“That realtor is getting suspicious, man,” he said. “You can move to my guest room.”
“I don’t think I can,” I said.
“I know,” he said. Raindrops dimpled the choppy surface of the lake.
The problem with people who are honest with you, I thought, envying the tears that flowed freely down George’s face, is that you start feeling like being honest with them, too. And the problem with being honest is that it requires a full grasp on the truth, no assumptions or slanted lies. No words like could have, maybe, or sort of, and only words like sorry, angry, foreclosure, and gone.
It was raining harder the next day so I brushed the thick layer of wet leaves off the windshield of my Honda. I was relieved when it started. Driving to town past the quarry and the biggest, freshest eggs made me nervous. It was like watching my own life from behind a pane of glass.
“Is that your car?” Sophia asked, elbow deep in the strawberry cheesecake swirl. “Where did you get New Hampshire plates?”
“Want to drive back to my house with me?” I said instead of answering.
We stopped for eggs on the way home.
“I’ve always wondered about this place,” she said. “Do you cook?”
Al Foster is a stud bringing home chicks and cooking eggs, I thought.
“Is your house for sale?” Sophia asked as we pulled up.
The hide-a-rock was where I left it. Gotcha, Cathy Berman. Sophia and I stepped into the house and all my ghosts held their breath. We put the eggs on the counter and I showed her the pantry, the bedroom, the view. We lit an apple-scented candle.
The danger of lighting apple-scented candles is that, even when you light them without the intention of doing anything more than achieving the perfect ambiance for some casual lake-house sex, you can get hit with a memory. The fact that, two years prior, you were the same person but doing and thinking such different things, can slap you in the face along with the familiar orchard smell.
“Want to run away?” I asked.
Sophia laughed.
“You’re funny,” she said.
“Not really,” I said. “Do you want something to eat? Do you want to go to sleep?”
“I have no idea,” she said, laying back onto the braided carpet and flinging her arms up over her head.
I tried to force myself to get over the novelty of a naked girl purposefully in my proximity. This is a lonely thing, I thought, inching closer to her on the rug.
A key turned in the lock and Sophia pulled her shirt to her chest.
“Allen? Do you have a roommate?”
Just ghosts, I thought.
The ponytailed woman was suddenly in the room with us. Bitch bitch bitch. She did not look at the view.
“Do I need to call the police?” she said.
“No,” I said, knowing it wasn’t time to try something clever. “No, we’re leaving.”
When we passed the egg farm I remembered that the eggs were still on the counter. For a moment it seemed like the most important thing in the world. Those were my eggs, waiting delicate and raw for me to cook them. I’d abandoned them. Just drove the fuck away.