Retail
Roy suggested a trip to Florida — “My treat!” — in hopes of breaking the impasse: he was getting nowhere with her; but a hotel in Florida? Tell me how that wouldn’t work. Dale said she wanted a change, to take advantage of the quiet winter days to relax and catch up on her reading. Roy said, “Read what?” He’d never seen her read anything she hadn’t nabbed in the checkout line. “In Florida people don’t kill time by reading.” Roy was a middle-aged man who wore a tie but yanked on it irritably throughout the day. “They sunbathe on white-sand beaches.” He had suspiciously lustrous black hair and moderate height, only a third of which was legs. “You want a sun-kissed orange? Pull one from the tree.” He preferred to breathe through his mouth. One eyelid sagged, and his teeth were crowded. His days were divided between selling insurance and nondirectional, intense longing, much of which was erotic. Roy had the unique self-sufficiency of someone raised as a charitable case, a ward of the …
