Lorrie Moore - The Collected Stories of Lorrie Moore

Earl was silent.

"That's the end of my love story," said Zoë.

"You're not at all like your sister," said Earl.

"Ho, really," said Zoë. The air had gotten colder, the wind singing minor and thick as a dirge.

"No." He didn't want to talk about love anymore. "You know, you should wear a lot of blue — blue and white — around your face. It would bring out your coloring." He reached an arm out to show her how the blue bracelet he was wearing might look against her skin, but she swatted it away.

"Tell me, Earl. Does the word fag mean anything to you?"

He stepped back, away from her. He shook his head in disbelief. "You know, I just shouldn't try to go out with career women. You're all stricken. A guy can really tell what life has done to you. I do better with women who have part-time jobs."

"Oh, yes?" said Zoë. She had once read an article entitled "Professional Women and the Demographics of Grief." Or no, it was a poem: If there were a lake, the moonlight would dance across it in conniptions . She remembered that line. But perhaps the title was "The Empty House: Aesthetics of Barrenness." Or maybe "Space Gypsies: Girls in Academe." She had forgotten.

Earl turned and leaned on the railing of the balcony. It was getting late. Inside, the party guests were beginning to leave. The sexy witches were already gone. "Live and learn," Earl murmured.

"Live and get dumb," replied Zoë. Beneath them on Lexington there were no cars, just the gold rush of an occasional cab. He leaned hard on his elbows, brooding.

"Look at those few people down there," he said. "They look like bugs. You know how bugs are kept under control? They're sprayed with bug hormones, female bug hormones. The male bugs get so crazy in the presence of this hormone, they're screwing everything in sight: trees, rocks — everything but female bugs. Population control. That's what's happening in this country," he said drunkenly. "Hormones sprayed around, and now men are screwing rocks. Rocks!"

In the back the Magic Marker line of his buttocks spread wide, a sketchy black on pink like a funnies page. Zoë came up, slow, from behind and gave him a shove. His arms slipped forward, off the railing, out over the street. Beer spilled out of his bottle, raining twenty stories out over the city below.

"Hey, what are you doing?!" he said, whipping around. He stood straight and readied and moved away from the railing, sidestepping Zoë. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Just kidding," she said. "I was just kidding." But he gazed at her, appalled and frightened, his Magic Marker buttocks turned away now toward all of downtown, a naked pseudo-woman with a blue bracelet at the wrist, trapped out on a balcony with — with what? "Really, I was just kidding !" Zoë shouted. The wind lifted the hair up off her head, skyward in spines behind the bone. If there were a lake, the moonlight would dance across it in conniptions. She smiled at him, and wondered how she looked.

the sign said "welcome to America," in bold red letters. Underneath, in smaller blue, Millie had spelled out John Spec . Comma, John Spec She held it up against her chest like a locket, something pressed against the heart for luck: a pledge of allegiance. She was waiting for a boy she didn't know, someone she'd never even seen a photograph of, an English acquaintance of her daughter Ariel's. Ariel was on a junior semester abroad, and the boy was the brother of one of her Warwickshire dormmates. He was an auto mechanic in Surrey, and because he'd so badly wanted to come to the States, Ariel had told him that if he needed a place, he could stay with her parents in New Jersey. She had written ahead to inform them. "I told John Spee he could stay in Michael's old room, unless you are still using it as an 'office.' In which case he can stay in mine."

Office in quotation marks. Millie had once hoped to start a business in that room, something to do with recycling and other environmental projects. She had hoped to be hired on a consultant basis, but every time she approached a business or community organization they seemed confounded as to what they would consult her for. For a time Millie had filled the room with business cards and supplies and receipts for various expenses in case she ever filed a real tax form. Her daughter and her husband had rolled their eyes and looked, embarrassed, in the other direction.

" Office ." Ariel made her quotation marks as four quick slashes, not the careful sixes and nines Millie had been trained long ago to write. There was something a bit spoiled about Ariel, a quiet impudence, which troubled Millie. She had written back to her daughter, "Your father and I have no real objections, and certainly it will be nice to meet your friend. But you must check with us next time before you volunteer our home !" She had stressed our home with a kind of sternness that lingered regretlessly. "You mustn't take things for granted." It was costing them good money to send Ariel abroad. Millie herself had never been to England. Or anywhere, when you got right down to it. Once, as a child, she had been to Florida, but she remembered so little of it. Mostly just the glare of the sky, and some vague and shuddering colors.

People filed out from the Newark customs gate, released and weary, one of them a thin, red-haired boy of about twenty. He lit a cigarette, scanned the crowd, and then, spying Millie, headed toward her. He wore an old, fraying camel hair sports jacket, sneakers of blue, man-made suede, and a baseball cap, which said Yankees , an ersatz inscription.

"Are you Mrs. Keegan?" he asked, pronouncing it Kaygan .

"Um, yes, I am," Millie said, and blushed as if surprised. She let the sign, which with its crayoned and overblown message now seemed ludicrous, drop to her side. Her other hand she thrust out in greeting. She tried to smile warmly but wondered if she looked "fakey," something Ariel sometimes accused her of. "It's like you're doing everything from a magazine article," Ariel had said. "It's like you're trying to be happy out of a book." Millie owned several books about trying to be happy.

John shifted his cigarette into his other hand and shook Millie's. "John Spee," he said. He pronounced it Spay . His hand was big and bony, like a chicken claw.

"Well, I hope your flight was uneventful," said Millie.

"Oh, not really," said John. "Sat next to a bloke with stories about the Vietnam War and watched two movies about it. The Deer Hunter and, uh, I forget the other." He seemed apprehensive yet proud of himself for having arrived where he'd arrived.

"Do you have any more luggage than that? Is that all you have?"

"'Zall I got!" he chirped, holding a small duffel bag and turning around just enough to let Millie see his U.S. Army knapsack.

"You don't want this sign, do you?" asked Millie. She creased it, folded it in quarters like a napkin, and shoved it into her own bag.

Over the PA system a woman's voice was repeating, "Mr. Boone, Mr. Daniel Boone. Please pick up the courtesy line."

"Isn't that funny," said Millie.

On the drive home to Terracebrook, John Spee took out a pack of Johnny Parliaments and chain-smoked. He told Millie about his life in Surrey, his mates at the pub there, in a suburb called Worcester Park. "Never was much of a student," he said, "so there was no chance of me going to university." He spoke of the scarcity of work and of his "flash car," which he had sold to pay for the trip. He had worked six years as an auto mechanic, a job that he had quit to come here. "I may stay in the States a long time," he said. "I'm thinking of New York City. Wish I hadn't had to sell me flash car, though." He looked out at a souped-up Chevrolet zooming by them.