Now, afterward, they were settling down in that place, huddled together. They lay silently for a long time. Idly she looked toward the ledge by the mattress where she kept cigarettes, a mason jar with miniature roses, a Japanese ashtray, and an alarm clock.

“The clock must have stopped,” she said.

He mumbled something inarticulate. His eyes were closed.

“It says nine twenty,” she said, “and we left Harry’s at nine.”

“Hmmm,” he said, without interest.

She was silent for a while, musing. Then she said, “Terry? What time does your watch say?”

“Time, time,” he said. “Watch, watch.” He shifted his arm and looked. “Nine twenty,” he said.

“Is the second hand moving?” she said. His watch was an Accutron, not given to being wrong or stopping.

He looked again. “Nope. Not moving.” He let his hand fall on her naked behind, now cool to his touch. Then he said, “That is funny. Both stopping at once.” He leaned over her body toward the window, pried open a space in her Levolor blinds, looked out. It was dark out, with an odd shimmer to the air. Nothing was moving. There was a pile of plastic garbage bags on the sidewalk opposite. “It can’t be eleven yet. They haven’t taken the garbage from the Toreador.” The Toreador was a Spanish restaurant across the street; they kept promising they would eat there sometime but never had.

“It’s probably about ten thirty,” she said. “Why don’t you make us an omelet and turn the TV on?”

“Sure, honey,” he said. He slipped on his bikini shorts and eased himself down the ladder. Barefoot and undressed, he went to the tiny Sony by the fireplace, turned it on, and padded over to the stove and sink at the other end of the room. He heard the TV come on while finding the omelet pan that he had bought her, under the sink, nestling between the Bon Ami and the Windex. He got eggs out, cracked one, looked at his watch. It was running. It said nine twenty-six. “Hey, honey,” he called out. “My watch is running.”

After a pause she said, her voice slightly hushed, “So is the clock up here.”

He shrugged and put butter in the pan and finished cracking the eggs, throwing the shells into the sink. He whipped them with a fork, then turned on the fire under the pan and walked back to the TV for a moment. A voice was saying, “… nine thirty.” He looked at his watch. Nine thirty. “Jesus Christ!” he said.

But he had forgotten about it by the time he cooked the omelets. His omelets had been from the beginning one of the things that made them close. He had learned to cook them before leaving his wife and it meant independence to him. He made omelets beautifully—tender and moist—and Edith was impressed. They had fallen in love over omelets. He cooked lamb chops too, and bought things like frozen capelletti from expensive shops; but omelets were central.