What my girlfriend and I argue about

(with apologies to Philip Roth)

It was a warm summer afternoon in June and the clouds were low in the sky. They had been out on the balcony for maybe an hour, maybe ten. The movie was due to start at seven, and he kept checking his watch surreptitiously. After a while, she stretched luxuriously and grinned at him in unchecked satisfaction. Then, the words. A torrent of words between them, brimming over with emotion.

"You're so good to me."

"Yeah. Are you ready yet?"

"Gee, thanks."

"Sorry. But, seriously, we're late."

"Not that late. Anyway, we're having a moment here."

"We don't have time for a moment."

"Do we have time for a beer?"

"Okay, one beer."

The bottlecaps fell to the pavement with a ringing sound that can only evince lethargy and every Midwestern backyard barbecue in human history. They both emitted sounds of satisfaction, his more frenzied than hers as he contemplated watching Christian Bale fight a T-800 on the big screen.

Then, more words. Always the words. Always the emotion.

"I wish I had all summer to hang with you."

"That fight scene between them looked kickass."

"What?"

"I mean, yeah."

"Well I do. A summer together to just be together would be great."

"Well, we're leaving on vacation this week, right?"

"Yeah, but--"

"And we're hanging right now, right?"

"You know, I was trying to say something nice here. You don't need to be such a buzzkill."

"Who's a buzzkill? I'm giving you a buzz. I'm like a Buzz Lite Year. I'm reminding you about your vacation and what not."

"Okay, but still--"

"We're going to miss the previews."

"But still, when I say I'd like to have summers off--"

"Hey, I work during summers!"

She paused. Her eyes narrowed to slits. The beer in his stomach flopped over uneasily and he began examining his nails.

"Don't start with that. When I came home this afternoon, you were downloading fake GI Joe PSAs off Youtube."

"That? Oh. That was just a brief coffee break in an otherwise crowded and productive day."

"Yeah. You betcha. Now what I was trying to say was, I wish I had all summer to hang with you and not have to worry about going back to work."

"Well, I'm worrying about going back to work, and it's not even August yet."

"I'm trying to express my deep and sincere love for you, you jackass. Are you getting that?"

"I think in this movie, they get somebody who looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger to play the first Terminator off the assembly line. Pretty cool, right?"

"I was trying to tell you I love you, but now you're just annoying me, so never mind."

The words broke through his preoccupation with buff robots and postapocalyptic storylines. He paused. He fumbled for the appropriate gesture.

"Oh. Well. Thanks."

"Yeah. Sure."

And with that, the moment crushed, stunned and reeling on the cutting room floor of the cinematic vista of a life in Anytown, USA, she left the patio. He sat, bemused, wondering whether he should follow, or take a separate car or what. He cast about in his mind to find the words to slap a Band-Aid on the situation. Always, it's the words. Like Hamlet said: "Words, words, words." If only he could come up with the right words this time.

He remembered that the movie started in ten minutes. He got up and made for the car.

And they made the movie with minutes to spare. They sat in the darkness. They held hands. They shared a soda. And as the screen lit up, he leaned over to tell her what he was sure, in her heart of hearts, she truly needed to hear:

"It really was a coffee break, dammit."

"Shut up."

"A real long one, sure, but still..."

"Just...shut up."

Fin