What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories

About Love
    God bless and keep you, Mr. Exit.
    He told Melody he'd worked on the moon shots. He told my daughter he was close friends with the astronauts. He told her he was going to introduce her to the astronauts as soon as they came to town.
    It's a modern operation out there, the aerospace place where Mr. Fixit used to work. I've seen it. Cafeteria lines, executive dining rooms, and the like. Mr. Coffees in every office.
    Mr. Coffee and Mr. Fixit.
    Myrna says he was interested in astrology, auras, I Ching — that business. I don't doubt that this Ross was bright enough and interesting, like most of our ex-friends. I told Myrna I was sure she wouldn't have cared for him if he wasn't.
    M Y dad died in his sleep, drunk, eight years ago. It was a Friday noon and he was fifty-four. He came home from work at the sawmill, took some sausage out of the freezer for his breakfast, and popped a quart of Four Roses.
    My mother was there at the same kitchen table. She was trying to write a letter to her sister in Little Rock. Finally, my dad got up and went to bed. My mother said he never said good night. But it was morning, of course.
    "Honey," I said to Myrna the night she came home. "Let's hug awhile and then you fix us a real nice supper."
    Myrna said, "Wash your hands."
    Gazebo
    THAT morning she pours Teacher's over my belly and licks it off That afternoon she tries to jump out the window.
    I go, "Holly, this can't continue. This has got to stop."
    We are sitting on the sofa in one of the upstairs suites. There were any number of vacancies to choose from. But we needed a suite, a place to move around in and be able to talk. So we'd locked up the motel office that morning and gone upstairs to a suite.
    She goes, "Duane, this is killing me."
    We are drinking Teacher's with ice and water. We'd slept awhile between morning and afternoon. Then she was out of bed and threatening to climb out the window in her undergarments. I had to get her in a hold. We were only two floors up. But even so.
    What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
    "I've had it," she goes. "I can't take it anymore."
    She puts her hand to her cheek and closes her eyes. She turns her head back and forth and makes this humming noise.
    I could die seeing her like this.
    "Take what?" I go, though of course I know.
    "I don't have to spell it out for you again," she goes. "I've lost control. Fve lost pride. I used to be a proud woman."
    She's an attractive woman just past thirty. She is tall and has long black hair and green eyes, the only green-eyed woman I've ever known. In the old days I used to say things about her green eyes, and she'd tell me it was because of them she knew she was meant for something special.
    And didn't I know it!
    I feel so awful from one thing and the other.
    I can hear the telephone ringing downstairs in the office. It has been ringing off and on all day. Even when I was dozing I could hear it. I'd open my eyes and look at the ceiling and listen to it ring and wonder at what was happening to us.
    But maybe I should be looking at the floor.
    "My heart is broken," she goes. "It's turned to a piece of stone. I'm no good. That's what's as bad as anything, that I'm no good anymore."
    "Holly," I go.
    WHEN we'd first moved down here and taken over as managers, we thought we were out of the woods. Free rent and free utilities plus three hundred a month. You couldn't beat it with a stick.
    Gazebo
    Holly took care of the books. She was good with figures, and she did most of the renting of the units. She liked people, and people liked her back. I saw to the grounds, mowed the grass and cut weeds, kept the swimming pool clean, did the small repairs.
    Everything was fine for the first year. I was holding down another job nights, and we were getting ahead. We had plans. Then one morning, I don't know. I'd just laid some bathroom tile in one of the units when this little Mexican maid comes in to clean. It was Holly had hired her. I can't really say Fd noticed the little thing before, though we spoke when we saw each other. She called me, I remember, Mister.
    Anyway, one thing and the other.
    So after that morning I started paying attention. She was a neat little thing with fine white teeth. I used to watch her mouth.
    She started calling me by my name.
    One morning I was doing a washer for one of the bathroom faucets, and she comes in and turns on the TV as maids are like to do. While they clean, that is. I stopped what I was doing and stepped