—Is it not better here? I asked.
—You mean men? Better than New York? It depends on what you want.
—I don’t know if I want anything anymore. I’m just curious.
In those first few moments I felt a volcanic connection to Alice unlike anything in my past. It was stronger than any link I’d had with a man, with my parents, with Gosia, even.
—What kinds of men do you like? she asked.
—Too many.
—We shouldn’t be talking about men. What if they see us? We should be talking about careers and emotional fulfillment.
—Let’s talk about careers, I said, gesturing around the silly café. The shining crystals. She laughed again but it felt like luck, like I was playing a game of pinball with a broken flipper bat and the flaw was working in my favor.
—The last man I was with was a sailor, she said.
—A sailor.
—No, you know, one of these guys whose father has a boat. He had a regular job, whatever than means in Los Angeles. And then on the weekends he sailed around.
—Oh. A sailor.
—Precisely. He said that most of the time he was imagining me getting fucked by somebody else. That he was watching.
—I think I like that, too, I said, remembering the way I nearly came at the thought of River and a young girl having sex in a car.
—Most women like it, Alice said. I think they like it more than men do. They just don’t want to access that part of their brain.
She walked out to the lot and came back with a pack of American Spirits and a book of matches from an osteria in Rome. She slid the pack across the table and I shook my head. I couldn’t believe she smoked. I wondered if she was making a show of it because she was proud of the matches. A little cartoon boy in overalls with apple cheeks, eating grapes on the hood of a powder-blue Fiat. Then I realized that was something only I would have done, and I spent the next few moments so involved with hating myself that Alice thought I was bored. We told each other our names and there was no starlight. Hearing my name didn’t ding her.
—Are you looking to date? she asked. Because you won’t be able to do it up here. You’ll have to go to Santa Monica. Or Hollywood, if you don’t mind lice.
I told her I wasn’t looking for anyone and she said we are always looking for someone and I hated her and I asked about her type.
—I don’t know the types I like. I have to go through all of them before I can settle on the one I know I need to be with. I’m nearly through with the American WASP.
—You’re done with sailors.
—Yes. Sailors. Check.
—I want a cowboy, I said.
—Cowboys don’t exist. How about a logger? A stone-cold-sober logger. Charlie—the sailor—his profile was very well written. That’s what got me. When we were in bed and he was asking me to tell him how much I loved his cock, I got to wondering. I found out later a friend of his from New York wrote it. I told Charlie his profile headline should have said, Neptune, God of the Sea, Seeking Yoga Barbie to Have Conversational Sex With.
—You learned a new art.
—I should include it in my profile. As a skill. Alice held out her palm like a placard and said, I can also do this.
We talked about certain bars to show each other we spoke the same language. We talked about plantains and books and elections and melatonin and shaving our faces but eventually we returned to the topic of men. Boys. We were young girls talking about boys. I’d always been afraid that thinking about men meant I wasn’t a strong woman. But Alice was strong and she liked to address the picayune strategies involved in replying to a message. She endeavored, for example, to always use at least one word less than the other person did in a previous text. She said women were considered strong these days only if they didn’t talk about things they loved that didn’t love them, if they didn’t get hurt or allow themselves to be occasionally humiliated at their own hands when, really, strength was being unashamed to want what you want.
—Your turn, she said. What was your last relationship?
—I don’t know which to tell you.
—Two at once?
I nodded.
—Tell them both but start with the one that you actually wanted to fuck.
I wanted to say, How did you know? But you can’t compliment a new person too much at the start of a relationship. It will affect the balance of power.
She smiled and seductively took a drag of her cigarette. I told her about Big Sky. Our first meeting. I told her how he ended the evening by asking whether he could kiss me on the mouth. That’s erotic, she said. What an erotic way to put it. I told her how that weekend I died the death of the single woman obsessed with the married man. I imagined that he and his wife were at farmers’ markets picking out misshapen eggplants and herbs for pasta sauce. I walked and walked and walked. I tried to “find” him. On Friday I emailed him. He responded wanly, shortly. I felt like I’d not only exaggerated the emotions of our evening together but wholly invented them. I ate nothing but broccoli sprouts and broccoli florets rolled up in flaxseed wraps. My stomach felt taut and I thought, But what for, now. The weekend turned out to be beautiful. Everywhere I went, mothers bought juicy oranges and great stalks of leek and fathers pushed tiny butts on swings in the sunshine. Nobody was smoking cigarettes. All that weekend every ten minutes I tapped my code into my phone and opened my email to find nothing. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting.
—Perhaps, Alice said, you were expecting Sorry I was short on Friday, my wife was holding our baby in my face so I couldn’t write you a long note. I missed you very much.
—Yes, I said, that must be exactly what I was expecting. Nothing came. I started waiting thirty minutes in between check-ins to increase the likelihood of a reply. I imagined even my phone was through with me. It hungered for a more self-assured owner. Monday came. The air turned cooler and I felt calmer.
—Let me guess, Alice said.
I nodded.
—It’s measurable by science, she said. A man will know the very moment you have stopped obsessing. The instant.
—An email popped up, I continued. His name. Come by Harry’s for a drink later? I felt dizzy and at first not even grateful. My throat was dried out. How could I have felt so strongly so quickly? One of my friends turned every one-night stand into the love of her life. But not me. I had never met a man like this one. I love you, I said to my phone. Holy shit, I love you.
Alice was pitched forward in her seat. It felt good that someone understood the passion, that it was possible to feel strongly about a man after only one and a half meetings.
—I didn’t reply to him for three hours. I showered and blew out my hair and applied an eye mask. Finally, at five, I wrote, Sure. I’ll come by. Great, he wrote right away. I’m walking down there now.
—Good for you for waiting so long. But isn’t it terrible? This is how we applaud ourselves. I bet you wanted to hit him and fuck him at the same time. What did you wear?
—A long-sleeved floral dress that came to the middle of my thighs and cowboy boots. I looked like a farmer’s slutty daughter.
She smiled and shook her head.
—Please, I said. I know.
—Sorry. Continue.
—He was already seated, two martinis deep, with the same blond friend. Martini Monday, someone said, and glasses clinked. He looked at me.