《ur》(2)

Once, winded, he lay back and said, "I'll never equal you as a lover."

"If you keep talking snooty like that, you won't be my lover for long. You're okay, Wes."

But he guessed he wasn't. He guessed he was just sort of...mediocre.

It wasn't his less-than-athletic sexual ability that ended their relationship, however. It wasn't the fact that Ellen was a vegan with tofu hotdogs in her fridge. It wasn't the fact that she would sometimes lie in bed after lovemaking, talking about pick-and-rolls, give-and-gos, and the inability of Shawna Deeson to learn something Ellen called "the old garden gate." In fact, these monologues sometimes put Wesley into his deepest, sweetest, and most refreshing sleeps. He thought it was the monotony of her voice, so different from the shrieks (often profane) of encouragement she let out while they were making love, shrieks that were similar to the ones she uttered during games, running up and down the sidelines like a hare (or a squirrel going up a tree), exhorting her girls to "Pass the ball!" and "Go to the hole!" and "Drive the paint!" Sometimes in bed she was reduced to yelling "Harder, harder, harder!" As, in the closing minutes of a game, she was often able to exhort no more than "Bucket-bucket-bucket!"

They were in some ways perfectly matched, at least for the short term; she was fiery iron, straight from the forge, and he - in his apartment filled with books - was the water in which she cooled herself.

The books were the problem. That, and the fact that he had called her an illiterate bitch. He had never called a woman such a thing in his life before, but she had surprised an anger out of him that he had never suspected. He might be a mediocre instructor, as Don Allman had suggested, and the novel he had in him might remain in him (like a wisdom tooth that never comes up, at least avoiding the possibility of rot, infection, and an expensive - not to mention painful - dental process), but he loved books. Books were his Achilles heel.

She had come in fuming, which was not new, but also fundamentally upset - a state he failed to recognize because he had never seen her in it before. Also, he was re-reading James Dickey's Deliverance, reveling again in how well Dickey had harnessed his poetic sensibility, at least that once, to narrative, and he had just gotten to the closing passages, where the unfortunate canoeists are trying to cover up both what they have done and what has been done to them. He had no idea that Ellen had just been forced to boot Shawna Deeson off the team, or that the two of them had had a screaming fight in the gym in front of the whole team - plus the boys' basketball team, which was waiting their turn to practice their mediocre moves - or that Shawna Deeson had then gone outside and heaved a large rock at the windshield of Ellen's Volvo, an act for which she would surely be suspended. He had no idea that Ellen was now blaming herself, bitterly blaming herself, because "she was supposed to be the adult."

He heard that part - "I'm supposed to be the adult" - and said Uh-huh for the fifth or sixth time, which was one time too many for Ellen Silverman, whose fiery temper hadn't exhausted itself for the day after all. She plucked Deliverance from Wesley's hands, threw it across the room, and said the words that would haunt him for the next lonely month:

"Why can't you just read off the computer, like the rest of us?"

"She really said that?" Don Allman asked, a remark that woke Wesley from a trancelike state. He realized he had just told the whole story to his office-mate. He hadn't meant to, but he had. And there was no going back now.

"She did. And I said, 'That was a first edition I got from my father, you illiterate bitch.'"

Don Allman was speechless. He could only stare.

"She walked out," Wesley said miserably. "I haven't seen or spoken to her since."

"Haven't even called to say you're sorry?"

Wesley had tried to do this, and had gotten only her answering machine. He had thought of going over to the house she rented from the college, but thought she might put a fork in his face...or some other part of his anatomy. Also, he didn't consider what had happened to be entirely his fault. She hadn't even given him a chance. Plus...she was illiterate, or close to it. Had told him once in bed that the only book she'd read for pleasure since coming to Moore was Reach for the Summit: The Definite Dozen System for Succeeding at Whatever You Do, by Tennessee Vols coach Pat Summit. She watched TV (mostly sports), and when she wanted to dig deeper into some news story, she went to The Drudge Report. She certainly wasn't computer illiterate. She praised the MooreCollege wireless network (which was superlative rather than mediocre), and never went anywhere without her laptop slung over her shoulder. On the front was a picture of Tamika Catchings with blood running down her face from a split eyebrow and the legend I PLAY LIKE A GIRL.

Don Allman sat in silence for a few moments, tapping his fingers on his narrow chest. Outside their window, November leaves rattled across Moore Quadrangle. Then he said: "Did Ellen walking out have anything to do with that?" He nodded to Wesley's new electronic sidekick. "It did, didn't it? You decided to read off the computer, just like the rest of us. To...what? Woo her back?"

"No," Wesley said, because he didn't want to tell the truth: in a way he still didn't completely understand, he had done it to get back at her. Or make fun of her. Or something. "Not at all. I'm merely experimenting with new technology."