It felt like there had to be more to say. Yet, deep as Katie reached into herself she pulled out nothing but scrapings. “I’m glad it seems like everything is working out for you,” she said to Pete, the cheeriest smile she had hooked into place on her face.
“Yeah, no, it is,” he said through his own plastered grin. Bland as her offering was, he accepted it. Neutrality, plain and inoffensive, was better than most people could hope for in this kind of situation. “It’s all working out, the job, the house, life… and stuff.” Pete cleared his throat and gestured to a stack of flattened cardboard boxes he had just brought in from the garage. “Yeah, so I got you some more boxes for your stuff. I mean, I know you brought your own, but just in case you need more.” Pete turned away from her, and started making one up for her. “No hurry, I mean. I’m not trying to kick you out or anything.”
“Yeah, I know,” Katie said. “Thanks for helping me pack.”
“Yeah, no, thank you for coming by to do it.”
“Thanks for being available.”
That was all that was left between them: a volley of thanks and gratitude, tossed across an invisible net, between lines drawn in the sand. Everything else was out of bounds. They were playing an easy game, a fair game, but Katie felt Pete wasn’t playing to win any more. Really though, she knew she couldn’t expect that he would. It had been a few months now since those two words had been uttered. She had said it first, but he agreed. It was a tie by mutual agreement, and the match, as it were, was over.
Now Katie was here, in the space that had been their home, come to pick up her half of their split winnings. They had agreed they weren’t both losers; they were both winners even though neither of them would walk away with a trophy. Actually, Katie thought, neither of us had wanted it. The formerly pale circle around her fourth finger had darkened and the skin there was now indistinguishable from the skin around it.
“So, shall we begin?” Katie asked. She referred to the piles of their stuff scattered all over the living room. There were clothes, towels, plates, DVDs, CDs, a few vases and the Christmas decorations. Pete had unloaded the material culture of their relationship onto the living room floor.
“Yeah, I guess.” Pete sat himself on the floor, opposite Katie and waited for her to begin. Katie wasn’t sure how to. She thought she had made the first serve. She had said the two words, those long few months ago. The ball was now in Pete’s court. She stared him evenly in the eyes and did not move.
“So how about the Christmas stuff?” she finally asked.
“Wow, straight for the big one, huh? How many Christmases have we had?” Katie didn’t answer, so Pete went on. “Why don’t we divvy up the photographs first, and get that out of the way?” Pete’s backhand was an ace.
“Okay,” Katie smiled and let out a short sigh between her teeth. “Why not? Let’s do it.”
“You keep the ones with your friends in them, and I keep those with mine,” Pete suggested.
“And the ones with both of our friends?” There were many of those. Pete and Katie stared at each other without blinking. Finally, Pete said, “Let’s set those aside for now.”
“Fine,” Katie said, not feeling fine. She pointed to the other albums. “What about the ones with both of us in them?” There were lots of those too.
“Well, you know I could just scan them in and we both could have copies of everything.”
“Yeah, fine,” she said. “That sounds good.” This time, it did feel fine.
Katie felt compelled to look at the photos, now that it was decided that neither of them would have to sacrifice the physical ownership of their memories. The photo album on the very top of the stack was their oldest. As she peeled it open the plastic sealant crackled. Pete said nothing, but leant forward to look, as if he wanted a reminder of what its contents were.
“Hey, remember this one?” Katie asked. She held up the first page of the album. It was their first trip to Vegas. The very first vacation they had taken together, for the wedding of one of Pete’s college friends. The photo was of the four of them, two couples: one pair on the way into matrimony and the other, Pete and Katie, on the way into monogamy.
“Wow, will you look at us then?” Pete said. In the photo Katie’s hair was pixie cut, wild and tipped with bright red. Pete looked up at her. That girl was gone; now Katie had long hair, parted down the center and brown. She had it tied up into a utile pony-tail. “That was a good trip, right?”
Right? Katie thought. Had Pete forgotten how many times he’d told everyone the story of how she lost one heel at the taco place and walked back five, ten, fifteen – crazy dozens – of blocks back to the strip? Katie tried to search Pete’s eyes for the answer to his own question, but he had lowered his gaze back down to the photograph. He had forgotten that she had not enjoyed it quite as much as he had.
