What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories

school. Terri, hon, don't look that way." Mel reached across the table and touched Terri's cheek with his fingers. He grinned at her.
    "Now he wants to make up," Terri said.
    What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
    "Make up what?" Mel said. "What is there to make up? I know what I know. That's all."
    "How'd we get started on this subject, anyway?" Terri said. She raised her glass and drank from it. "Mel always has love on his mind," she said. "Don't you, honey?" She smiled, and I thought that was the last of it.
    "I just wouldn't call Ed's behavior love. That's all I'm saying, honey," Mel said. "What about you guys?" Mel said to Laura and me. "Does that sound like love to you?"
    "I'm the wrong person to ask," I said. "I didn't even know the man. I've only heard his name mentioned in passing. I wouldn't know. You'd have to know the particulars. But I think what you're saying is that love is an absolute."
    Mel said, "The kind of love I'm talking about is. The kind of love I'm talking about, you don't try to kill people."
    Laura said, "I don't know anything about Ed, or anything about the situation. But who can judge anyone else's situation?"
    I touched the back of Laura's hand. She gave me a quick smile. I picked up Laura's hand. It was warm, the nails polished, perfectly manicured. I encircled the broad wrist with my fingers, and I held her.
    "WHEN I left, he drank rat poison," Terri said. She clasped her arms with her hands. "They took him to the hospital in Santa Fe. That's where we lived then, about ten miles out. They saved his life. But his gums went crazy from it. I mean they pulled away from his teeth. After that, his teeth stood out like fangs. My God," Terri said. She waited
    What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
    a minute, then let go of her arms and picked up her glass.
    "What people won't do!" Laura said.
    "He's out of the action now," Mel said. "He's dead."
    Mel handed me the saucer of limes. I took a section, squeezed it over my drink, and stirred the ice cubes with my finger.
    "It gets worse," Terri said. "He shot himself in the mouth. But he bungled that too. Poor Ed," she said. Terri shook her head.
    "Poor Ed nothing," Mel said. "He was dangerous."
    Mel was forty-five years old. He was tall and rangy with curly soft hair. His face and arms were brown from the tennis he played. When he was sober, his gestures, all his movements, were precise, very careful.
    "He did love me though, Mel. Grant me that," Terri said. "That's all I'm asking. He didn't love me the way you love me. I'm not saying that. But he loved me. You can grant me that, can't you?"
    "What do you mean, he bungled it?" I said.
    Laura leaned forward with her glass. She put her elbows on the table and held her glass in both hands. She glanced from Mel to Terri and waited with a look of bewilderment on her open face, as if amazed that such things happened to people you were friendly with.
    "How'd he bungle it when he killed himself?" I said.
    "I'll tell you what happened," Mel said. "He took this twenty-two pistol he'd bought to threaten Terri and me with. Oh, I'm serious, the man was always threatening. You should have seen the way we lived in those days. Like fugitives. I even bought a gun myself. Can you believe it? A
    What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
    guy like me? But I did. I bought one for self-defense and carried it in the glove compartment. Sometimes I'd have to leave the apartment in the middle of the night. To go to the hospital, you know? Terri and I weren't married then, and my first wife had the house and kids, the dog, everything, and Terri and I were living in this apartment here. Sometimes, as I say, I'd get a call in the middle of the night and have to go in to the hospital at two or three in the morning. It'd be dark out there in the parking lot, and I'd break into a sweat before I could even get to my car. I never knew if he was going to come up out of the shrubbery or from behind a car and start shooting. I mean, the man was crazy. He was capable of wiring a bomb, anything. He used to call my service at all hours and say he needed to talk to the doctor, and when I'd return the call, he'd say, 'Son of a bitch, your days are numbered.' Little things like that. It was scary, I'm telling you."
    "I still feel sorry for him," Terri said.
    "It sounds like a nightmare," Laura said. "But what exactly happened after he shot himself?"
    Laura is a legal secretary. We'd met in a professional capacity. Before we knew