Ben Greenman - The Slippage

“Gloria Fitch’s is,” William said. “She seems to be drinking all the time.”

Emma stayed in front of the mirror. “Hey,” she said. “You know what they showed in one of those ocean documentaries? A montage of marine animals ejaculating.”

“Wow,” William said. “When you talk dirty, you don’t play around.”

“Seriously,” she said. “It’s interesting how fluids go through liquids.” This led directly to a suggestion regarding the bathtub. He took her up on it, to a point; she went into the tub and he sat on the edge, watching. “When I came,” she said later, “I wondered about the baby. Does it feel any part of what I’m feeling?” He tried to imagine it for himself but could not even get a picture in his head. What could he think that would not be a bright light blinding him? “I know you don’t know,” Emma said. “I’m just saying. Don’t be a fool.” She used the word liberally, which took away its sting, and then she put her arms around her swollen belly and told William that she was going to do her best to make the child inside her anything but a fool.

“Hey,” William said. “What if I hadn’t been home when you had called me that first day? Or what if I hadn’t taken your call?”

“I would have moved on down the neighborhood watch list,” she said. “Graham Kenner has a big bald head.”

She shifted her weight; there was a creaking in the innards of the bed. They were in Tom’s studio, on the narrow couch. It was Friday, one of the days that Tom taught all afternoon. William had nixed the idea of going to her house, countering with a drink at a new Cajun place and then a motel. She had scowled. “When you’re from real Louisiana,” she said, “you don’t do that kind of fake. I’m unhappy even thinking about what they do to crawdads.” The studio had a desk, a lamp, a small TV, walls covered with tacked-up charts, a minifridge filled with spring water, and nothing much else.

“I should write a children’s book about marine animals,” she said into William’s stomach.

“A book?”

“I’m going to have a child, I read books, I know about animals. It’s a no-brainer.” She shifted in a way that pleased him. “After I write it, I’ll take the manuscript down to the publisher’s office. He’ll be small, bald, with glasses. I’ll probably wear something low-cut. Helps close the deal, you know.” They would get down to titles. “They’ll want something clever and foolish, like A, B, Sea . I’ll hold out for Fear Is an Octopus , even though it sounds like a thriller. The book will come out before the baby’s first birthday. It will sell like hotcakes. I’ll start getting fees for media appearances and soon I’ll have enough money to get my own apartment, away from Stevie, away from here. I’ll get Danish modern chairs and a massive flat-screen and you can come visit me and we can try the thing with the tub again.”

William repeated the only thing that fully made sense to him: “Hotcakes.” He went across the studio to the window shades, which were drawn. The small tabletop television was on, showing another marine documentary.

“I like thinking the screen is a mirror rather than a window,” Emma said. “We came from the water. We are mostly water.” She sat in the chair, her legs apart, and William swam to her across the blue room. “You know who’s afraid of the water?” she said while he touched her. “Stevie is. Always has been, since he was a kid. When he wants to overcome his fear, he fills up the sink and puts his face in it. It was something he read in a self-help book: own your phobias so they can’t own you. Most of what he does began as something he read in a self-help book.”

“Sometimes you don’t seem to like him very much,” William said.

“Thin line between love and hate,” she said, huffing toward orgasm.

Three days later, back in Tom’s studio, she put on a podcast about sharks. “When I was a kid,” William said, “I loved sharks.”

“Yeah?” she said. She was taking off her bra.

“Nature’s ultimate killing machine,” he said in an announcer’s voice.

“I think maybe you’ve misunderstood,” Emma said. Her pants were off now, and she was standing in front of him. “Sharks kill a handful of people. You know how many sharks people kill? A hundred million a year. That’s a whole Mexico of sharks.” She got up on the bed, on her knees, and guided his hand between them. “Let’s get back to me. Do this, okay?”

“Should I keep moving or else you’ll die?”

She set her expression in a prim frown, almost marmish. “That’s another myth. They need water flowing over their gills, but they can move it with their mouths. Quiet. Let me concentrate. And go a little slower, and with a lighter touch.” Her marmishness receded. She gripped him hard by the shoulder, drew in a breath that she couldn’t keep, relaxed her grip.

The shark show had given way to a survey of microscopic organisms, narrated by a woman with an overripe British accent. She needed switching off. On the far side of the desk, there was a folder marked, in Tom’s hand, “NEW.” William opened it. It contained a set of charts, all burned, some along the edges, some in the middle. One had a charred arc that stretched fully from lower left corner to lower right, riding high in the middle. That one was labeled How Much Fire Liked This Piece of Paper . “Look,” William said, holding it up. “It’s like he collaborated with nature.”

Emma didn’t care, and said so. “I think I’ve reached my limit.”

“With what?”

“All of it,” she said. She had been coming across the street one afternoon, not to go to William’s house even but to retrieve a garbage can lid that had blown up onto the Eatons’ lawn, and an older woman on the Zorillas’ driveway, the mother-in-law maybe, had seen her. “I didn’t feel guilty about it. She doesn’t know enough about the neighborhood to know where I should rightly be, not to mention that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. But I felt hemmed in, and kind of exposed, like I wanted to run back inside. It was a combination of claustrophobia and its exact opposite.”

“Agoraphobia,” William said, happy to help.

“The load I carry,” Emma said. She stood and showed it. “What will you do without me?” she said.

They were together in public only once, a few days later. Louisa was home sick with a cold and Stevie was out of town, so William and Emma let their lust and optimism ferry them across town to a park, where they sat with the sun at their back and watched the purple shadows of their heads upon the black paved path.

Then they went to an Indian restaurant, where she asked the waitress to bring her the hottest entrée and then, after one bite, fanned a hand in front of her open mouth like she was waving to someone in there. He was beginning to like her again as he had before.

But then after the meal, when they were standing outside the restaurant, she gripped his hand hard and brought her face so close to his that she could be heard even if she whispered, though she spoke loudly. “I need you to listen,” she said. Her eyes were down to slits as if anything wider might harm him. “I’m turning this off.”

“Right,” he said. He spoke casually, to hide the fact that he was heartsick.

She smacked him across the cheek, trying to look playful as she did it. “Do you hear what I’m saying? This is it, William. What’s the matter with you?”

“Everything about me is matter,” he said.

She showed her teeth but did not laugh.

He was joking, but also dead serious. People were matter and not the good kind: they bore the burden of their consciousness. Unconscious matter had the right idea. It just was , and continued to be. “Take me home,” she said. The sidewalk was unconscious, and he stood on it and did his best to be like it. The car was unconscious and he leaned on it and did his best to be like it. “Now,” she said. The radio was unconscious and he fiddled with the knob. “Take me home now,” she said, and he covered the distance quickly and looked away from her as he pulled up just around the corner, in the spot they’d agreed was safest, and as she left the car he closed his eyes and listened to the click of her heels as she went from unconscious car to unconscious street. When she passed out of earshot he was suddenly conscious again and found he was gripping the wheel hard on both sides, as if he were trying to keep himself from washing away.