What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories

the TV. Also maybe the desk. How much do you want for the bed?"
    "I was thinking fifty dollars for the bed," the man said.
    "Would you take forty?" the girl asked.
    "I'll take forty," the man said.
    He took a glass out of the carton. He took the newspaper off the glass. He broke the seal on the whiskey.
    "How about the TV?" the boy said.
    "Twenty-five."
    "Would you take fifteen?" the girl said.
    Why Don't You Dance?
    "fifteen's okay. I could take fifteen," the man said.
    The girl looked at the boy.
    "You kids, you'll want a drink," the man said. "Glasses in that box. I'm going to sit down. I'm going to sit down on the sofa."
    The man sat on the sofa, leaned back, and stared at the boy and the girl.
    THE boy found two glasses and poured whiskey.
    "That's enough," the girl said. "I think I want water in mine."
    She pulled out a chair and sat at the kitchen table.
    "There's water in that spigot over there," the man said. "Turn on that spigot."
    The boy came back with the watered whiskey. He cleared his throat and sat down at the kitchen table. He grinned. But he didn't drink anything from his glass.
    The man gazed at the television. He finished his drink and started another. He reached to turn on the floor lamp. It was then that his cigarette dropped from his fingers and fell between the cushions.
    The girl got up to help him find it.
    "So what do you want?" the boy said to the girl.
    The boy took out the checkbook and held it to his lips as if thinking.
    "I want the desk," the girl said. "How much money is the desk?"
    The man waved his hand at this preposterous question.
    "Name a figure," he said.
    He looked at them as they sat at the table. In the lamplight,
    What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
    there was something about their faces. It was nice or it was nasty. There was no telling.
    "I'M going to turn off this TV and put on a record," the man said. "This record-player is going, too. Cheap. Make me an offer."
    He poured more whiskey and opened a beer.
    "Everything goes," said the man.
    The girl held out her glass and the man poured.
    "Thank you," she said. "You're very nice," she said.
    "It goes to your head," the boy said. "Pm getting it in the head." He held up his glass and jiggled it.
    The man finished his drink and poured another, and then he found the box with the records.
    "Pick something," the man said to the girl, and he held the records out to her.
    The boy was writing the check.
    "Here," the girl said, picking something, picking anything, for she did not know the names on these labels. She got up from the table and sat down again. She did not want to sit still.
    "I'm making it out to cash," the boy said.
    "Sure," the man said.
    They drank. They listened to the record. And then the man put on another.
    Why don't you kids dance? he decided to say, and then he said it. "Why don't you dance?"
    "I don't think so," the boy said.
    "Go ahead," the man said. "It's my yard. You can dance if you want to."
    Why Don't You Dancei
    ARMS about each other, their bodies pressed together, the boy and the girl moved up and down the driveway. They were dancing. And when the record was over, they did it again, and when that one ended, the boy said, "I'm drunk."
    The girl said, "You're not drunk."
    "Well, I'm drunk," the boy said.
    The man turned the record over and the boy said, "I am."
    "Dance with me," the girl said to the boy and then to the man, and when the man stood up, she came to him with her arms wide open.
    "THOSE people over there, they're watching," she said.
    "It's okay," the man said. "It's my place," he said.
    "Let them watch," the girl said.
    "That's right," the man said. "They thought they'd seen everything over here. But they haven't seen this, have they?" he said.
    He felt her breath on his neck.
    "I hope you like your bed," he said.
    The girl closed and then opened her eyes. She pushed her face into the man's shoulder. She pulled the man closer.
    "You must be desperate or something," she said.
    WEEKS later, she said: "The guy was about middle-aged. All his things right there in his yard. No lie. We got real pissed and danced. In the driveway. Oh, my God. Don't laugh. He played us these records. Look at this record-
    What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
    player. The old guy gave it to us. And all these crappy records. Will you look at this shit?"
    She kept talking. She told everyone. There was more to it, and she was trying to get it talked out. After a time, she quit trying.
    VlEWFINDER
    A MAN