Hellgoing by Lynn Coady

said — be it to interviewers or the editor or the party on the other end of the phone — was the same thing. Was part, that is, of one long, unspooling thought that never ended, that had no paragraph breaks, that refused to naturally conclude, as in polite conversation. And nobody asked him to give it a rest, nobody ever said, Yeah, okay, Marco, but we are talking about going to the beach now. Nobody broke in to ask what he wanted on his pizza.
    Or if they did, Marco did not let himself get sidetracked.
    Marco was saying, Don’t give him that. Lovey, don’t give him that. I know he wants it, but don’t give him that. It’s bad for him. No, it’s up to you. You are the one in charge and it is bad for him. Don’t argue with me, lovey, this is your responsibility. No, no, no. Okay? No. No no no.
    Now Marco was noticing how Sam was neglecting to pretend not to listen to him. She was driving, but she kept looking over at every other word.
    I hope that was okay, said Marco when he was finished, holding the phone out to Sam. It was on my calling card.
    Can you just stick it in my purse, please?
    Marco opened her purse.
    Look at all your hot sauce! he exclaimed.
    SHE DROPPED MARCO off after battling the traffic and negotiating countless new detours, and now only had an hour until she picked him up again. So Sam walked to the back of the hotel, where there was a park with benches for people to sit and watch the ferries chug back and forth across the lake.
    She brought Marco’s book along because she was supposed to have read it weeks ago.
    She found a free bench and texted Marie.
    Someone is messing with me. Someone is rattling my cage.
    Then Alex wrote, as if in response, I thought I’d go to the Marco thing tonight.
    He was one of those men who didn’t wear deodorant and somehow got away with it. Or maybe he wore some kind of natural deodorant that didn’t really mask his sweat. The point was, Sam could always smell him. It was not a bad smell; it was just entirely him, his bodily self-announcement. It was his presence; fulminating beneath his skin and emerging from his pores. You knew when he was there, and when he had been there.
    Whenever that smell hit Sam, her uterus would contract with sudden violence. Like it was hurling itself against her abdomen in mute, uterine frenzy.
    At the next bench, a man was seducing a woman and Sam could hear the occasional low-voiced inanity. I am the kind of person, he was saying to the woman, who is very aware of his energy.
    A policeman on an actual horse appeared out of nowhere and clopped his way past Sam, claustrophobically close, a liquid wall of chestnut haunch.
    This world brings entities together so they can feel joy, the man on the bench was saying.
    The cop on the horse slowed its clop as he approached the couple. He was wearing a helmet, which Sam thought made good sense. It struck her that probably everyone who rode horses should wear helmets. Because who knew what a horse might do?
    A text from her brother read: Unfortunately it looks like — before Sam stopped reading it and put her phone away.
    She picked up Marco’s book and opened to the first page. The cop was murmuring something to the man — the seducer — and what the cop was saying was making the man surprised. The seducer started speaking in high-pitched exclamations. Sam held the book in front of her face. After a moment or two she saw from her peripheral vision that the man, still exclaiming and gesturing, was getting to his feet.
    The cop made some small, indeterminate movement — Sam couldn’t say if it was a gesture or if the cop had physically made contact of some kind. Either way, the seducer sank back onto the bench.
    SHE ORDERED ONE glass of red wine and one glass of white and carried them across the room to Marco. Then she had to stand there awhile and wait for him to distinguish and differentiate Sam’s expectant presence from all the