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"As if I have time for another job"

"That’s true You’d have to stop sleeping But itcash in your jock"

"They do that, anyhenever I go out dancing"

"Oh, yeah?" Krishna’s face lights up "You got et drunk, I do it at the bar in town that doesn’t card

If I need to get laid, I find soe, take her home, make her happy, and clear out Too froht pants and an elephant dick"

Krishna laughs

"You’re not driving, are you?"

"I walked I can knock on herif you want Send her your way"

"Thanks, but no" I turn hi him toward the apartetting et my one, the kitchen is so silent it seeht, what coh it into loaves, shape it, fill the pans, and fire up the ovens It’s an act of creation, and I’od of the bread

I look at the clock and o look out theMaybe she’ll be gone, and I won’t have to do this I can rule over this tiny world,times, how much flour and howlevers Up or down More or less Siod of the bread and leave doo talk to her

I think of Frankie on the phone Of the money I sent o to the door for fifteen ive in to this, because the worst thing about Caroline is that I’ve never pro, but she’s here, anyway It’s as if she knows

She doesn’t know She can’t

She can’t know that when I make a pro her things, I won’t ever be able to quit

"You want to come inside?"

That’s all it takes When she says, "Yeah, sure," I turn and go back in, and she closes her car up and followsI like having ht--put it on any earlier, and the mixers are too loud to hear it While I washa slow circuit of the roo

I tie

"Bob makes the sweets," I tell her "I just stick them in the oven at the end of h she’s here for a cookie, and not because … fuck if I know I clocked her ex, she showed up at the library, Ito do withs

I fling a chunk of bread off the scale onto the floured surface of the table "So how’s it going?"

Caroline leans a hip against the table’s edge, all the way down at the far end "Fine"

Fine

Everybody says they’re fine It’s bullshit

It’s not as though every conversation I have back hoful, but I never wasted sosweatpants and flip-flops and a hoodie you could fit seven of her in Her toenail polish is chipped, and her hair’s in one of those lazy half ponytails, like she started to put it up but her arot tired and she had to abandon the job before she finished

There are chicks who dress the way Caroline is dressed all the time, but she’s not one of them On the first day of history class, she wore jeans and a bright-blue sweater even though it was still ninety degrees outside She lined her pen and her highlighter up perpendicular to her binder, the textbook and the syllabus all out in front of her

There’s soether, even when she’s just wearing jeans and a shirt Not the way she looks, I ured out, knohat she wants, knows she deserves to get it

I can still see how her face looked when she was sticking her nose insideht--lately--she’s all wrong She isn’t fine Not anymore

And I can’t let it be

"How come everybody lies when you ask them that?"

"What, how they are?"

"Yeah You say, Hey, how’s it going? and everybody says, Oh, fine Their hair could be on fire, and they’d still say, Fine, fine Nobody ever says, You look like shit, or I don’t have enough money to make rent, or I just picked up a prescription for a really bad case of he about hemorrhoids It makes them unco world to be uncoain "I think it’s supposed to be like lubrication for society"

"Lubrication?"

"Grease"

I frown at her and toss a loaf down the counter It’s filling up I have to throw them down to her end This one lands with a little pouf of flour that gets her black sweats messy, but she doesn’t brush the flour off

I knohat lubrication is I just don’t get e need it

We didn’t need it at the library, when I was so fucked in the head froot I was supposed to even try to be polite

It felt good punching that jackass

It felt fucking great backing her up against the stacks, sht up between hers, getting the taste of her onpolite is a forht that was booze"