“I want to sustain our relationship,” he says through clinched teeth. His smile splitting his face like palm-crushed fruits. When asked why he uses words like “sustain” when discussing something as mindless as “their relationship,” he simply shrugs. Holding the smile. “I don’t know,” he says. “Love is a science, I guess. You know. Just like anything else. Just like anyone else.”
She starts to cry, snatching her purse from the table. The table wobbles, the sound of lonesome ice tapping against smudged wineglasses that only recently held water. Just water. “Anyone? Anyone else, right? I’m anyone else?” She holds a peculiarly folded napkin to her eyes, catching smeared Kohl.
“Well, yes,” he says. “Or anything. Anything else. You’re in my equation, see, and I - “
“Shut up,” she says. Her voice is softer now and seems to suffocate beneath her tears. “Shut the fuck up. You little…you little shit.”Watching curiously as she dabs the napkin against her cheeks, he finally abandons his smile. “Well, I’ll…see you later, I guess. Goodbye!”
She picks up her plate of half-eaten grilled chicken, and slams it against the edge of the table. Tiny bits of glass scatter on the floor. The chicken falls to her feet. The chicken is not broken. “I hear Hell is nice this time of year. You little shit.” She runs, pushing past laughing waiters and finger-pointing waitresses. Brushing debris from his jacket, he reaches into his shirt pocket for a fat ballpoint pen. He clicks it a few times before moving it across the white tablecloth, littered with jotted false starts - and even falser stops - of a formula both proven and unproven. Loosely.
After the equals sign, he hastily scribbles “Absolute zero.”
