“I’m not hungry,” Karen said.
“Then why did you order?” he asked, exasperated.
“Because you wanted to! You decided!” Karen replied, mirroring his tone.
“I didn’t decide anything,” said Dan. “It’s lunchtime. Time decided it.”
“You always decide,” Karen said more quietly, looking out at the sea.
Dan looked at her, then followed her gaze out to the water. A pair of kids floated offshore, clinging to a boogie board. At this distance it was impossible to see whether they were huddled in fear, or just talking. Karen sat back down.
“Cancel it,” Dan said, “and you can eat later, when you’re hungry.”
Karen nodded and stood back up, looking for the waiter. When the waiter saw her, he disappeared for a moment and then walked toward them, carrying a large tray. He went to Dan’s side and set down a beige-colored pad thai. Then he came around to Karen’s and set down a large, puffy pizza. As Dan ate, Karen regarded her unwanted pizza. It had the shape and pattern of a pizza, but the cheese on top was creamy like brie, the tomato sauce had a deep burgundy color. It was as though somebody who had never known a pizza in real life had created one based on a vintage photograph and a dictionary entry. Several feet away, a family of French tourists sat drinking tall blue drinks and eating cheese sandwiches. The children played a game that involved slapping each other’s hands; sharp smacks cut through the drowse of the waves and of buzzing insects.
When she first met Dan, a graduate school classmate of her friend Naomi, she had called him “fun,” which was not the same thing as “exciting.” Most of the people Karen dated had pushy personalities and visible insecurities: when she soothed their worries, it created a serene feeling in her, like petting a cat. When the two of them experienced worries simultaneously, huge fights would develop and last anywhere from one to three days. Dan’s emotional life was sturdier: Karen admired how he shrugged off smaller offenses and articulated his disagreement with larger ones in simple, practical language. He had experienced few conflicts in his life, and those he remembered were strange to her. Once he told her about a graduate school rival, Paul Mitchell, who had stolen his idea for the semester’s final project. They had been assigned to come up with a concept and suite of renderings for a public library proposed in downtown Los Angeles. Dan’s idea had been an elegant oval with a large, open central space where patrons could gather and socialize, with stacks and quiet study spaces radiating outward. The building would have a natural “hearth” to it, and visitors could choose what type of “heat” they wanted to experience by placing themselves in relation to it.
Two days before his presentation, Paul had come to class with the same building, identical down to the colors used and the key terms bolded on his slides. He looked straight at Dan while giving his talk, smirking. Dan ended up having to design an entirely new library, this time conceived as a honeycomb of adaptable nooks that could become spaces for private reading or cozy group interaction. In the end, his two-day project received the highest score in the class, he told her: the story ended there. But had he confronted Paul Mitchell afterward? Why was Paul so bent on fucking him over? Had Dan been angry, and if so, how did he exhibit it? Karen couldn’t understand how these encounters had marked him, and she had always believed that a person without trauma was dangerous in some way, untested. Also bizarre: in all of his stories, Dan ended up succeeding.
The health and robustness of his mind were compelling to her: like an alien or a hero, she believed him capable of anything. At the same time, she felt useless in the face of his decisions, which she believed were stronger than her own. She didn’t understand why he had arrived at the decision to propose to her today, rather than some day earlier or later. Now, as she watched him staring at his computer, outlined in sweat and brilliant sunshine, the air around them so hot that it almost seemed to wobble, Karen felt an urgent and acrimonious feeling rise in her.
“What’s that?” Karen demanded, pointing to the ugly form on-screen.
“It’s the first concept for a hybrid gallery-gym,” Dan said. “Victor’s firm got the commission, and he wants me to help out. He actually wants to offer me a job. I’m just trying to look at the idea and figure out what he’s thinking.” He spun the shape around casually. It slowed and settled on a slant, looking cheap.
“Where would the job be?” Karen asked. “Don’t you think you should have told me?”
“Boston,” said Dan. He looked at her. “But there isn’t even an offer yet.”
Karen stared into the shallow pool. Jellyfish are a gathering of protein, water, nerves — no brain. The bungalow they had paid for cost over two hundred American dollars a night, times four nights. They still had two nights to go. It was embarrassing to be here, seeing into the lives of so many strangers: for the first time, she missed the generic motels of her childhood, where people were kept safely stowed away from one another. She wished she had never seen the swimming couple, whose discord had ruined the morning’s fragile new feeling.
“It’s not a big deal,” he said, reaching over and squeezing her arm.
“Don’t you think,” Karen said in a wavering voice, “that we should talk about the engagement?”
“Because of this?” Dan asked. His voice was flattening, the way it did when he was angry. “Are you serious?”
Karen spoke carefully, in clipped phrases. “I mean, it just happened this morning. Why aren’t we talking about it? Why aren’t we happy? Shouldn’t it change this whole day? Make it better? Shouldn’t it be present in everything we say or do?”
“I’m having a great day,” he replied stiffly. “Aren’t you?”
She stared at him reproachfully.
“This is ridiculous,” Dan said.
Karen felt confused and angry. She was only trying to communicate, and she felt that nothing should be off-limits on the day of their engagement. If anything, she wanted to delve more deeply into their relationship, learn about it, immerse herself.
“You know what,” Dan said, standing up. “Let’s take an hour to cool off. I’ll be in the room. You can find me whenever you want.”
As he walked off toward the rows of indistinguishable cottages, their shapes modern but boring, Karen tried not to cry. Alone among vacationers, she closed her eyes and tried to will away the people around her, playing, laughing, sucking drinks through convoluted plastic straws. With her eyes closed, their presence only grew louder: she could hear mouths squishing around bread, mucus unclogging deep within a head. The ocean sound was everywhere, close and encroaching, coming to carry her away. Then, at some point, she was asleep.
She awoke to the sensation of a damp towel being draped over her face, one was already on her torso. It felt like a funeral ritual, gently conducted. She pulled the towel away and blinked into the impossibly bright light. The ocean had come up almost to the railing: now it was only a few feet of tile that separated her from the sea and everything in it. To her right stood a man about her age, wearing navy blue shorts and a black T-shirt, some outfit that said nothing about who he was. He had picked up the towel she had thrown on the ground and was holding it out to her.
“You’re burning,” he said flatly, in a completely normal American voice. He looked at her expressionlessly, waiting. He was dramatically handsome.
Karen reached for the towel, pressed it against her face. There was an insistent feeling on the surface of her skin, like her face was falling asleep and blushing at the same time. She felt thirsty, or maybe faint.
“Thank you,” she muttered. She looked around. The French family was gone, and so were the sunbathers strewn on the hurricane wall. It seemed shameful to sleep out here, in public. Karen thought of someone, a strange man or woman, watching her unconscious face, her slack, open mouth. The sun was in a different place now, but it was no cooler than before.