1. He's got strong arms and a big chest, the result of hours upon hours at the gym. His legs however, are skinny and overly hairy to the point where he wasn't confident enough in high school to wear shorts. He's got thick horned rimmed glasses, and his hair is in a generic Caesar cut. He looks like a college in Iowa tried putting on a musical version of Superman and had to cut the difference between talent and looks when he was given the lead.
His girlfriend is almost as tall as he is, and is wearing short shorts and flipflops, exposing over two and a half feet of tanned-to-perfection legs. Her shirt is too low-cut for his tastes, but as far as white tank tops with small decals between the breasts, it covers more than others.
She is clinging around him like rice on a tightly wound sushi. She knows that she's not on his level of attractiveness, and she's cheated on him twice, and would have a third time if she hadn't passed out. She feels guilty about it, but justifies and quells her jealousy by assuming that he's cheated on her, too. Now she sticks to him like an octopus, one arm always around his waist, on his arm, holding hands, a hand in his back pocket.
His phone rings, and he shucks her off. He answers; it's his sister, asking what he's getting Mom for her birthday. He lowers his voice, and walks away from the painting of Mexican migrant workers fashioned as the couple from American Gothic. He knows that his girlfriend has been overly sensitive to his phone calls lately, especially when she can hear that it's a female on the other end, so he lowers his voice. Last time a female called (a co-worker asking to switch shifts) he told his girlfriend it was his sister, just so he wouldn't have to answer her questions.
While she waits in front of the painting, growing more and more indignant, she tries to rationalize breaking up with him. There's nothing concretely wrong about him: he's attractive, has a nice enough body for her not to be embarrassed at pool parties, he's gentlemanly enough to open doors and pay for dinner, he's funny but not a clown, her friends all like him. She only has her suspicions that he's cheating on her, and even then in her heart she knows that they are unfounded. The only thing she can think of before he hangs up the phone (he's getting Mom a copy of Dreamgirls) is that he doesn't always pay enough attention to her, but she knows that excuse doesn't hold water--he pays more attention to her than her best friend's boyfriend does to her, and she doesn't want to come off as high-maintenance as she really is (and thinks she has the right to be).
He hangs up the phone, and walks over to the photograph of an empty parking lot, the pattern of the streetlamps making a pattern of lonliness. She asks who it was, and he replies that it was his sister again. She frowns a bit, and wraps her arm around him, her hand on the gap between his shoulderblades, and she ushers him to the next painting.
2. She's pregnant as of two days ago, and she hasn't told him yet. She told him she was late, and told him that if it didn't come soon she would buy a test. He doesn't know that she took the test while he was hung over the night before; she limited herself to one drink that night, just in case. Whenever she thinks he's not looking, she keeps her outstretched hand on her stomach, imaginining what she would look like fifty pounds heavier.
Her hair is big, straddling the line between big bounce and a jewfro, and is tied back by a white scarf. She is wearing a black tshirt, white shorts, and white sneakers. She walks slower than he does.
He's the first Jewish guy she dated in college. In high school her parents only allowed her to go out on dates with guys who went to synagogue with them, and when she went to college she rebelled as well as she could, dating only gentiles, bad boys and blacks until the middle of her junior year, when a guy she met at a party at Hillel was polite but insistent. (In fact, today he's wearing a tshirt emblazoned with the party where they met.) She kept putting off their date because she knew that he would probably end up being the one she would bring home to meet the parents, maybe even marry someday.
Ever since yesterday morning, she's been keeping a list in her mind of his pros and cons. Pro: His idea of a date was taking her to the museum, showing that he's artsy and intelligent. Con: He's racing through the place, taking in three or four pieces of art to each one she gets a chance to look at and consider, and he's impatient too, sitting on the benches, making sly, not-as-funny-as-he-thinks remarks like "How long does it take to look at a picture of a bug?"
They're not really sure when the relationship will end--she was planning on going to law school in California in the fall, and after he's taking his last summer class, he's moving back home (Jersey, eww) and working for his father for a few years, until he gets enough saved to move on to something better. They never really talk about the future. But now, with the.... she doesn't know how to finish that sentence. With the 'inconvenience?' the 'circumstances?' the 'baby?'
She's always thought that abortion should be legal, but she never thought she'd be in the position to make that decision. She has a doctors appointment on Thursday, and is waiting before she starts worrying about what to do until she knows it for sure. But still, it's hard for her to comprehend that there's something living, growing inside of her, even if it is just a few cells at the moment.
He's turned the corner and is in the gallery currently referred to as the "War Room," its walls filled with artist's reactions to the current administration's bungling of pretty much anything related to the Middle East. She sighs, and skips looking at seven pieces of art to run ahead and catch up with him.
