Lorrie Moore - The Collected Stories of Lorrie Moore

"How are you liking Zora?" Mike asked over a beer, after they'd mulled over the war and the details of Dick Cheney's tax return, which had just been printed in the paper. Why wasn't there a revolution? Was everyone too distracted with tennis and sex and tulip bulbs? Marxism in the spring lacked oomph. Ira had just hired someone to paint his house, so now on his front lawn he had two signs: "War Is Not the Answer" in blue and, on the other side of the lawn, in black and yellow, "Jenkins Painting Is the Answer."

"Oh, Zora's great." Ira paused. "Great. Just great. In fact, do you perhaps know any other single women?"

"Really?"

"Well, it's just that she might not be all that mentally well ." He thought about the moment, just the night before, at dinner, when she'd said, "I love your mouth most when it does that odd grimace thing in the middle of sex," and then she contorted her face so hideously that Ira felt as if he'd been struck. Later in the evening, she'd said, "Watch this," and she'd taken her collapsible umbrella, placed its handle on the crotch of her pants, then pressed the button that sent it rocketing out, unfurled, like a cartoon erection. Ira did not know who or what she was, though he wanted to cut her some slack, give her a break, bestow upon her the benefit of the doubt — all those paradoxical cliches of supposed generosity, most of which he had denied his wife. He tried not to believe that the only happiness he was fated for had already occurred, had been with Bekka and Marilyn, when the three of them were together. A hike, a bike ride — he tried not to think that this crazy dream of family had shown its sweet face just long enough to torment him for the rest of his life, though scarcely long enough to sustain him through a meal. Torturing oneself with the idea of family happiness while not actually having a family, he decided, might be a fairly new circumstance in social history. People had probably not been like this a hundred years ago. He imagined an exhibit at the society. He imagined the puppets.

"Sanity's conjectural," Mike said. His brow furrowed thoughtfully. "Zora's very attractive, don't you think?"

Ira thought of her beautiful, slippery skin, the dark, sweet hair, the lithe sylph's body, the mad, hysterical laugh. She had once, though only briefly, insisted that Man Ray and Ray Charles were brothers. "She is attractive," Ira said. "But you say that like it's a good thing."

"Right now," Mike said, "I feel like anything that isn't about killing people is a good thing."

"This may be about that," Ira said.

"Oh, I see. Now we're entering the callow, glib part of spring."

"She's wack, as the kids say."

Mike looked confused. "Is that like wacko?"

"Yes. But not like Waco —at least not yet. I would stop seeing her, but I don't seem to be able to. Especially now, with all that's happening in the world, I can't live without some intimacy, companionship, whatever you want to call it, to face down this global insanity."

"You shouldn't use people as human shields." Mike paused. "Or — I don't know — maybe you should."

"I can't let go of hope, of the illusion that something is going to come out of this romance. I'm sorry. Divorce is a trauma, believe me, I know. It's death within life! Its pain is a national secret! But that's not it. I can't let go of love. I can't live without some scrap of it. Hold my hand," Ira said. His eyes were starting to water. Once, when he was a small child, he had got lost, and when his mother had finally found him, four blocks from home, she'd asked him if he'd been scared. "Not really," he had said, sniffling pridefully. "But then my eyes just suddenly started to water."

"I beg your pardon?" Mike asked.

"I can't believe I just asked you to hold my hand," Ira said, but Mike had already taken it.

on the bright side, the hashish was good. The sleeping pills were good. He was walking slowly around the halls at work in what was a combination of serene energy and a nap. With his birthday coming up, he went to the doctor for his triannual annual physical and, having mentioned a short list of nebulous symptoms, he was given dismissive diagnoses of "benign vertigo," "pseudo gout," or perhaps "migraine aura," the names, no doubt, of rock bands. "You've got the pulse of a boy, and the mind of a boy, too," his doctor, an old golfing friend, said.

Health, Ira decided, was notional. Palm Sunday — all these goyim festivals were preprinted on his calendar — was his birthday, and when Zora called he blurted out that information. "It is?" she said. "You old man! Are you feeling undernookied? I'll come over Sunday and read your palm." Wasn't she cute? Damn it, she was cute. She arrived with Bruno and a chocolate cake in tow. "Happy birthday," she said. "Bruno helped me make the frosting."

"Did you, now?" he said to Bruno, patting him on the back in a brotherly embrace, which the boy attempted to duck and slide out from under.

They ordered Chinese food and talked about high school, advanced-placement courses, homeroom teachers, and lames Galway (soulful mick or soulless dork, who could decide?). Zora brought out the cake. There were no candles, so Ira lit a match, stuck it upright in the frosting, and blew it out. His wish was a vague and general one of good health for Bekka. No one but her. He had put nobody else in his damn wish. Not the Iraqi people, not the G.I.s, not Mike, who had held his hand, not Zora. This kind of focussed intensity was bad for the planet.

"Shall we sit on Bruno?" Zora was laughing and backing her sweet tush into Bruno, who was now sprawled out on Ira's sofa, protesting in a grunting way. "Come on!" she called to Ira. "Let's sit on Bruno."

Ira began making his way toward the liquor cabinet. He believed there was some bourbon in there. He would not need ice. "Would you care for some bourbon?" he called over to Zora, who was now wrestling with Bruno. She looked up at Ira and said nothing. Bruno, too, looked at him and said nothing.

Ira continued to pour. At this point, he was both drinking bourbon and eating cake. He had a pancreas like a rock. "We should probably go," Zora said. "It's a school night."

"Oh, O.K.," Ira said, swallowing. "I mean, I wish you didn't have to."

"School. What can you do? I'm going to take the rest of the cake home for Bruny's lunch tomorrow. It's his favorite."

Heat and sorrow filled Ira's face. The cake had been her only present to him. He closed his eyes and nuzzled his head into hers. "Not now," she whispered. "He gets upset."

"Oh, O.K.," he said. "I'll walk you out to the car." And there he gave her a quick hug before she walked around the car and got in on the driver's side. He stepped back onto the curb and knocked on Bruno's window to say goodbye. But the boy would not turn. He flipped his hand up, showing Ira the back of it.

"Bye! Thank you for sharing my birthday with me!" Ira called out. Where affection fell on its ass, politeness might rise to the occasion. Zora's Honda lights went on, then the engine, and then the whole vehicle flew down the street.

at the cuckoo private school to which Marilyn had years ago insisted on sending Bekka, the students and teachers were assiduously avoiding talk of the war. Bekka's class was doing finger-knitting while simultaneously discussing their hypothetical stock-market investments. The class was doing best with preferred stocks in Kraft, G.E., and G.M.; watching them move slightly every morning on the Dow Jones was also helping their little knitted scarves. It was a right-brain, left-brain thing. For this, Ira forked over nine thousand dollars a year. Not that he really cared. As long as Bekka was in a place safe from death — the alerts were moving from orange to red to orange; no information, just duct tape and bright, warm, mind-wrecking colors — turning her into a knitting stock-broker was O.K. with him. Exploit the system, man ! he himself used to say, in college. He could, however, no longer watch TV. He packed it up, along with the VCR, and brought the whole thing over to Zora's. "Here," he said. "This is for Bruno."