She sounded sad, even tearful.
“I’m glad I caught you. Where’s Mina? She still at school?”
Elena nodded and continued to fold what looked like pale blue under-
pants—Zack was too shy to glance again and find out whose. Her beautiful
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beak of nose looked more beaky than usual, with more color than the rest of
her face.
Then Zack understood. “You have a cold.”
She sniffed. “It is only starting. But you must keep away. I do not want to
share.”
He’d been around too many sobbing women today, and his mistake was
natural. “Would you like some tea? Come upstairs and I’ll make us some hot
tea with lemon and honey.”
“Yes? You sure? Oh, why not? When I finish here. But I cannot stay long.
I promised Mina I would take her to get new shoes.”
Zack went up to the kitchen and put the kettle on, feeling nervous, almost
guilty. It wasn’t as if he were going to tattle on Daniel. He just wanted to know
what Elena knew about the weekend, if it were good news or bad news or
meant nothing at all.
By the time Elena joined him in the kitchen, two heavy mugs were set out
on the table, a bright yellow lemon had been cut into sections, and the tea was
steeping in its glazed clay pot.
“My cold is not so terrible,” she explained as she sat down. “It looks worse
than it feels. I am careful not to sneeze on the laundry.”
“I could give you something for it,” said Zack, “but I’ve found it’s usually
best to let colds run their course.”
He poured out the tea. They puffed away the steam and sipped. Zack
waited to see if she would bring up the subject, but all she said was “I cannot
taste a thing. But the heat is good.”
“Just plain old Lipton with lots of honey and lemon. So how have you
been doing? Besides the cold. Abbas get back okay? Did he say anything
about their trip?”
Elena shrugged. “Only that he had a good time but he is glad to be back.”
“Nothing else?”
She shrugged again. “He says he needs to work harder on his paintings.
That is all. Why do you ask?”
“Daniel thinks it’s over. Their thing.”
Her black eyebrows arched upward. “Oh?” She took another sip of tea.
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She rolled it around in her mouth before swallowing. “Over for him or for
Abbas?”
“For Abbas. He’s still interested but he thinks Abbas isn’t.”
“Hmm.” Her eyebrows went down and she sat very still, thinking.
“Abbas indicated nothing like that?”
“No. But he wouldn’t. He would never tell me such a thing because it
might give me satisfaction.”
“Really? Daniel is the opposite. He’d tell me right away. Not just to make
me happy but to get a little sympathy.”
“Then you are nothing like us.” She nodded to herself. “What makes him
think it is over?”
Zack was reluctant to confess something so private and possibly trivial.
“Uh, maybe Daniel’s reading too much into it. But Abbas didn’t want to have
sex with him on their last night together. Or the next morning either.”
Her eyes grew very wide. And she began to blink.
“Does that sound like Abbas?”
She shrugged—she had a very eloquent shrug today. “Abbas is always
wanting sex, but when it suits him, not the other person.”
“So it means something he didn’t want it their last night?”
She shrugged again. “I have given up trying to understand what will and
will not give my husband a hard-on. He can want the other person only so
long as the other person doesn’t want him more. He is a taker, not a giver.”
“Are we talking about just sex here or love too?”
“There is no difference with Abbas.”
But Zack felt there was a difference. “Daniel thinks Abbas was never in
love with Daniel but only wanted Daniel to be in love with him.”
“Of course,” she said, as if they’d been fools not to realize this sooner. “He
wants people to want him. He needs people to want him. And one or two are
not enough. He wants drama, frisson. Which means rubbing?”
“Or friction,” said Zack.
“Yes. Friction. Action. Trouble. He enjoys trouble. But he gets his fill and
moves on. He loves to be loved, but finds it difficult to love back. What is sur-
prising here is he has had his fill so soon.” She poked out her mouth in a
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thoughtful pucker. “But Daniel is older than most of Abbas’s boyfriends.
Maybe he is less trouble, less friction.”