We weren’t in our right state of mind. News from the south sent us to the Bronx. On our way there our bicycle tires went flat and we ended up at a taqueria, where they used chopsticks. There, we ended up kissing but breaking off our engagement.

Champagne for no one.

We had to make due with saltines and a tin of tomato soup. Times were hard but we made the best of things. There was no weed or mushrooms either, for recreation or otherwise–hell, there were no plants at all. So we sat around the campfire, the five of us, reminiscing about the times when we had so much at our disposal: the internet, fatty foods, diet colas, condoms, sapphire diamonds.
But to have warmth and friends was something we didn’t appreciate until now, with so little time left on this earth. It was always snowing and it seemed like it would never stop.
One of our more optimistic friends said that snow meant water, at least.  We could at least stay hydrated, if not warm, for the moment. And she kept having to repeat that as our teeth chattered more and more, as we huddled so close to the campfire that we knew–just knew in our hear of hearts–that we would eventually burn.

Burn: imagine that: burn as the world froze.

“I like baseball in my tea,” I told the shortstop when he came over for tea.
He thought I was flirting with him. He blushed. I apologize and clarified that I was being metaphorical. He didn’t seem to like that either. Finally I was like hey, “You’re an old man and I’m not attracted to you.”

But that didn’t make him feel any better either.  I gave up and drank my tea.

Soloists gathered in the lawn to perform. They could not decide who would perform first. This was a last minute gig and neither of the soloists knew each other.
The only one who seemed to have an sense at this time was a young dog name Ray who went around sniffing them out and deciding on the lineup.
The soloists agreed this made sense.
They played until the afternoon. About twenty people showed up, some even bringing blankets and covert wine.
The soloists considered it a success and quickly disbanded after the last performance since there was no money to be disbursed. It was a free gig. But as Ray the Dog would say, A gig is a gig.

I hid in the barn behind the stacks of hay. They came in a moment later. I listened to their discussions. They talked for almost an hour. They talked about the weather, baseball, their favorite hitters and pitchers, the World Series.
Then they stopped talking about all that and they started kissing. I was embarrassed and felt that I should leave. But I couldn’t or else they would discover me.

So I stayed and prayed they would not go any further than kissing.

They did.

It was agreed that their daughters would eat first and then be off to school. Two of them were in high school so that would be easy.
But the youngest was just ten and she seemed to sense things before they happened. Or maybe she was just a really good listener. Or maybe she pressed her ear against the door and eavesdropped on her parents’s conversations.

This particular daughter began crying into her oatmeal at breakfast. The two older sisters looked at their parents and said “This is all your fault, isn’t it?”
For it seemed the other two daughters were aware of their parents marriage troubles. The parents came clean and said yes, and they were also getting a divorce.

The younger daughter cried louder; she was inconsolable. The two older daughters picked up their books, oatmeal untouched, and decided against taking the bus to school. They would walk instead, they announced. Which was fine by the parents who didn’t had enough problems without starting an argument about their daughters modes of transportation. Which if they were walking, would be no mode, technically.

The rain slapped against the kid and the kid slapped against the rain and there was some struggle that almost seemed, for an instant, where the kid would win against Mother Nature.
But then he got distracted by a rainbow in the east. And it was too high and beautiful to rail against.

We met at Starbucks.
We were only in line for a few minutes when I turned to him and said, “Can I be honest? My heart is pounding in my chest.”
He smiled, but only with his eyes, and said, “Mine too.”

We actually met much earlier, a few weeks ago. At holiday party that Mark and I were throwing at our apartment. Which I called a Christmas party. Which I remember saying to him when I saw him for the first time, as he walked into the apartment: “Merry Christmas!”

“Happy holidays!” he retorted, evidently eager to play along with my outlandish political incorrectness.

“I like saying Merry Christmas.” As if I needed to explain my greeting.

“Good for you,” he said, with a wink. And that was the first hint I had at his personality. That no only was he willing to go along with a whim of mine, but maybe me altogether. Immediately I started molding an image of him, in my head. Things were gelling, gaining texture and speed…

…When a woman came up behind him and said “Hello.”
The man then said, “I don’t think we met,” he extending his hand. “I’m  Brian and this is  Haley.”

Despite my deflating mind, body and soul, I manage to shake their hands, and invite them in. I managed somehow to ask for their coats. When I got back from the bedroom depositing them, there married status was so flagrant like a fast-growing flowers, petals aflame. They were sitting close together, talking to my husband, Mark.

And yet, somehow after that rocky start, we made it to Starbucks:

As we sat down with our coffees. He said, “Well.”
And I said, “Yes?”

When it was clear he wasn’t going to continue my prompt, I jumped in with, “I guess neither one of us done this sort of thing before?”

He kinda shrugged.

“Oh,” I said.

“One other time,” he said. “But it was with woman.”

“So are you gay or bisexual or…”

“Bisexual. You?”

“Gay. Pretty much.”

“Pretty much,” he repeats and takes a sip of his coffee.

*************************

I am wrong about Haley, and have suspected all this time that I was. She is a good woman. She doesn’t deserve to have a cheating husband. Neither does my husband deserve a cheating one. And Brian and I haven’t done anything yet. But we want to.

***********

The sound of a coffee brewing machine whistled and farted up through the air. I thought of the word fetid, for some reason. It wasn’t word that even remotely described what was going on between us. Brian smelled of aftershave. And I of a lime cologne I hadn’t worn in decades but found at the last minute at the bottom of a dresser drawer, deciding to wear it to our first encounter. Fetid does not refer to our personal smells but the situation we find ourselves in. The situation stinks. We are both on the verge of being unfaithful to our spouses. We need a miracle. A good-smelling one.

We need tennis. Or some otherwise outside activity. Or better still we need to leave each other alone.

The old man who normally sits on the stoop at the building I run past, on my way to Central Park, no longer sits. He’s used to be there all the time, at all times of the day (and sometimes night).
I see that next to the stoop is a sign that that’s been screwed to the railing that reads: No Smoking. When he used to sit on the stoop, he smoked. I want him to show up some day on that stoop, with his pack of Marlboro’s. I don’t know that he’ll break the ordinance. But I hope he does.

People talking. People arguing. No one reading.