Meatballs

They ate at a restaurant in the West Village that served only meatballs. She drank a glass of white wine and he drank beer.

“How was the interview?” he asked.

“The position is 70 to 80 hours per week,” she said, looking into her food.

“I work about 65 now,” he said. He began to explain his work as a finance analyst but she didn’t understand anything after the word “algorithm.”

He paid the bill and they walked to a bar he liked in the Meatpacking District. He made a wrong turn and she remembered what a bad sense of direction he had. She looked at a few street signs.

“That way’s west,” she pointed, and his cheeks flushed as they walked toward the river.

“Living with my parents again is alright. The office is close to their house,” he said. “My dad’s great but there are always issues with my mom.”

“Tell me about that.”

“I’m not going to go there.”

“Fine,” she responded, disappointed. “Just tell me about your coworkers.”

At the bar, he drank the same type of beer and she drank the same type of wine.

“I come into the city on the weekends and stay at my grandparents’ place on the Upper West Side. They’re in Florida for the winter,” he told her. After he paid, he hailed a cab.

“80th and Broadway,” he told the driver. He put his arm around her in the back seat.

“Hey, thanks for paying,” she said.

“I’ve got a job and live with my parents. Nothing else to spend it on.”

They made fun of the program on the small back-seat television until they reached the apartment.

They walked brusquely past his doorman and into the elevator.

“Do you like it around here?” she asked.

“It’s mainly families.”

“Gross,” she giggled.

In the apartment, she sat on a nubby orange sofa while he opened a bottle of red wine. She picked up a small book on the coffee table and began to read it.

“You can have it. We have another copy at home,” he said, and she slipped it into her purse. They drank their wine and set the empty glasses on the coffee table. He kissed her hard, pushed her back onto the sofa, and began unbuttoning her shirt. From their time together at the university, she had learned what to expect from him and how to enjoy it.

Later, they lay in bed under a pastel portrait of his grandparents. She slept restlessly in the strange bed in the strange room until she awoke to the sound of him showering.

He came back into the room freshly shaven.

“Gotta leave for work,” he said. He led her out of the building and showed her where to board the train that would take her back to her hotel.

“Have fun in Rome,” she called after him as he walked away from her.

It was a sunny, brisk morning, and she stopped at a cart outside her hotel to buy a donut.

“I don’t have enough change,” she said to the vendor.

“That’s alright. Stay beautiful,” he responded and handed her the donut.

She ate it curled under the covers of the big, white hotel bed. Once she finished she called her mother, who had met her father long ago in the city.

“How was dinner?” her mother asked.

“Really nice,” she replied. “We ate at a meatball place. He seems to like his job.”

“That’s all you’re telling me?”

“Yes?” she responded, pulling the covers over her head.

Her mother was silent on the other end and the daughter, after a few quiet moments, began to sob.

“I don’t want to be a paralegal! I don’t want to be a paralegal!” she cried. Her voice betrayed an unbearable grief. Her mother laughed softly, gently on the other end.

“I know, sweetheart, I know,” her mother said. “You don’t have to be a paralegal if you don’t want to be a paralegal.”

She hung up and pulled the small book out of her purse. The cover had a sticky red stain, probably something one of his relatives had spilled. She thumbed through the pages, looking for advice.