Page 54 of Two Marlboros

“Don’t take it bad, but I don’t want it to stick to the furniture or the sofa.”

It was a gentle answer, different from his ‘Forget it’ the night before. It almost seemed as if we had stopped playing cat and mouse and were acting like two normal people.

“Can I go to the terrace?”

He turned toward the French doors, as if to take measure of that request.

“I think there’s no problem.”

I stood up and slipped the package and lighter out of the back pocket of my pants. I stepped out the French doors and the night breeze caressed my face. Only the chirping of cicadas could be heard and, in the distance, a flock of lights filled my eyes; but all around us, in the little garden below and in the side streets, not a fly flew. Looking up, one could see a few stars. I looked down again and stuck my head inward.

“Aren’t you going to keep me company?”

Alan nodded, but he looked dull. Perhaps the hangover from the night before had given him thecoup de grace.

I made room for him beside me and lit my cigarette. Unfortunately, the wind blew just in that moment and the smoke went all over his face. He merely grimaced as one does when a fly flies near your face, but said nothing more.

“Sorry. I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“I’m getting used to it by now.”

That thought made me smile. Someone was getting used to something of mine. None of my adventures-of-less-than-a-year had ever said that to me; I was almost flattered.

“Sorry about last night. If I spent some time with Harvey, I mean.”

“That’s okay. We were there for another reason.”

He rubbed his forehead again, then rubbed his palm over his eyes. He must have been really broken up. I listened again to the incessant song of the cicadas and inhaled. I felt myself waking up all at once.

“Is he an ex of yours?”

He always got straight to the point with his questions. There was never any uncertainty in what he said, thanks perhaps to his profession.

“Harvey? Yes. We were together when I was seventeen. After a year he dumped me.”

He had dumped me because I was immature or maybe because he wanted to get rid of me. The Harvey I had seen the night before, however, was different: he looked more like a man, and also had a brain, because he talked about his business, the apartment he wanted to buy, his savings. And he had also touched me a little too much, but I didn’t mind completely. I knew what Harvey was like and I knew what he wanted, but I didn’t rule out that among his desires was an affair with me. In fact, we were two different individuals than we had been. And among Harvey’s words, behind his looks and his affectionate smiles, I had realized that this time it might not just be sex.

“You’re very fond of him, though.”

“Harvey was my first serious boyfriend. My first love, in short. And the first for many other things.”

I inhaled some more smoke and threw out some unpleasant memories. Some “first” things with Harvey had not been this great, even as time went on.

Alan just nodded. He stared blankly and occasionally rubbed his forehead.

“Your first was Oliver?”

I stood waiting, with the certainty that I had screwed up, that I had crossed the line of intimacy between two mere acquaintances, despite the darkness, dim light and all.

Instead, he surprised me.

“Yes,” he replied almost in a huff.

The first and the only one, I thought. It was a very tender image. He was staring at the terracotta floor now, and I was pretty sure I saw a half-smile on him, but it wasn’t easy to tell with that dimness. Just as well, perhaps: the darkness had guarded the intimacy of his memory.

“And have you ever thought, lately-- sorry, everyone must have asked you that.”

He smiled and looked at me for a moment, while I was busy hiding behind a cigarette I couldn’t smoke.

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