Jonathan Lethem - You Dont Love Me Yet

Contents

for eliot duhan

Mistakes are bound to happen, theres gonna be another summer I know what I think and what Im supposed to do Maybe I dont think as much as you

YOU DONT LOVE ME YET, THE VULGAR BOATMEN

I have my start
But I have never begun
Because without you my life is unsung

YOU DONT LOVE ME YET, ROKY ERICKSON

one

t hey met at the museum to end it. There, wandering through high barren rooms full of conceptual art, alone on a Thursday afternoon, Lucinda Hoekke and Matthew Plangent felt certain they wouldnt be tempted to do more than talk. Too, driving into the canyon of vacated plazas of downtown Los Angeles felt suitably solemn and irrevocable. The plan was not to sever as friends, or as bandmates, only as lovers.

Lucinda saw him first. A tall, malnourished vegetarian, Matthew was obliviously handsome, lead-singer handsome. He was dressed as for his work at the zoo and for the bands practices, in black turtleneck, jeans, and speckless suede work boots, which Lucinda knew he kept in his locker when he entered the animals habitats. Matthew had presumably been excused from his veterinary nursing duties for the afternoon, or possibly it was his day off. For the past four years Lucinda had been assembling espresso drinks and clearing dishes at the Coffee Chairs, but shed quit her job the day before, part of the same program of change that included this final rupture with Matthew. Instead, to pay her rent Lucinda had agreed to work for her friend Falmouth Strand in his storefront gallery.

On her way into the museum Lucinda had paused at two heroic pillars of neon, mounted on either side of a doorway, and seen only versions of herself and Matthew: discrete, sealed, radiant. Now, sighting Matthew, she felt her senses quicken, her balance shifting to her toes. He squinted warily at a television monitor on a white pediment, some sort of video art. Perhaps it was the case that for him, as for her, everything in the museum had been reduced to an allegory of their dilemma. Exhausted by the old tug of his beauty, his scruffy intensity and lean limbs, Lucinda was ready to send Matthew and his allure out voyaging elsewhere.

She joined silently to his side, the tiny hairs of their arms bristling together electrically. The two wandered like zombies through the exhibition, hesitating for a long while at a pair of basketballs floating perfectly suspended at midpoint in a glass water tank.

The thing is weve done this so much before were too good at it.

Matthews gaze remained fixed on the tank. You mean theres nothing to say.

Yes, but also we dont believe its real because weve fallen back together so many times afterward. We need to make a difference between this time and all those others.

This time were serious, Lucinda.

On the other hand, the advantage to so many practice breakups is we know we still like each other, so we dont have to worry that were not going to be friends.

Yes.

The band will be okay.

Yes.

If we seem like were barely speaking to each other Denise and Bedwin will be completely confused. We cant let the band worry about us. Bedwins fragile enough as it is.

Yes.

Is something else wrong?

Its nothing. Theres a sort of crisis with one of the zoos kangaroos, thats all.

You were thinking about a kangaroo just now?

I just kind of wish we were in someplace more private so I could hold you and maybe just kiss you a little bit. His dark woeful eyes flitted past her, as if hounded. I feel like I cant even look at you.

I feel the same way, but thats the point. We have to stop now, change our patterns.

I should stop having breakfast at the Coffee Chairs.

You can go to the Coffee Chairs all you like. I quit yesterday.

Are you serious?

Im going to work for Falmouth.

Matthew disliked Falmouth. Lucinda and Falmouth had been together, briefly, in college. Matthew had always behaved jealously around Falmouth, though he denied it.

Work how? Doing what?

He offered me a job in a sort of theatrical piece hes putting together. A fake office that needs fake office workers to answer real telephone calls.

Calls from who?

I dont know. A complaint line, he said.

I dont get it.

I dont either, yet. But Falmouth will make it clear. Speaking of which, he has a piece in here somewhere, he showed me once.

Is that why were here? Is this about Falmouth?

What are you talking about?

Are you trying to tell me youre going to be with Falmouth now?

I could never be with Falmouth again. You know me better than that. He isnt even going to be at the gallery most of the time, thats why he needs to hire me. Come on, this way.

She dragged him by the hand, through impoverished galleries, white rooms barely ornamented apart from seven tiny pyramids of wheat germ.

Here, this is Falmouths thing.

Falmouths object had been plopped ingloriously in the middle of an atrium, seemingly exiled. A white crate or cube. Matthew circled it skeptically.

This white box is everything I cant stand about contemporary everything.

No, wait, see, its not a box.

Matthew read aloud the artworks identifying label, on the opposite wall. Chamber Containing the Volumetric Representation of the Number of Hours It Took Me to Arrive at This Idea , Mixed Media, 1988.

It has a door, look.

I dont know if youre supposed to

Falmouth built it, dont worry.

Hey, its a little room.

See, why would all this stuff be in here if we werent meant to see it?

Its just like Falmouth to hide the good part.

I wonder if theres anything to drink in that refrigerator.

It would have to be like airplane drinks, little bottles.

Lets find out.

Matthew touched her at the waist and guided her through the low entrance to the chamber. Hurry, he said, before anyone comes.

Inside, she crouched, seated herself on the sled-size bed. Then took Matthews hand and tugged him onto her lap. Close the door, quick. She slid her hand along his hip, to the waist of his thready, pale-bleached jeans. He wore no underwear. His smooth belly flinched to concavity under her fingertips.

Wait

Kiss me.

Does this door lock?

Who cares, no ones here, were the only ones in the whole museum.

Lucinda braced against the tiny bedposts as Matthew wrinkled her jeans over her knees. The refrigerator slid to the rooms corner as she batted it with her toes, but there was nowhere else to put her leg. Matthew arched low to keep from topping against the rooms ceiling. Lucinda kissed his craning neck.

The last time, she managed.

Of course.

For real, it has to be for real.

It is for real.

The band, we cant mess up the band

We wont, they wont know the difference, itll just be you and me as friends and the band will be fine.

Just friends now, Matthew

Yes

two

t heres a certain kind of talk I have with women, the voice complained. I say whatever Im thinking about love and sex and blah, blah, blah, Ive heard myself a thousand times. But as normal as it is for methis kind of frank talk, I meanfor women it seems like its always the first time in their lives theyve ever spoken that way.