hide the fact that he couldn’t remember what it was.
“What’s going on with you? Everybody said you vanished.”
James decided to ignore the question.
“Did you like the book?”
Emma nodded. “I think so. It seemed a little,” she paused. “Outdated. ‘The meaning of television.’ I mean, really – television? Does anyone even watch television?”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said James, sipping his Americano. “Wait, you work in television.”
“I’m in on-line, remember?”
James nodded, and recalled Emma badgering him to blog about his interviews. She had called his footage “content.”
“So what’s up?” she asked again.
He answered like an echoing cave: “What’s up with you?”
“I’m down to part time. I got a grant to complete my art.”
“What kind of art do you do?” asked James, instantly imagining sculpture involving silicone vaginas, or a performance piece where Emma sat atop a pile of rotting meat for days at a time.
“Photography. Okay, third time: What the hell are you up to?” Emma shifted her body closer to him, leaned forward a little. James recognized this as flirtation, and flushed accordingly.
Emma smelled like food, mangos or cinnamon, a perfume from an oily antique bottle found at a flea market.
James smiled. “I’m playing dad to a friend’s kid.”
“Single dad?”
James’s smile retreated.
“What? No, I’m married.” There. He’d said it.
“You said ‘I’m playing dad,’ like it was just about you,” said Emma, sipping coffee through a take out lid.
“Well, my wife doesn’t play dad. She’s, you know, she’s the mom.” This sounded even worse in tandem with Emma’s remote, blank expression in front of him. “That’s all I meant. Don’t look for subtext, you denizen of the post-postmodern generation.” She laughed, even threw her head back. Bull’s eye.
“Where’s your friend at, the kids’ real dad?” Why the slightly ghetto vernacular amongst these kids? James was fairly certain that Emma had gone to a liberal arts college somewhere in the northeast. Swarthmore?
James considered the question, answered slowly. “The boy, Finn, his father died. His mom’s in the hospital. There was … this accident,” he said, surprised to find the words catch in his throat, surprised because the catch was totally sincere, but also, surprised by how well it worked (the old James recognized the panty-loosening effect of this confession, while the present one was proud of himself for being honest with a pretty woman). Emma blinked, put her coffee down, and shook her head: “I’m so, so sorry.”
“Yeah, thanks,” he said. She looked at him closely, as if anticipating something more. “His daycare’s right over there, so I’m going to pick him up later. I come here to write.”
“How old is he?”
“He’s two. Almost two and a half.” And then James couldn’t stop himself: “He’s a really gentle kid, but I don’t know when it’s going to back up on him. He seems okay, and his teacher said he’s doing well. He knows the alphabet and can count to fifteen, which I looked up on line and the number thing, that’s advanced, actually. His dad was an engineer, so maybe that’s why. I didn’t really know Marcus that well, that’s the strangest part of this. I knew Finn’s mom, a long time ago. She dated my roommate but I barely remember her. She remembered me—”
Emma nodded, frowning. What am I saying, wondered James? What is this?
“Anyhoo,” he said.
Emma looked at her watch, started to put on her coat.
“I live just over there,” she said, pointing across the street to a Portuguese bakery.
“Amongst the flans?” asked James, with immediate regret. Not funny, not sharp. Emma ignored the awkwardness.
“Above, actually, in the apartment with the green door,” she said, rising, tightening her scarf. “Come by sometime and I’ll show you my pictures. You might like them.” James felt certain that was not true, though he thrilled at the invitation. He tried to imagine Emma’s apartment. Would she have milk crates for furniture, like he did at that age? A futon? Somehow he doubted that kids in their twenties lived like that anymore. He couldn’t smell poverty on them. Their teeth were very white. Emma’s jacket looked as expensive as Ana’s.
She leaned in and gave him a double kiss. He sat very still as she did this, aware that if he so much as moved his head, all bets were off, lips would brush lips, and then what else might touch? He was hungry enough, tired enough of Ana’s trail of gentle pushes and rejections, so tired that he might throw a little tongue in there. And then a whorl moving toward the green door above