“You know what?” he said, snapping his fingers. Pete had moved onto another topic. “So, Dan and Rachel are getting divorced.” The other couple in the photo.
“Wow,” Katie breathed out a whistle. “Didn’t see that coming. What happened?”
“Don’t really know yet, but I hear that they can’t even be in the same room together.” Pete laughed as though somehow Dana and Rachel’s marital dissolution were the most priceless joke ever. “Glad we’re not like that, right?”
Another request for affirmation. Katie had a feeling Pete had begun to play another game, one she did not really feel like playing. She didn’t want to answer, one way or the other. Who was she to say whether Dan and Rachel’s passion – even in rupture of their union – was any better than the insipid politeness of theirs?
Yet, Katie found herself speaking. Yeah, definitely,” she said, her voice light and clear. It didn’t sound like hers, but the words were coming out of her mouth. “Can’t imagine us screaming at each other like that. So not like us.” Then, her voice still detached from herself, Katie laughed, not feeling the hilarity.
She envied Dan and Rachel their passion. She suspected their exchanges had an effusive ardor, agonizing and exhausting though they probably were. She and Pete had none of that left; their romance had been aborted with the utterances of two short words. Dan and Rachel had begun theirs that weekend in Vegas with two other short words, declared willingly, lovingly. Two other short words that Katie and Pete would never say to one another now.
Katie sighed, thinking that perhaps she was not being fully fair. There had been other two-word declarations she and Pete had made. Her mind drifted away from the present involuntarily and the memory of those two-word volleys came unbidden. Love you. Love you. Come over. Stay over. We’re together. Be mine. I’m yours. Move in. I’m pregnant. Not now. Yes, now. Okay, now. I’m ready. Marry me. I will. You’re sure? Completely sure. Not ready. Okay, ready. Maybe wrong. Maybe right. I’m confused. You’re confused? Again, this. Yes, this. Why this? Hear me. Hear yourself. No more. I’m done. It’s done. It’s gone. Start again. Just us. I’m ready. I can. We can. I’m here. You’re gone. I’m done. I’m gone. No more. It’s over.
Sadly Katie realized that through their entire relationship they had lobbed half-hearted, two-word serves back and forth. Had they always been so laconic? She was suddenly conscious that her answer to that question had been reduced to a single word: yes.
“Yeah, bet they just let everything fly,” Pete went on, oblivious to the lifetime that had unraveled in Katie’s mind. “It’s gotta be hell to be in that room, man.”
Katie didn’t know if she agreed with him, so she let the conversation lapse into silence as she retreated into the comfort of renewing her acquaintance with things they once owned. After a moment’s silence, Pete said, “Wonder what they fight about. I mean, what it was that made them split, y’know.”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Yeah, but hey, you knew Rachel pretty well. What do you think it was?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Pete said, not having heard what Katie said. “I mean, who knows why love dies, right? I mean, it’s different for everyone, right?”
Katie said nothing, but flipped another page. He still wasn’t listening, and there were no more points to be gained from speaking.
“I think it’s different for everyone.” Pete said.
Katie put down the album and looked at Pete. She was right. There was a new game Pete wanted to play, and the quivering expression on his face showed her he was hovering on the edge of inviting her. She didn’t want to play. It’s over, she had said three months ago. It seemed to her now that he had not really heard her – then or now, or perhaps, ever.
“So when are you actually moving?” Pete asked her, edging closer to making an invitation. “Getting a truck, or what?”
Katie didn’t want to be rude. “Yeah, a truck. I’m going to load it all up and just drive there at the end of the month.”
“Wow, that’s pretty soon, huh?” Today was the twentieth. “You doing it all by yourself?”
There it was. The question. The invitation. He asked it in a roundabout way, but the name of the new game was clear. He might have been more direct about it, she thought. Who are you going to be with? He might have asked that instead. Or, more plainly: who are you fucking now?
“Yeah, I know, it’s only about a week away. I have so much to do until then,” Katie said. There were no more points to score. She didn’t want to play and she had run out of words to say. She declined his invitation with an apologetic smile and walked off the court.
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