A few months after Jay moved in, he cooked lasagna for dinner. Jay had been watching Mama Rosa on television. She said biting into her lasagna was like biting into heaven. "You make it for your husband--he never leave you." she said. Jay spent two hours making the lasagna like Mama Rosa showed him. He boiled tomatoes and fried onions and mashed garlic. He put it in the oven and waited for Linda to come home.

Sigfreid was chewing on the scuba diving mouse's tail, when Linda came home. Linda talks fast. She was talking about her new job with the magazine and the high-strung editor who was sleeping with her Canadian assistant. The Canadian assistant had seven earrings and right before sex he always asked, 'Will ye be riding this mountie, Ma'am?'

"What do you think about dinner?" he asked

"It's a little runny, but not bad." she said.

Jay started banging his spoon against the placemat. He was waiting for her to notice him and compliment his lasagna. He looked like he was waiting for something else but I couldn't tell what.

"He has this elegant Canadian accent. He never swears. But there he is, banging my editor. He's gorgeous--like a gay dancer. Like a Sergio or a Fritz." Linda started singing YMCA--at the Y M C A she stretched her arms into a Y. Jay's banging spoon became louder. She looked up, saw the waiting look in his face and knew even less about it than I did. She mashed her lips up toward her nose like she does when she's impatient. "What?"

Jay said, "Nothing." They ate in silence together for a while. His waiting look was still there. He said, "I had a girlfriend who liked cowboys and she made me wear a cowboy hat during sex. Afterwards she said 'Nice shootin' Tex.'"

Linda said, "You fucked retards."

Jay said, "well I fuck you."

"Congratulations, cowboy."

"My lasagna's not runny."

"Jesus Christ, my period's thicker than this."

"You've got a thick body. All of you is thick. My lasagna will never be able to live up to your thickness standards until you start going to Jenny Craig."

Linda threw her plate of lasagna against the wall. Jay left the apartment. Linda couldn't sleep on the mattress because it smelled like Jay. She got her dirty laundry out of the hamper Jay kept it in and spread it around the mattress. She cried and said, get out of my bed you asshole to an imaginary Jay.