I sat there thinking, the minutes fall into hours and the
hours fall into days and the days fall into weeks and the weeks
into month and the months into years and the years into decades
and pretty soon it's all over for you. You slip out of the picture.
It is almost as though you were never there. Time keeps rolling on,
going nowhere. "What are you thinking?" Maya said. "Me?" I wasn't
thinking anything," I said. "Yes, you were," she said. "I swear
I wasn't thinking anything. My head's a blank. I had a long day,"
I said. Maya's nails are too long, but you can't tell a woman that.
It's like she has taken it upon herself to measure the passing of
time in a particularly rueful way. And she's wearing eye makeup,
which she's never worn before. I mean, I know our cat died a week
ago, but what has that got to do with eye makeup? "Now you're
thinking something, aren't you?" she said. "I was just thinking
about something Cameron said at work today," I said. "What did he
say?" she said. My mind went blank. I had assumed I could just
make something up on the spot, but I couldn't think of anything.
"What's for dinner?" I said. "No, I want to know what Cameron said,"
she insisted. "He said he liked ducks more than most people,"
I said. "What the heck was the context for a remark like that?" she
said. "Well, we were standing in line at the water cooler, and I
guess it was the water that made him think of ducks," I said. "And
what did you say?" she said. "Well, I wasn't going to get into an
argument with him. It was just a stupid remark," I said. "Still,
it shows you how shallow he is, how cynical. I don't want you to be
friends with him anymore, and I'm certainly not going to have him
in this house," she said. I regretted bringing Cameron into this
whole thing, especially since I hadn't even seen him that day. And
now he was banned from the house. "Cameron is one of the nicest
people I know," I said. "If you happen to be a duck," she said.
Maya had had her hair highlighted. I had just then noticed the
orange streaks against the black, like our old tabby. "I like your
hair," I said. "I had it done days ago," she said. "Yes, yes, I
know. I've been waiting for the right moment to tell you," I said.
"What's so right about this one?" she said. "The light from the
window," I said. I thought that was a rather poetic answer. "I
never know what you're thinking," she said. Then she stood up and
left the room. I don't either, I wanted to answer her, but she
wouldn't believe me. So I sat there with marbles rolling around in
my head. Bing, bam, bongo I could hear my watch ticking. It was
running out on me. The sun was setting. "Maya, come quick, you
must see this!" I shouted. "What?"she said. "It's the sunset, you
must see it," I said. "I can't right now, I'm cooking," she said.
I stood at the window weeping, for what I don't know. It was the most
beautiful sunset I had ever seen, which probably isn't true. I just
liked saying it. It sounded so dramatic. And then it was dark, and Maya
called me to dinner. "So how was your day?" I said. I barely
recognized her with the dark eyes and the streaked hair. Her finger-
nails clicked against the table like castanets. She was apparently
speaking to me, but I could barely hear anything. "Alicia . . . laundry . . .
mall . . . gas. . . ." It didn't sound too bad, a normal day, like mine
had been. I expected her to break into a dance, a tango maybe.
Instead she said, "You know what I love about you, Warren? You have
such a rich interior life. It must be like a jungle inside your head,
full of exotic animals no one's ever seen before. That's why you
can barely talk to me. You're too busy just keeping them all in line."
"Animals with no names and nowhere to go, that's me," I said.
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