The time traveler's wife

telling you. That and the cost of socks, which the kids just tear holes through every second they get. You’ll see, when you and Tracy decide to stop kidding around of course. You’ll see what I mean.

Have you talked about it much? I mean, does she want kids?”

“I don’t know,” said John.

“What about you? One, two, four?” Stefan scoffed.

“I don’t care.”

“But I tell you, John,” Stefan said, hardly listening, “if the bonus comes through… You know… Everything kind of evens out and…”

“Stays exactly the same” John said, spilling his cold coffee to the floor, watching the black liquid trickle over the edge of the step and cascade onto the bowing weed below.

“Exactly. If it aint broke…”

Both men picked themselves up and made their way into the foyer and then crowded by the elevator with Stefan pricking his ears to the tune of the current theme. Although they mostly worked on separate floors, the suited workers were always engaged in such delicate debate as if they had scholarly or juvenile ties, going from political polemic to that shit hot new song from Nine Inch Nails, the house remix, not the original, and why wearing white speedos was no longer gay.

“So what did you guys get up to on the weekend?”

He was talking to John, but Stefan’s voice and attention traveled around the elevator carrying into the creeps of whispered conversations, trying to make its presence pertinent.

“Nothing really,” said John.

He tried to think, not for the sake of Stefan but for his own curiosity. What had he done? Had he really done nothing or was this just something he had become accustomed to saying?

On Friday, he and Tracy watched a movie. They hadn’t seen it before, but everyone was raving about it. It was a copy of a copy of a copy and he couldn’t remember if he enjoyed it or not, or if he had seen the original. The actors were all famous though so at worst; it would have been comfortable to be around people he 9