Shelly Oria - New York 1, Tel Aviv 0

Zoë turns on the stereo to wake Ron up. Radiohead or Coldplay? she shouts, but doesn’t wait for an answer. Then she’s in the bathroom again, holding a bottle of maple syrup. I think she’s about to ask what’s taking me so long, but this is what she says: Ron thinks I should go to Israel with you in the summer; he says we’d have a blast and that we shouldn’t miss out just because of him. What do you say?

* * *

I see us on the plane, right before landing, and I hear people clapping as the wheels hit the ground. Zoë laughs. I’ve told her about this silly Israeli tradition, the way I’ve told her so many other Israel stories, the way I’ve been telling her about Tel Aviv since the day we met. I say, It’s stupid, you know; this culture treats pilots as heroes. Zoë says, It’s not stupid, and then: It’s exciting. She tugs on my earlobe the way she sometimes does, and peeks out the tiny airplane window. Then she says, We need to call Ron right when we land; we promised. I say, We will, but I don’t think he’s worried.

Ron ducks under Zoë’s arm to get into the bathroom. He starts to pee, but then his face twitches. It smells like puke in here, he says. Then he looks at me, still peeing. You all right?

1. Natalie’s Return

Two a.m. on a dreary Tuesday, a knock on the door and Natalie was in the doorway, her eyes shining more purple than ever. I immediately went to the bedroom and shook Stuart and Martha awake. This was lovely, I said when Stuart opened his eyes, looking at me like he couldn’t quite place me, but I need you and your wife to leave now; the woman I love is suddenly in the doorway, against all odds.

* * *

The man Natalie left was a very different version of me. Two years later, I am no longer him. He was a reckless mess: the kind of man who looks up at the moon on a gray night and starts laughing; the kind of man who treats ointments as gifts. Beauty, then, was a code I was trying to break.

She just woke up one morning, looked at me, and started packing. I couldn’t blame her. She was out before the first bird started singing, which I’ve always been grateful for. Asleep, I was spared the humiliation of pleading.

I’ve always assumed she was done with me for good, in part because the note she left said, “Victor, I’m done with you for good.”

2. The Fog of the Morning After

In my living room, Natalie showed no interest in conversation. She let her hands look for answers in my pants, or else she had no questions at all. I said, Nat, you will be happy to hear that I am now a changed man, a better man. I said, I think we should discuss the terms on which … But Natalie’s left hand made me forget what I wanted to discuss.

The last thing I remember that night is Natalie saying, No way, Victor, I’ve got to get some sleep, when I grazed the space between her breasts with my thumb for the third time. I didn’t mean … I said; I just wanted to feel close to you. That was a lie — I did mean. I meant to have sex with Natalie again because her skin was smooth like Teflon, and every time I thought maybe now I’ll get a good grip. But Natalie must have believed me, because she said, You’ve always confused sex with comfort, Victor. That’s your problem.

Already, I had a problem again.

This was five a.m., and within seconds Natalie was grinding her teeth next to me, and I thought, God, I missed her. I do remember looking out the window and thinking, This is one foggy night, but it didn’t seem like anything the morning would fail to disperse. My last thought before closing my eyes was this: If Natalie doesn’t notice my change, or if she leaves before she does, have I actually changed at all?

* * *

By the time Natalie and I woke up, the cloud consistency must have been at stage two if not three, and you could see nothing except your own thoughts. Natalie? I said, and my question mark hung heavy in the foggy air, suggesting for a moment that last night was just another fantasy. Natalie said, Victor, I’m scared. I followed the sound of her voice, hands stretched forward until I felt her body, and she said, Ouch, because apparently I got her straight in the eye. Jesus, Victor, Jesus Christ, she kept saying, and we started to walk carefully toward the bathroom so she could wash her eye. Did you put something on your fingernails, Victor? Natalie asked; it burns like hell. In my tiny bathroom we found better prospects. The square metal-framed window looked like a floating silver cube, emanating light. What is that? Natalie asked, sounding pissed instead of happy. I said, Light, light, we can see light through that window! This is east, I added, we’re turning east now, so I guess maybe things are not as bad in the east. That doesn’t make any sense, Victor, Natalie said and sighed.

I almost said: Nat, this isn’t my fault, or: At least we can see each other now, or: Nat, try to cheer up. But I thought: Change change change. So I sat down next to her on the edge of the bathtub, touched her chin gently, and said, Nat, It’s going to be okay, I promise.

3. Faux Heroism

The fog took almost three days to clear. By the end of the second day, fog clearers were threatening to go on strike, and Natalie said, I knew it, I knew it. She meant that government people always look for excuses not to work. Or she meant she should never have come back to me; Natalie hates government people, but she also often regrets her choices, so it was hard to tell.

I said, Nat, maybe we can clear some fog on our own. She said, That’s stupid, there’s only two of us. I said, We can form a posse, recruit people with good intentions. This was my only chance to prove to Natalie how changed I was. Suddenly I felt an appetite for leadership. I drew road maps, diversion plans, tools we might need. But then I looked at Natalie. She was shaking her head. It’s not our job, Victor, she said; the government’s supposed to do it. I should have known, of course, that’s what Natalie would say. She used to have a Don’t Enable Incompetence sticker. She believed passivity was the purest form of protest. What kind of changed man was I, to forget my girlfriend’s values? It was too late, and I figured honesty was all I had left. I said, I’m trying to show you growth here, Natalie, just give me a chance. That’s not growth, Natalie said; that’s faux heroism, very common among males in your age group.

* * *

By that time we could see each other clearly, and every hour the world outside looked a little more like something you could trust. The satellite signal kept coming and going, and Natalie spent her hours staring at the screen so as not to miss the next time when the clouds and the winds and the satellite plates all aligned themselves in a way that allowed news reporters to appear briefly in my living room, explaining things about cloud consistency and evacuation efforts, providing updates about the cleaners’ strike. To Natalie, these were things of great importance. A woman needs a good countdown when she wants to leave a man.

I wasn’t exactly sure what faux heroism meant, but with our reunion at a state of such acute fragility, I couldn’t afford any ignorance. I didn’t ask. I thought, Maybe there’s a thing called faux heroism that masquerades as change in grown men fighting for love; I thought, Maybe that’s why I kept doubting my change, kept questioning its veracity; I thought, Maybe once again, Natalie is right.

On the morning of the fourth day, when we woke up, we could see the mountains through my bedroom window, and I knew we were down to minutes. Really, it was safe enough to leave the night before, but Natalie was being kind. She stretched and said, Morning, in her sleepy voice; already, I was missing her. I stared out the window, hating the mountains, the clear horizon. I said, Just no notes this time, okay? She rolled herself on top of me, smelling of dreams, and said, No notes, I promise, and I knew I should make our last time long enough to hold a little bit of future, long enough to be both a moment and a memory.