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: : : NOW THAT THE WEATHER'S NICE, Fletcher and Cassandra and Leander have begun to spend part of their evenings together hanging out at the park. It's usually after dinner that they go out there; they'll walk around the perimeter once or twice and then maybe sit for a while, except Leander, who will continue tearing around on the grass until he finally wears himself out.
Fletcher's been a little surprised to find that even one brisk lap will leave him winded. This has forced him to admit that he's out of shape; more out of shape than he'd previously thought. It's forced him to look in the mirror and acknowledge the beginnings of a beer gut hanging around his waist.
So he's begun to go to a park near his own house on the nights when he's not seeing Cassandra, doing walks on his own. It's no big deal as long as he doesn't tell himself that he's exercising. He can tell himself that he's doing research, out observing things. He's a poet; this is what poets are supposed to do—go out in the world and gather stuff for their poems.
Tonight he's out there walking around with Clark, instead of going out to a bar, which is what they'd normally be doing. They make two laps, watching the romping dogs, before Clark asks to stop. Fletcher flexes his knees while she takes a spot on a bench and tries to get a cigarette lit.
—You know, Fletcher says, —if you quit—
Clark flicks him a warning look. —Don't start with me, she says.
Fletcher rolls his eyes. —I'm just saying, he says, bouncing up and down.
—Yeah, well, don't, she says. —I'm not in the mood.
He sits down, next to her. Frankly he too is grateful for the rest. —What's up? he asks.
—It's this whole Oliver thing, she says.
Fletcher nods. She's been talking to him about Oliver a lot over the past few weeks so he knows the basics—mostly, he knows that things have been awkward between them ever since they slept together, that they haven't yet so much as managed to acknowledge it to one another.
— So what's going on? Fletcher asks. —Anything new?
—Yeah, Clark says, —I guess? I was talking to him on the phone the other night. Our conversations are so fucked up these days—
—Fucked up how?
—Not fucked-up so much as just short. I mean, he and I used to have these long, drawn-out conversations on the phone—awesome conversations. And now it's like we call each other to coordinate some piece of activist business and then when that's done he'll be like well, I'll talk to you Wednesday. And it sucks because I want to be like wait, just stay on the phone for a second, let's just talk to one another—like adults—but I don't want to be that girl, the one who sleeps with the guy and then gets all freaked out and needy.
—I don't know, Fletcher says. —I'd say you have a right to be a little freaked out—
—I'm not that girl, Clark says. She drags on her cigarette, holds it for a second, exhales. —He doesn't owe anything to me. If he doesn't want to have sex again I don't care. I just want to know one way or another. And, I mean, three weeks of not talking about it is I guess a pretty clear sign—
—I don't know, Fletcher says. —Maybe he's thinking that you don't want to.
—That's a possibility, Clark says. —It is. The whole point is that there's really no way to know either way unless we talk about it. You know?
Fletcher nods.
—So I had him on the phone last night, clearing up the details about this fundraiser we're supposed to working on, and the whole time I'm gearing myself up to just talk to him about it. Just gearing myself up and gearing myself up.
—And then?
—Then he got a call on the other line and he went over to take it. And so I was waiting there for a minute, just listening to this dead line, and saying to myself over and over, OK listen, when he comes back you have to talk to him about it.
—So?
—So he comes back, Clark says, —and it's his mom on the other line and, I don't know, he says something about his uncle's in the hospital or something—he has to go—and I, because I'm a goddamn fuckwit, and because I'm so psyched up at this point to say something, I blurt out this whole long thing about look, if you don't want to have sex again it's OK, and if you do it's OK, but we need to talk about it, and meanwhile his fucking mom is waiting there on the other line.
—So how did he respond?
—He responded how you'd guess, Clark says. —He waited until I was ranted out and then he said you're right, this is something we should talk about.
—That sounds promising, at least, says Fletcher.
—Sure, says Clark. —Except for then he's like but right now I have to go take this call from my mom. And he says that maybe he'll call me back when he's done talking to her. So of course I sit up like half the night—
—And nothing, Fletcher says.
—No, says Clark. —Nothing. And no call today either. And I'm sure I just seemed like a lunatic—I mean, I knew, even as I was saying it, that it was a stupid time to bring it up, but I couldn't just make myself stop.
She twists her cigarette end between her fingers until the burning core drops out of it.
—You know what he's probably thinking? He's probably thinking that I'm that girl. The girl who freaks out. And I can't even call him and say I'm not that girl, because saying that you're not that girl only makes you seem more like that girl.
Clark stands up and looks down at Fletcher. —This is why it sucks to be a woman, she says. —There are so many times where you can't do anything. Because no matter what you do, you're wrong.
: : :
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