Say I'm crazy about Roger who works in my office building. He gets off on the 23rd floor, so he must have a job with the Army Corps of Engineers. The first minute is mine. When he enters the lobby, I walk toward him and brighten my eyes. I show him I've seen him. He stops to talk to an associate, so I sit in one of the leather chairs, like I'm waiting for someone. He looks again at me over the guy's shoulder on the chance I'm still looking at him. I am. He's trying to listen. I think the guy's his boss, by the way Roger's mostly nodding, and his concentration's shot to hell. I stare. He moves his briefcase to the side and puts his hand in his pocket. His boss finally moves off.

The second minute is his. He walks over to me, says, "I saw you at the grocery." I know he did, but I say, "Oh? What did I buy?" He smiles, says, "Cereal."

Sometimes he has a drink at Pete's Pub after work. I walk up to him at the bar and say, "Hey, again." I ask questions. "What do you do?" "Were you a happy kid?" "Did you marry the woman you wanted, or the one you were engaged to?" He laughs knowingly. It's an interview with no hostility. He gives me answers. He says, "Most women don't listen." We talk some more. When he looks at his watch because he's got to get home, I ask him what he was like in college, and what his wife does, and we have another drink. She's a nurse.


When I was young, my dad taught me about men by telling me how he was with women. He'd talk about these things at dinner and my mom would nod, but I understand now that she had her own ideas, and the only way to keep them hers was to be quiet.
"I married your mother because she couldn't wait any longer to have sex." This was more than I wanted to know and it made me wonder about my mother. She was a bad girl. He'd kept her a good girl, but they didn't seem close, more like irritable siblings. She seemed a little bored with him. I wasn't.

He approved my bikinis. We had a pool in the back yard. He checked tight shirts before my dates -- "If it's in the window it's for sale." When I was in junior high I would break up with boyfriends, sometimes, just for him. It was my gift. He dropped whatever he was doing to give me help. He'd tell me love was easy to get over, and there was more of it -- even better love -- right around the bend, but it was a moving target, not something that settled down and rested, and neither should I.


In the cafeteria line, I brush the back of Roger's hand with my thumb. I follow behind him and dust against the fabric of his shirt. I can almost not be there at all, so slim, and still burn into his memory.

I walk with him to the elevator. I show Roger I am serious by standing too close, not touching him, but my clothes will be on him, and my perfume. The body warmth is so present, I want to ride all day.


(To keep reading, please buy a copy of McSweeney's 14.)