“Here’s the question, Mr. Love. I lie and steal and sleep around. What do you think about that?”
Throughout the story, fifteen-year-old Jean has revealed herself to be a fifteen-year-old girl impacted by divorce, already aware of things that fifteen-year-old girls maybe should not be aware, a petty thief and a prankster. Her biggest prank of the evening is randomly calling a number in the phone book around midnight. He is one Mr. Love and Jean is enticing him with the promise of having won a most impressive prize. But she has one last question before getting the prize. When Jean asks him what he thinks about what she just confessed, he realizes it is joke and scolds her. The image of Jean is that of a quirky young girl who can easily be defined as something much worse than quirky. But that is because most people only know half the story. Readers get to know the other half and that is a surprising act utterly lacking in selfishness that reveals her quirkiness is simply that and nothing to get worked up about.
He knew that somewhere out there a boat was making its way home in spite of the solemn warning, and as he walked on Charlie imagined himself kneeling in the prow of that boat, lamp in hand, intent on the light shining just before him. All distraction gone. Too watchful to be afraid. Tongue wetting the lips and eyes wide open, ready to call out in this shifting fog where at any moment anything might be revealed.
The story ends here. But the title still applies. Charlie is a busboy who also happens to be a very struggling writer and on this night without realizing how close he was to it, he was contemplating giving up on his dream. And then he overhears a conversation between a husband and wife and a male companion that captivates him. It is only after he leaves to begin the walk home that he realized just how close he’d been to giving up, but the conversation has inspired him. The story concludes on this metaphorical note that sums up the entire story pretty efficiently.
The trouble with owning a Porsche is that there’s always some little thing wrong with it.
In addition to flaunting his talent for writing closing lines, Wolff also has a knack for opening lines. The opening line to this story is particularly good as it expresses, in complete deadpan, the schism that creates the conflict which provides the theme for everything that comes. There is nothing about that line which conveys an elitist, privileged state of mind, yet it is difficult not to have a reaction in which it seems like it does. The story goes on to pit the owner of the Porsche against a man who works in the garage. That man immediately—with no apparent stimulation—takes volatile unlike toward the Porsche owner which grows out of all logical proportion. But just because stimulation is not immediately apparent does not mean it is not simmering.
Sometimes his wife got this look where she pinched her brows together and bit her lower lip and stared down at something. When he saw her like this he knew he should keep his mouth shut, but he never did. Actually it made him talk more. She had that look now.
This is a little domestic drama of the type that occurs in millions of homes every day. And those who have lived together will recognize from the title where this story is going. All that needs to be worked out is the yes or no question. And anyone who has been in a domestic situation for more than, say, a month will know that the man here did not say yes. And that he now has a price to pay. That price may come as surprise to some, not so much to others. It is the cost of lying in bed, suddenly and unexpectedly alone in the dark and hearing only the sound of someone leaving the bedroom and being overcome with a familiar sensation in an unfamiliar context, that of hearing “the sound of someone moving through the house, a stranger.”
