Story

The sun was mostly set and the sky was purple when Julie was driving her car through the Germantown neighborhood with her headlights on already. Julie and Rob were looking for somewhere to eat before they went to The Arts Company on Fifth Avenue where one of Julie's friends was premiering her work. Rob did not know Julie's friend who was premiering her work but her name was Bethany.

"Please don't put your cheek on the window unless you want to clean it," Julie said to Rob, who continued to put his cheek on the window. He looked at the street signs hanging sideways as the car passed more of them. Rob was thinking about Dante's Inferno.

"I'm hungry," Rob said.

"Where do you want to eat?" Julie said.

"I want to eat at Chauhan," Rob said. "Downtown."

"Chauhan is having a private party," Julie said. "So where do you want to go."

"I don't care where we go." Rob became vaguely aware that he sounded like he didn't mean it. "You pick where we go." He said the second part so that he would sound like he meant the first part. Rob didn't mean the first part or the second part.

"How about we go to Fido."

"I don't want to go to Fido."

"You told me to pick where I wanted to go, so I picked where I wanted to go," Julie said calmly. She sounded like she meant it.

"I don't want to go to Fido."

"I don't want to go to Fido anymore either," Julie said, again sounding like she meant it, except this time Rob knew that she didn't mean it.

"Okay," Rob said.

"Do you want to eat at Whole Foods," Julie said. The two of them descended into a deep silence. It occurred to Rob that the silence carried a gravity that only became significant if you thought about it. Rob thought about his Twitter account. He repeated the phrase "this user follows you" to himself six or seven times.

"Do you remember the time we went to the Kandinsky exhibit at the Frist last year?" Julie said to Rob.

Instantly, without even thinking about it, Rob remembered that time.

"No," he said. He leaned his cheek against the window even more.

"We went to Husk before that," Julie said gently without taking her eyes off the road.

"Stop," Rob said firmly.

"And then we went to see the exhibit after that," Julie said gently without taking her eyes off the road again.

"Stop," Rob said more firmly than the first time.

"And then we went to your dorm because you had a bottle of wine you stole from blvd on Sunday," Julie said less gently than the first time but more gently than the second. Julie glanced at Rob but looked back at the road.

"Stop," Rob said more firmly than the first and second times.

"Okay," Julie said and she stopped in the middle of the road.

"Not like that," Rob said. "You know what I meant."

"I don't know why you want things to be difficult," Julie said. She took her foot off the brake and began to roll forward and then she put her foot on the gas and began to roll forward at a higher rate. "But I want to have a good time tonight. We're already dressed up, and I haven't seen Bethany since sophomore year, so I don't want this to be difficult. Now where do you want to eat?"