TH E R OUND as if she hardly knew her husband at all; in some moments, they were synchronous strangers and nothing more. Others, they were soul mates, with all the platitudes that brings. Either way, she felt lucky, and held his laughter like a four-leaf clover, a concentration of the best the world has to offer. + That was on Friday. Now, with the weekend behind them, they lay on the freshly cleaned cotton of their Holiday Inn sheets, half-closed eyes on the television. Jeremy fiddled with the remote, trying to choose one of hundreds of special-offer channels, and noticed that June blinked at every channel change. She seemed as if in a trance, not sad, not gone, just somewhere else. June sat up suddenly. ‘Jeremy and June, bored on their honeymoon,’ June rhymed, coquettishly eyeing her husband. An invite and a challenge. ‘Jeremy and June, driving home pretty soon,’ he retorted, also sitting up, taunting. ‘Jeremy and June, gonna to fly to the moon!’ ‘Jeremy and June said ‘please marry me soon!’’ ‘Jeremy and June carried me at noon’ ‘Jeremy and June ferry tea and swoon’ ‘Jeremy and June … parry sea with a spoon—’ June broke down, laughing. ‘That doesn’t even make sense!’ Jeremy laughed, and they fell back down onto the bed, enveloped in their beautiful nonsense. They laid there, full and smiling until they started to drift off to dreamland, or else, to a quiet night’s rest. June’s foot hung off the side
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