“She could still have a dating life.”

“Yes. Of course.” John waves his hand, as if dismissing his own stupidity. “Of course she could.” After a moment, his face thoughtful, he says, “But it might be a reason she wouldn’t talk to you about it.”

They speculate about this—if Sarah were gay, would she feel comfortable telling Annie and Graham? Would one of John’s boys, telling him and Betsy such a thing? They assess their readiness for this, their openness to it. They agree Graham would be easier about it. They wonder about it: Is this because Graham is more relaxed about his kids than John is about his? Because Graham is more relaxed, period? Or is it because Sarah is a girl, and somehow, because they’re both straight men, lesbianism would be easier for either of them to accept than homosexuality?

They think so, they think that’s right. “You just can’t escape it, can you?” John says. “Straightness.”

“Maleness,” Graham says, feeling his sense of shame descending again. Or maybe, he thinks, just self-pity.

The food comes and they start to eat, reporting to each other on how things taste. Graham is a foodie, mostly because Annie is a good cook. He always finds the food here only adequate, though also seemingly ambitious to be better than that. Today, as usual, he’s slightly disappointed, and John makes fun of him for his impossible standards. “It’s a salad, Graham. Cut it some slack.”

After a few moments Graham sets his fork down and says, “I’m in a bit of trouble, my old friend.”

“Uh-oh.” John’s gaze up at him is quick. “The usual?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, women.”

“That’s not usual.”

“No? Wasn’t that what ended things with Frieda?”

“That was decades ago, John. A different world. Different times.”

“Okay, but wasn’t there something earlier with Annie too?”

“God, one thing.”

“Okay,” John says. He has another bite of fish. He looks at Graham again. He’s frowning, serious—his almost smooth face that of a troubled child. “Still, I remember it.”

Graham is silent for a long moment. Finally he says, “This is different. This is the first time in a long, long time.”

“Okay. I take you at your word,” John says. “So. What was the draw?”

Graham explains the history of the thing, how he’d more or less backed into it. John’s face has shifted, become faintly amused, but he’s listening.

“I went a couple of times more,” Graham says. “It was kind of like drinking too much. I’d tell myself I really should stop, and then I’d tell myself, well, just this once more and then I will.”

“The sex was great.” This is a question.

“Sure.” Then, because this seems tepid, “Yes. It was good.” His tone is dismissive, but he’s thinking of the shock of Rosemary’s soft, lush flesh, so different from Annie’s. The amazement of entering her. The unqualified, undrugged hard-on he had that first time.

“And you don’t need to tell me, because I know, I know it was because it was new, it was different. And then”—he will think later in the day with chagrin of saying this—“amongst other things, she had shaved her pussy. Or, I suppose, waxed it.”

Why is he telling John this? Why isn’t he telling him also how it reminded him instantly of Sarah as a little girl, the deep, naked cleft? How alarmed he was at first? How he wasn’t sure, for a moment, that he would be able to go on?

“Ah.” John nods his head knowingly.

Graham sits back. He’s surprised at John’s response. “Well, what’s that about?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I guess it’s . . . Well, I have been led to believe that it’s the norm now.”

“It is.”

“But why? When did this happen?”

“While you and I were sound asleep, my friend,” John says, and a smile changes his worried-looking face. He adds, “It’s from porn.”

“Yeah?”

John makes a small noise, a kind of uncomfortable laugh. Then he sets his fork down and says, “The thing is, in most porn now, women are bare. I mean, no pubic hair at all. It’s, you know, it’s useful, in porn. It’s so everyone can see everything. And I guess that’s more or less where kids—men in particular—learn about sex now. From porn. So that’s their expectation, they’re accustomed to it. That’s what they want. At home too, as it were. It’s sexier to them.” He shrugs, making a face. “So slowly it becomes the norm. It probably ends up feeling sexier to the women, too.”

“But this is a woman who’s my age. Maybe five years younger.”

“What can I tell you? Maybe she celebrated getting divorced by getting a wax job.”

