We sat facing each other at one of those barely-big-enough-for-two tables next to the front railing, just an arms length away from people passing on the street. We were an arms length away from each other too, and while we were waiting for our food the table was clear and there was room for us to put our hands together on its top but we wouldn't be doing that. The light was hazy, mid-summer evening, and if you judged by the light it would have been perfectly warm but the air held the chill of the fog already moved in and we both wore our jackets, our shoulders slightly hunched and our hands tightly clasped in our respective laps. A perceptive person could have told by looking at us that we had been lovers a few weeks ago, and I guess the waitress was one, because she took our order and got the hell out of our way in record time. We had talked about the weather, her dog's antics, volunteer activities that we had in common, cash-flow problems, the sort of things people talk about in a restaurant while waiting for the food to come. Wary, tense, trying hard to take it all in stride. That same perceptive observer would have guess the thought that dominated both of our minds: Who said this was going to be easy?

I tossed my shoulders and asked, How's the yoga going?

She said, It's OK. I'm only working with this tape so far, and when I actually get to doing it I like it, at least until the dog scratches at the door or one of the cats jumps on my lap.

I smiled. Her apartment was miniscule and I imagined her preparing for yoga, shutting the animals outside and admonishing them to respect her privacy for awhile, clearing a spot among the heaps of clothing piled on the negligible floor-space not taken by the bed. I said, There's something to be said for taking a class.

Yeah, when I can afford it. I like the discipline of going somewhere at a set time, knowing what I'm there for, having someone else set it up for me so that to begin all I have to do is show up. It's easier.

I know, I said. Showing up is the big effort, sometimes the most difficult thing to do.

I feel bad, she said, not doing more at home. I guess I'm not much of a self-starter. It's just so hard to make the time, or even to feel like making the time, even though I know how good I feel after I've done my exercises.

All I said was, Mmmmmm. We'd covered the ground of getting ourselves started, taking care of ourselves, and attendant guilt when we didn't take care of ourselves more than a few times in our time together. It was a pattern of behavior - of thought, of self-laceration - that we both shared. I hoped that my Mmmmmm conveyed the sympathy, the I've-been-there-and-I-don't
-know-anything-more-about-
it-than-you-do-but-I-understand that I truly felt every time this subject came up. I could have said, Why are you still beating yourself up for this? but we both knew the answer. A person does not stop breathing even when he knows the air is bad.

Instead, I said, Well, it'll probably get easier, become a habit, if you want it to.

She said, I do. I want to practice yoga regularly. She paused, picked up her fork, stabbed several little line-patterns in her napkin. I want some sort of practice, some regular thing that helps me keep it together. I don't know if yoga's it, but I need something. She looked down at her almost-punctured napkin, started to say, I just don't -

The waitress was here, setting our plates down in front of us. Meatloaf and mashed potatoes for me, roast chicken and green beans for her. My acupuncturist had told me No More Meat a few days before but I had ordered without thinking. The food looked pretty damn good and I didn't feel a bit like eating it.

She picked up her fork again and speared a few beans, slowly lifted them to her mouth and started chewing. After they were gone, she said, I really like this place.

Yeah, me too. I walked by here for years but never came in until last year.

So what got you here the first time? she said, cutting a small piece of chicken off with her fork, the knife still untouched since she had sat down and laid it on the table.

Sena came here a lot and got me hooked, I said, not really looking at her.

Ahhh, was all she said. I had been ending my relationship with Sena when I took up with her. Another piece of ground we had covered numerous times was the too-many-reminders-of-my-old-girlfriends plot. I wish I had lied, or demurred, but really, it was way too late now. In many senses.

Aren't you going to eat? she said, looking up from sectioning her chicken.

Yeah, I'm not really hungry, I said, picking up my fork.

Don't do that, she said.

What?

You know.

What, start with the potatoes instead of the meatloaf?

Goddamit, Scott, don't. The whole I've-lost-my-appetite-since-we-broke-up thing. The whole haunted, mourning thing. I don't want to hear about it. Yes, you've lost a few pounds, I can see that, but I just don't want to see you if you're going to tell me that you're miserable without even fucking saying it.

I shrugged, speared a bit of meat loaf, tasted it. Pretty good, just like always. I said, Food's pretty good, just like always. What do you want me to do? If I shoveled my food in when I didn't feel like it, if I laughed and acted like it's no big deal, I'd be putting on a show for you. I wouldn't be being true to myself.

