioned her mother. “How’s she doing?”
    “Hard to tell. They just did that thing, you know, where they stand really close and stare at you.”
    “I hate that.”
    “It’s creepy,” he agreed. “But I didn’t say anything mean. I just let them walk me home.”
    Jill felt almost sick with longing. She hadn’t caught a glimpse of her mother for months and never bumped into her on the streets of Mapleton, though she was apparently a familiar figure around town. Other people saw her all the time.
    “Was she smoking?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Did you see her light a cigarette?”
    “Probably. Why?”
    “I gave her a lighter for Christmas. I just wondered if she was using it.”
    “Beats me.” His face tightened with thought. “No, wait. They had matches.”
    “You sure?”
    “Yeah.” The doubt had left his voice. “This was like last Friday. Remember how cold it was with the windchill? Her hand was shaking and she was having a really hard time striking the match. I offered to do it for her, but she wouldn’t let me. It took her like three or four tries to get the thing lit.”
    Bitch, Jill thought. Serves her right.
    “Come on.” Max patted the bed. “Relax. You don’t have to take your clothes off if you don’t want to.”
    Jill considered the offer. She used to like resting with Max in the dark, two warm bodies under the covers, talking about whatever came into their heads.
    “I won’t touch you,” he promised. “I won’t even jerk off.”
    “That’s sweet of you,” she said. “But I think I’m gonna go home.”
    *   *   *
    THEY WERE both relieved when the food finally arrived, partly because they were hungry, but mainly because it gave them an excuse to suspend the conversation for a little while, take a breather, and maybe start over on a lighter note. Kevin knew he’d made a mistake, peppering her with so many questions, turning the small talk into an interrogation.
    Be patient, he told himself. This is supposed to be fun.
    After a few silent bites, Nora looked up from her mushroom ravioli.
    “Delicious,” she said. “The cream sauce.”
    “Mine, too.” He held up a morsel of lamb for her perusal, showing her how perfectly grilled it was, brown at the edges, pink in the middle. “Melts in your mouth.”
    She smiled a bit queasily, and he remembered, too late, that she didn’t eat meat. Did it disgust her, he wondered, being asked to admire a piece of cooked flesh skewered on a fork? He understood all too well how you could talk yourself into vegetarianism, teach yourself to think “dead animal” rather than “tender and succulent.” He’d done it himself on numerous occasions, usually after reading articles about factory farms and slaughterhouses, but his qualms always vanished the moment he picked up a menu.
    “So how was your day?” she asked. “Anything interesting happen?”
    Kevin only hesitated for a second. He’d seen this moment coming and had been planning on playing it safe, saying something bland and innocuous— Not really, just went to work and came home —saving the truth for later, some unspecified time in the future when he knew her a little better and their relationship was a little stronger. But when would that be? How could you get to know someone a little better if you couldn’t give an honest answer to a simple question, especially about something so important?
    “My son called this afternoon,” he told her. “I hadn’t heard from him since the summer. I was really worried about him.”
    “Wow,” she said after a brief silence that didn’t quite thicken to the point of awkwardness. “Is he okay?”
    “I think so.” Kevin wanted to smile, but did his best to resist the impulse. “He sounded