What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories

driver hit his horn.
    "Cram it!" Jerry shouted.
    He pulled off a little and let the car go around. Then he pulled back up alongside the girls.
    Bill said, "We'll give you a lift. We'll take you where you want. That's a promise. You must be tired riding those bicycles. You look tired. Too much exercise isn't good for a person. Especially for girls."
    The girls laughed.
    "You see?" Bill said. "Now tell us your names."
    "I'm Barbara, she's Sharon," the little one said.
    "All right!" Jerry said. "Now find out where they're going."
    "Where you girls going?" Bill said. "Barb?"
    She laughed. "No place," she said. "Just down the road."
    "Where down the road?"
    "Do you want me to tell them?" she said to the other girl.
    "I don't care," the other girl said. "It doesn't make any difference," she said. "I'm not going to go anyplace with anybody anyway," the one named Sharon said.
    "Where you going?" Bill said. "Are you going to Picture Rock?"
    The girls laughed.
    "That's where they're going," Jerry said.
    What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
    He fed the Chevy gas and pulled up off onto the shoulder so that the girls had to come by on his side.
    "Don't be that way," Jerry said. He said, "Come on." He said, "We're all introduced."
    The girls just rode on by.
    "I won't bite you!" Jerry shouted.
    The brunette glanced back. It seemed to Jerry she was looking at him in the right kind of way. But with a girl you could never be sure.
    Jerry gunned it back onto the highway, dirt and pebbles flying from under the tires.
    "Well be seeing you!" Bill called as they went speeding by.
    "It's in the bag," Jerry said. "You see the look that cunt gave me?"
    "I don't know," Bill said. "Maybe we should cut for home."
    "We got it made!" Jerry said.
    H E pulled off the road under some trees. The highway forked here at Picture Rock, one road going on to Yakima, the other heading for Naches, Enumclaw, the Chinook Pass, Seattle.
    A hundred yards off the road was a high, sloping, black mound of rock, part of a low range of hills, honeycombed with footpaths and small caves, Indian sign-painting here and there on the cave walls. The cliff side of the rock faced the highway and all over it there were things like this: NACHES 67 —GLEED WILDCATS—JESUS SAVES—BEAT YAKIMA — REPENT NOW.
    Tell the Women We're Going
    They sat in the car, smoking cigarettes. Mosquitoes came in and tried to get at their hands.
    "Wish we had a beer now," Jerry said. "I sure could go for a beer," he said.
    Bill said, "Me too," and looked at his watch.
    WHEN the girls came into view, Jerry and Bill got out of the car. They leaned against the fender in front.
    "Remember," Jerry said, starting away from the car, "the dark one's mine. You got the other one."
    The girls dropped their bicycles and started up one of the paths. They disappeared around a bend and then reappeared again, a little higher up. They were standing there and looking down.
    "What're you guys following us for?" the brunette called down.
    Jerry just started up the path.
    The girls turned away and went off again at a trot.
    Jerry and Bill kept climbing at a walking pace. Bill was smoking a cigarette, stopping every so often to get a good drag. When the path turned, he looked back and caught a glimpse of the car.
    "Move it!" Jerry said.
    "I'm coming," Bill said.
    They kept climbing. But then Bill had to catch his breath. He couldn't see the car now. He couldn't see the highway, either. To his left and all the way down, he could see a strip of the Naches like a strip of aluminum foil.
    Jerry said, "You go right and I'll go straight. We'll cut the cockteasers off."
    What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
    Bill nodded. He was too winded to speak.
    He went higher for a while, and then the path began to drop, turning toward the valley. He looked and saw the girls. He saw them crouched behind an outcrop. Maybe they were smiling.
    Bill took out a cigarette. But he could not get it lit. Then Jerry showed up. It did not matter after that.
    Bill had just wanted to fuck. Or even to see them naked. On the other hand, it was okay with him if it didn't work out.
    He never knew what Jerry wanted. But it started and ended with a rock. Jerry used the same rock on both girls, first on the girl called Sharon and then on the one that was supposed to be Bill's.
    Afterthe Denim
    EDITH Packer had the tape cassette plugged into her ear, and she was smoking one of his cigarettes. The TV played without any volume as she sat on the