There's a line, she said, between being true to yourself and trying to make me feel guilty. I'm not going to feel guilty and I'm going to resent you if you try to make me and it's not going to work, us being friends.

I let this sit for a few seconds. This was new ground for us together, but old ground for me. After a few bites I said, If you feel guilty that's you, that's what's going on inside you. If I'm trying to make you feel guilty I'm not aware of it. Would be pretty counter-productive, for reasons you just gave.

I was not halfway through this before she put down her fork, hard, but she waited until I had finished before saying anything.

This is too fucking hard, she said. I don't know if I can do this.

I too put my fork down, said, Well goddamit Cindy I don't know if I can do it either. I don't fucking know how to be friends with someone when we've just broken up and learning is pretty hard work and it doesn't help if you threaten to quit every time it gets to be a pain in the ass.

She said nothing, just looked at her plate. Her body looked tight, as tightly shut down as her words had become. I figured she was seconds away from bolting. It if were me, I would have been.

Finally, I said, OK, I'm sorry. It's like I said when we broke up - if we start blaming each other we're fucked. Will you talk to me some more?

She looked up, her eyes wet, saying nothing but not stopping me either.

I said, Cindy, I love you. All I can do is keep telling you that. I don't regret you taking the step back that you did, you were right, we don't know each other well enough to be as involved as we were. You say that you want to be friends, that you want us to be able to really know each other and get along easily like I do with Jeannie and Antonia and that we can just be with each other and let the other pieces fall into place. If they will. You've been very clear on what you want, and I really want the same thing. Do you believe me when I say that?

She kept looking at me, and after awhile she said, You say that but then you just sit there and don't eat and you tell everybody you're miserable and I don't quite believe you, no. I think that you think you want it but you're still holding onto me as your girlfriend and you're not going to let go. I think you don't have a clue how to really be friends with someone you've slept with, or want to sleep with for that matter. Do you?

I tossed my head from side to side, blinking, my own tears starting now. I said, I don't know, christ almighty I don't know. I want to learn, I want to be able to do it, I want to keep people that are dear to me. I looked at her directly. Do you believe that?

She looked back at me, said, Sometimes you just have to let it go.

We were spiraling downward, trapping ourselves with our words, edging ourselves into our separate places where, I believed - I wanted desperately to believe - we really didn't want to go. I felt that I was the one edging us that way; after all, most of what she'd said was true. "Sex is easy, intimacy is hard" was what she'd said more than once after we'd broken up. I'd never showed much of a flair for the hard work in my relationships. I'm pretty sure she knew this.

I considered what to say next very carefully. When I spoke, it was to say, When it comes time to let it go, I hope that I have the wisdom to recognize the time and to do it, and to do it without making a mess. I paused, and finished, Pretty words, huh? I felt the tears begin to slide down my cheeks, twin wet tracks soothing the burning I felt there. Outside, people walked by unconcernedly; at the next table, two women talked about an absent friend who had committed some extreme faux pas, apparently unnoticed by her. I thought, It always comes down to this. Begging, almost. Either you do it in private and then the one left in the stronger position finally gets in the car and drives off or you do it in public and you make a scene, even a minor indiscernible scene but a scene nonetheless, but it always comes down to one powerless person feeling like shit and the other person maybe feeling like shit too but at least not powerless. And that's the end. Other people may do this and then get back together and risk going through it all again and maybe they do go through it all again. For me, just once and it's always the end. The tears were coming hard now, splashing their salty wetness onto the meatloaf, my nose starting to run. It was only with a great force of will that I kept my shoulders from starting to heave. I knew, I absolutely knew, that I was fucking myself good with her by starting to cry. What self-respecting person could keep their respect for another who had so little control, and distance, and self-possession as to start crying so easily? To have so little consideration as to inflict their weakness, their self-pity, so indiscriminately on someone they claimed to love?

What she said was, I know how you feel. I've never managed it too well myself. I've just said, easier to let it go. She put her hand in the middle of the table, palm up. I don't want to let it go just yet, Scott. I want to be friends with you.

I said, choking a little bit, I hate you.

She said, You told me that when we broke up. Now wipe up and eat your mashed potatoes.