“I guess I’m just sentimental.”

“Did you know I always dug you, Melvin?”

“You mean to tell me that all this time—”

“That’s right.”

“But you never said anything.”

“Neither did you.”

All those years that Alice had been in walking distance I’d never told her how I felt about her to her face. She had probably been around a lot of cats like me who felt she was beyond our reach and refused to allow her to be real for others besides herself.

I felt a tent pitch itself in the crotch of my pants.

“What are you doing tonight?” I asked.

“Look, Melvin, I know you just got out of jail. It’s only natural for you to want to hook up with a woman. And I’m probably the first one you’ve run into.”

“That’s not the only reason I want to see you.”

“I didn’t say it was. But I just want you to know that you don’t have to convince me that it’s not on your mind.”

“Damn, Alice, who are you trying to convince, me or yourself?”

“I’m just trying to save both of us a lot of trouble… You see, the mistake I’ve always made with men was wanting them to convince me that they wanted to do more than just fuck. And the funny thing is that I’ve met very few men who have really wanted to fuck me. If they had, things probably would have worked out better. Most of them only wanted to fuck themselves.”

“You think I’m like that?”

“I don’t know. But I’m not going to try to find out.”

“Now, ain’t this some shit!” I turned in the direction of the voice and saw a huge woman standing a few feet away with the backs of her hands pushing their way into bulging hips. She had probably always been heavy, but had moved way beyond that now. I wondered when she had stopped trying to halt the spiral of weight and decided to let it mount without any resistance. But before I could answer my own question I recognized who she was.

“Yeah, it’s me,” she said, pushing in next to me in the booth.

“Hey, Pauline,” Alice said.

“How you been, Pauline?” I asked.

“I was all right until I saw you two over here lookin like you stuck on each other. Don’t tell me after all these years you two got a thing goin on?”

“No, we were just talking.”

“Just talkin, hunh? That’s a switch for you, ain’t it, Mouth?”

“People can change, can’t they?”

“No! People can’t change! People do a whole lotta shit but they don’t change!”

“You think so?”

“Hey, I know so! Look at you two. Now, I don’t want to get in your business, Alice, but…”

“Then don’t!”