Elsewhere(44)

"I told you you could do it if you put your mind to it," says Owen. He looks out the window. "I suppose we're done here," he adds.

Liz nods.

"Incidentally, what do you think was blocking you?" Owen asks.

"It's a mystery," Liz answers. She hands him his keys and gets out of the car.

Liz in Love

How do you know you're in love with someone?" Liz asks Curtis Jest during both their lunch breaks.

Curtis raises an eyebrow. "Are you saying you're in love with someone?"

"It's a friend," Liz says stiffly.

Curtis smiles. "Are you saying you're in love with a friend? Are you trying to tell me something, Lizzie?"

Liz's cheeks burn. "My interests are purely anthropological," she replies.

"Anthropological, eh?" His eyes dance in what Liz considers an inappropriate manner.

"If you aren't going to be serious, I'm leaving!" She is indignant.

"My, aren't we touchy! What's a little mirth between friends, Lizzie?" As he is getting nowhere with Liz's mood, Curtis relents. "Oh all right, darling, let's talk about love."

"So?"

"In my humble opinion, love is when a person believes that he, she, or it can't live without some other he, she, or it. You are a clever girl, and I imagine this is nothing you haven't heard before."

"But, Curtis," she protests, "we're dead! We have to live without people all the time, and we don't stop loving them, and they don't stop loving us."

"I said believes. No one actually needs another person or another person's love to survive. Love, Lizzie, is when we have irrationally convinced ourselves that we do."

"But, Curtis, doesn't it have anything to do with being happy and making each other laugh and having fun times?"

"Oh, Lizzie." Curtis laughs. "If only it were so!"

"It's very rude to laugh at a perfectly natural question," Liz says.

Curtis stops laughing. "I am sorry," he says, truly seeming sorry. "It's just that only someone who has never been in love would ask such a perfectly absurd question. I long ago decided to stay out of love's way, and I have since been a far happier man."

On the bus back to work, Liz thinks about what Curtis said. In a roundabout way, he answered her real question, Am I in love with Owen? The answer is no. Of course she isn't in love with him.

In retrospect she almost feels silly. For one, Owen is in love with his wife. And two, laughing, having fun, and being happy has nothing to do with being in love. Liz feels relieved. She can continue seeing Owen as much as she likes, safe in the belief that she doesn't love him and he doesn't love her. All this love business is trouble, anyhow.

Liz decides she is probably too young for romance. She will focus on work and her friends, and that will be the end of that.

Yes, in a way Liz is relieved. But in another way she isn't. In truth, she enjoyed entertaining the notion that Owen might love her, even a little bit.

The night after Liz mastered parallel parking, Owen finds himself with nothing to do. He spent nearly ten years alone and only three weeks with Liz. And yet he cannot remember what he used to do with his nights for the ten years before the three weeks. Owen stalks about his apartment.

He does the type of domestic things one does only when one is trying to fill up time: he cleans the space between the oven and refrigerator with a long wooden spoon that isn't long enough to accomplish its goal; he sweeps under his bed; he tries to read The Brothers Karamazov, the new translation that he's been trying to read since before he died without ever making it past page sixty-two; he tries to balance an egg on one end by placing a small mound of salt on his kitchen counter (it doesn't work); he carves a boat out of soap; and he throws out all the socks that have lost their partners. All that takes an hour, and then Owen collapses dejectedly on the couch.

"You should call Liz," Jen the Golden Retriever says to Owen. Unfortunately, Owen still does not speak Canine, so Jen's wisdom is lost on him.

"I bet Liz and Sadie are doing something fun," says Jen. "Why don't we go see them?"

Owen does not answer.

"Owen, you should really learn to speak Canine, because I could tell you a thing or two," Jen barks in exasperation. "You're in love with Liz, you know! It's perfectly obvious to everyone!" Jen scratches at the front door and howls. "Look what you've reduced me to!"

"Do you want to go out?" Owen asks her.

"Oh, you think?" Jen says sarcastically. "Come on, let's go! I'm taking you on a walk."

Jen runs Owen all the way across town, and before long, they find themselves in front of Liz's house.

Liz, Sadie, and Betty are all outside the house decorating for the holidays. Liz stands on a ladder, stapling Christmas lights to the roof. Sadie barks when she sees Jen and Owen approach.

"Hello, Jen! Hello, Owen!" Sadie says.

Owen smiles sheepishly at Liz. "It was Jen's idea, coming here. I don't want to bother you guys, or anything."

"You're no bother, Owen," Betty says. Betty's fondness for Owen has increased since he taught Liz how to parallel park. Betty has observed that driving lessons truly improved Liz's overall mood. "Liz, I can finish up. Why don't you go say hello to your friend?"