I nodded along to the end of the story. He said, “When we got home from that one, we got out the vodka and drank.” Déjà vu that line, too. I stood up and got the vodka bottle from the kitchen and slammed it down in front of him. Everybody laughed. I wondered if he’d ever been on that plane in the first place. I pictured him lying on the couch in his office, masturbating to an image of himself dressed in a Russian Army uniform, himself dressed as the airplane pilot, himself getting shot as the Czech guy. I thought how boring it must’ve been for his daughters to grow up listening to this egomaniac tell the same dull stories every night—even though he didn’t, because he was never around. Across from me, Linda didn’t seem to mind. She had a dim, unconscious half smile on her lips. He pulled at the sandwich and dabbed his chin with his napkin, chewing slowly. We finished, finally—yahoo!—and Linda asked who wanted coffee, and he wiped his mouth with the napkin and folded it and dropped it on the floor, and said he was tired and told everybody good night and went to the guest room.

In bed that night I kissed Linda on her head. I said, “It’s going O.K., I think.” She was lying on her side, not facing me. There was all this tension between us. “You’re doing great,” I said. She nodded. I said, “I’m proud of you.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Your dad’s terrific.”

“He’s a one-trick pony,” she said.

“I love you.”

She looked at me. “What a charmboat,” she said, and turned back and went to sleep.

With no rash on her face, she’s beautiful. Her face is the kind women would kill for, what plastic surgeons try to emulate. No kidding. And I’m not bragging: I think she’s damaged because of it. She can be a pain in the ass. She doesn’t know who to trust, so she has to trust me, but if you took an X ray of the inside of her soul you’d see loose pieces, with unmatched edges, floating around inside her. Beautiful women are a pain in the ass. In some ways, they’re worse off than ugly women—even ugly men, even ladies with full beards—because under their laser scrutiny everybody is horrible and gross.