"I didn't order pizza," he says again, but dully, in a daze. For he has realised who the woman on the other side of the door is. It's Laura.
///
They take a long and not especially comfortable moment to look at each other, for the first time in over a year.
"You cut your hair!"
"So did you. Looks great. What are you doing here? How did you find me?"
Laura Hill sits forward in her chair, loooking earnest. "Paul, it's just - you won't believe it. I have this incredible piece of equipment that I've just started using. It's called a - oh, now, let me get this right - it's called a Personal Computer."
He looks at her.
"I Googled you, dummy."
Paul drags a rueful smile onto his face and drops it there.
"Come on now. You have to tell me. What're you doing here Laura?"
"You always this unfriendly to women who come bearing beer and pizza?" she asks, watching him pick the olives off his second - no, third - slice. He slurps his beer thirstily. She finds herself hypnotized, dazzled by this unexpected display of his appetites. She's never seen him eat or drink - other than a glass of water or a cup of tea - and until now he's always seemed so .. ascetic.
He grins, fleetingly, rather sheepishly. "No, of course not. But you have to allow me a little curiosity."
Laura cocks her head on one side in a gesture that reminds Paul of a bird. "Did you think you would never see me again? Ever?"
"Well, yes. I guess that's what I thought. It felt kind of final, our last meeting. It was probably easier for me in the long run to file it away under 'Over and Done With Now'."
She looks sadly at him. Seeing her look he says,
"But I hope it's needless for me to say that I am, actually, very happy to see you here. Especially with beer and pizza. God, this is truly disgusting." He gesticulates at her with a piece of wilted pizza. "But I'm loving it."
She's long since finished her own slice and is happy to sit and watch him eat - or, rather, massacre - the pizza. She sips from her own can of beer.
"What are you doing here really Laura?"
"I came to say goodbye."
He lays the crust carefully back into the box, wipes his hands on a paper napkin, and, leaning back in his chair, 'assumes the position'. She waits, thinking - all he needs to do now is cross his legs and turn his head slightly and the picture will be complete. Sure enough this is what he does. Paul Weston, refreshed by food and alcohol, is back in therapist mode.
///
She's going to South Africa the very next morning, having accepted a job at a teaching hospital in Durban. "It's time to give something back," she says simply. Not meeting his gaze. She talks a little bit more. Her father died. She talks about the problems she'd had settling his affairs (Paul nods sagely and tells her the same has happened to him.) Then there were the issues she had selling her house, about the shitty exchange rate, about the party she'd thrown for all her friends and how she'd felt when she realised that all of her friends, it seemed, were men.
Paul clears his throat as prelude to a subject he evidently finds uncomfortable. "Thanks for agreeing to give the deposition ..."
Laura's gaze drifts down. "Yeah. That was a real 'What the fuck?' moment for me, I have to tell you. Do you know what's happening?"
"They got thrown out of court. The judge who looked at it said there was no case to answer."
"I could have told them that."
They talk. He even gives her a severely truncated version of the story of what is happening between Kate and himself. How he is trying to get used to living alone, and only seeing his children at weekends. He tries hard to sound thoughtful and objective about all of these things. Now he's beginning to relax, to get over the shock of seeing her again, some of his original pain forgotten. It feels good to unpack pieces of himself, like a man with an over-stuffed picnic basket, laying things out on a blanket for her consideration. It's good to be able to use his charm, humour and ... he realises suddenly that he is flirting. He's dangerously close to courting her, fourteen months after it is too late to do so, displaying for her like a peacock with feathers the colour of conversation.
She loves to listen to him, loves to hear his reminiscences and stories from his life. They seemed to be so few and far between, back when they were therapist and patient. He was right - it was all very one-sided. They run out of news. The lamp light folds round them like a comfortable old blanket. "You know," he says, after dispatching most of the pizza as humanely as possible. "When I was at college, they were having this fund-raising thing one year. Trying to get money for new gym equipment or something, I don't know. Anyway - there was this, this silent auction. And .. I really don't know how they persuaded me this was a good idea - one of the prizes was a kiss on the lips."
One thing Paul remembers liking so much about Laura is how quick she is. "From you," she says, and it's not a question. She grins delightedly.
"From me. Raised just over thirty-seven bucks, as I recall. I ... uh, I only got a little worried when I saw two guys writing down bids."
She laughs. "What would you have done if one of them had won?"
"I have absolutely no idea," he says thoughtfully.
"So - what. You were Champion Kisser or something in your college? What'd they do, make you wear a red rosette or something? I think you're making this up." She's laughing at him.
"No, no. I'm not. It's in my yearbook and everything."
"Show me," she says. For Laura is intrigued. She tries to imagine Paul at twenty, before life had coursed all over his face, cutting its channels and dumping its sediment.
Paul has a stab at looking modest, but he's actually very pleased. He realises how good it is for him just to be having a real conversation with someone, a proper, two-way conversation not strained and tainted and weighed down by therapeutic good intentions and professional protocol. It felt wonderful to be talking about himself for once, to someone whose interest was personal and genuine.
He's missed having a friend.
He stands up, scattering pizza crumbs. Laura watches his ass unashamedly as he crosses the room. He rifles around in a bookcase. "I'm not sure I remember where it is," he says, putting his hand straight on it.
"That's bullshit, Paul."
He pulls the yearbook out from its place at the very end of a row of encyclopedias, where it sits unobtrusively so as not to draw attention to itself. This is what Paul does to his own life and personality all day long, when he is working. He hides it behind his profession.
Mostly.
Laura leafs through the book. It's a stark reminder of the difference in their ages. It comes from a time before Laura was born. She finds Paul's picture and stares intently at the young man there. It's unmistakably him - just look at all that hair, after all - but she's still taken aback by the intensity of his gaze.
"Boy. You sure look like an arrogant bastard."
"Oh, I was." He nods earnestly. "Completely."
She considers his older self carefully, as though looking at him for the first time, seeking signs that the arrogance might still be there, but is maybe now disguised. He looks back at her, also wondering how she has changed since he last saw her. Her hair is shorter of course, presumably in preparation for a hotter climate. He understands that - a mere two days of a New York City summer had sent him barrelling into the nearest barber shop for a short back and sides. She isn't wearing any makeup or jewellery.
He steps out to the kitchen to fix coffee and, after a few moments she follows him. She is waving a slip of paper at him. He recognises it as a check, and it seems to have his name on it.
"What's that for?"
She looks at it. Reads. "'Doctor Paul Weston. Forty one dollars and thirty seven cents only.'" She moves closer, showing him what she has done. "Look, I've outbid that other girl at auction. I claim my prize."
Oh, how he had missed that mischievous look, he realises. But he cools off again pretty fast.
"Don't do this, Laura. Please. There's nothing worse than a ... a sympathy seduction."
Laura's demeanour changes abruptly. "You know Paul, for a man of such remarkable intelligence, you can be incredibly fucking stupid sometimes."