The waiter appears at the table to ask them if everything’s all right. Yes, they say. Yes. They smile. Delicious. He nods, approvingly, and leaves.

After a long moment, Graham laughs. He leans forward and says, “How do you know all this crap?”

“Three boys, my friend. I know so much more than I ever wanted to about how sex works today.”

Graham laughs again. John smiles ruefully across at him. “It seems to me it’s a little . . . sad, in some ways.”

“It is, I think.”

They both pick up their forks and knives and return to the food.

Graham says, “I can’t believe we’re talking about this. Over lunch.”

“I know. I know. We should be more high-minded.”

“It’s me,” Graham says, feeling it: John is high-minded. “My bad. My fault.”

“If it’s any comfort, I think of you as fairly high-minded. It’s just this thing, this thing you have with women.”

“C’mon, John, I don’t have a thing. It’s been a long time anyway. And then this . . . mess.” They are quiet for a few moments, eating.

“Have you ever cheated?” Graham says. “On Betsy?”

John shakes his head. “I haven’t.” He shrugs. “I just feel so . . . bound to her. It’s unthinkable, really.” He smiles. “On the other hand, I have thought about it every now and then. Maybe more than that.” He grins at Graham. “So, actually I guess it is. Thinkable.”

Graham returns the smile. He has finished eating. He sits back, watching his friend.

John says, “If I didn’t feel I’d be doing it to her, in some sense—Bets, I mean—maybe then I could. But that’s what it would feel like.” He frowns. “Maybe this is part of my response to the missing-father thing. Just, I always have to be there.” His face changes. He grins. “Uxorious. Remember you called me that once?”

Graham shakes his head. “I don’t.”

“Well, you did. I had to look it up. And I suppose I am.”

After a moment, Graham says, “I feel that bond to Annie, too. That need to be there. I do.”

John frowns. “So why this other person? Why isn’t it enough, with Annie?”

That isn’t the point, Graham thinks. It isn’t the point. “It is enough, with Annie,” he says. “It was something else I wanted with Rosemary.”

“What?” John’s hands open on the table.

Graham shrugs. “Excitement, I suppose.” Maybe even this very anguish, he thinks. “And it could be that if she’d been more interesting at that level, I’d actually want more now, instead of just wanting out.” He is trying not to think about that, wanting more. He is, after all, right to want out. Right for all the reasons he didn’t let himself think of when he wanted in.

Or didn’t want in so much as allow himself to respond to her. He suddenly sees this clearly. It startles him. God. So even in this, he hasn’t been an adventurer, a seeker, so much as a schlump. No, a schlemiel. He slowly shakes his head. He made nothing happen.

It happened to him. Because he let it.

John’s face has sobered. He says, gently, “So, you plan to end it.”

“Well, I’ve tried.” He clears his throat. “I have. But it seems apparent to me that she . . . she would prefer not to.”

“Ah,” John says.

“It’s because of the divorce, I know it. Her divorce, which is less than a year old. And I understand it. I understand it. I did it too after the divorce from Frieda. That’s just what divorced people do, at first. I wanted to be with someone, and for a while I grabbed at whoever happened along. I honestly thought I loved them all. Seriatim, of course. I would have sworn I did. And I think that’s what Rosemary—her name is Rosemary—I think that’s what she’s feeling. It doesn’t have much to do with me, I don’t think. I was just the one who happened to be there.”

“But also the one who went along with it.”

“Yes,” Graham says. “As is my wont, as you so kindly point out.”

They sit in silence for a few minutes, looking out to the patio, which has slowly emptied out, only two couples left.

“I’m sorry,” John says. “I just . . .”

Graham sighs. “Okay. I mean, you’re right. I did go along with it. I did. But we were coming from different . . . well, with different expectations, I guess.”

“Okay.” John leans forward, his face earnest again. “So let her know that. That she misunderstood you. That you misunderstood her.”

“I’ve tried. I’ve tried to be honest.”

John smiles.