I finished brushing my teeth and walked back into the bedroom. I was wearing nothing but my watch. “So, is it too small?” I said as I reached the doorway. “I mean, I know…” The words trailed off.
She made an involuntary sound that was halfway between a sign and a moan. “This again? We have talked and talked about this…and what do I always say?” She lowered her chin so that she was staring at me through her eyelashes. I had seen that look before. She blew a lock of light brown hair out of her eyes. “Well?”
“You say that it is not too small.” I looked at the floor.
“And what did Mary used to say?” She was bringing up old girlfriends. I never knew where a conversation was going when she did this. Her feet were now on the floor, and she began to dress.
“Mary and I never really discussed it, but I guess that it was ok…”
“It did the job, right?”
“I suppose so, but it’s just that…”
“Oh, and who was that girl with the lazy eye?” She was just teasing me now. She knew very well who Alyssa was. “She was the one with the…” She pantomimed cupping her chest.
“Alyssa, and yes she was well-endowed…”
“She also had one eye that looked like it was looking around a corner.” She laughed. She had made that joke before. Alyssa was self-conscious about many things, but her weak left eye was the one that hurt her most. I never mentioned it and pretended never to notice it.
“And she finished her PhD in Russian literature…”
“Oooh, Turgenev and all that. Well, what did she say?”
I put my pants on and felt around in the closet for a clean shirt.
“She said that years ago men, people, were smaller and that that size was less important. I mean now in the Netherlands men are all like six foot five.”
“You are five ten. What did you ever see in her anyway?” She knew that answer, or thought that she did. She knew that it wasn’t a shared appreciation of Fathers and Sons. She was already dressed. I had fallen behind and was just putting on my socks. “I have to be at work in twenty minutes and it takes us eighteen to get there.”
“It is just that Steve…” I put on a shoe without untying it, using my finger as a shoehorn.
“Steve is a lard ass…do not compare yourself to Steve. Do you boys just sit around and compare sizes, get out your rulers and measure? Actually, don’t tell me if you do. That would be too weird. You know that they look smaller when you are looking down on them, right? The rest of us actually know their size.” She tossed me the car keys. “Let’s go. No more of this, it is big enough.” She blew her hair out of her eyes again and kissed me on the cheek as I unlocked the car door.
I guess that a 34mm watch isn’t too small after all.
The Escapement Room 