Pebble and Clod

He was mysterious to her. It was partly because he earned over half a million a year and she was sure that no one could earn that much without having a mysterious and exciting job full of conflict and expensive lunches and beautiful secretaries. When he came to pick her up after a long day at work he smelled good and was clean and even the Land Rover always looked like it can just come from the car wash. She was glad that she was young and looked good because that’s what she had going for her. He had money and she was beautiful, she could put on blue jeans and an old T-shirt and her skin would just glow. He worshipped every part of her. She reminded him of the kinds of women he had wanted as a child, like the girls on his older sister’s field hockey team, young and strong and sweaty and stronger than the boys, girls who would never love him unless he drove a beautiful car one day and showered them with luxury. In fact, he was a heart surgeon, which required hours and hours of painstaking and difficult work, 6am mornings, 30 minute lunches, stress pills and two personal trailers, caffeine pills or Adderall to work, and valium to sleep. It was worth it. He had two hours of happiness a day. Ten minutes of that was when the nurses looked at him in admiration after a difficult operation, or when a patient thanked him for saving his life. The other hour and fifty minutes was time spent with her each night, when he picked her up, and she kissed him and over an expensive meal complained about her dad’s business and her difficult sister, then the thirty minutes of lovemaking they had in his apartment on the thirtieth floor the size of two tennis courts with windows for walls. He was always asleep by 1045pm, and she stayed up until 1am, watching old movies, drinking brandy, and chatting with brother in LA on the phone.