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but as soon
as he sat down, he began wolfing down his food, oblivious to anything that had
happened since they had come in.
    Without hesitation, Stan also began to eat, since he knew
that Bill would finish his food quickly, even if he had a choking fit, as he
sometimes did from shoveling food in his mouth too fast. Bill never let a
choking fit stand in the way of a plate of food for long. Occasionally, Bill
would relax and talk for a while after eating lunch, but usually he was
impatient to go. Stan tried to accommodate Bill’s dining quirk as much as he
could, but he was only a moderately quick eater.
    It soon became apparent why Bill had chosen the seats they
sat in. In between huge scoops of rice and mala meat dishes disappearing down
his throat, he said to Stan, “Take a look over there.” Bill pointed toward a
good-looking, young, Chinese woman sitting behind Stan. “I’d like to get my
hands on that Asian dish,” he said.
    Looking behind, Stan observed, “She’s the most attractive
thing in this filthy hole. How did you find this place?”
    “I walked by one day,” Bill replied.
    “And thought it was the imperial palace, I bet,” Stan said.
    “It seemed worth trying,” Bill responded. “Not everyone
makes your salary.” Gazing at the Chinese lady, Bill’s eyes took on a dreamy
expression, and his fork stopped moving for several seconds. “She would make me
forget all about Linda. She’d be better than any herbal remedy or acupuncture
treatment.”
    “Have you ever had one of Linda’s treatments?” Stan asked.
    “That stuff doesn’t work,” Bill scoffed. “There’s no
scientific proof. I once showed her a study report on acupuncture in which the
treatments had the same effect as placebo, and she started screaming, ‘Shut up
or get out.’ She threw the pages back at me.”
    “So you shut up,” Stan concluded.
    “I don’t go to her for medical advice. What do I care what
she thinks? She’s always giving me bottles of pills for sleeplessness or low
energy or something that she thinks I have. But I never use them. I throw the
bottles in a drawer at home. The drawer is full of bottles.”
    “It’s the thought that counts. At least she cares for you,”
Stan said.
    “I’m not so sure of that,” Bill replied.
    “Why? What is your Chinese dragon doing now?” Stan asked.
    “We broke up again yesterday. I haven’t spoken to her yet.
And I’m not going to. This time it’s really over. I’ve had enough. She’s
crazy.”
    Stan didn’t believe Bill for one second. Stan had heard him
say that he wasn’t going to see Linda many times before, much more persuasively
than now. When Bill had first started to see Linda over a year ago, and they
began the chain of break-ups and make-ups, Stan really thought that Bill was
ending his interest in her when he said so the first few times. He was visibly
angry and calling her all sorts of things, none of which were complimentary.
But Stan’s credulity had passed completely when it came to Bill and Linda. He
was a hardened disbeliever. He didn’t believe what politicians said, and he
believed Bill even less when the subject was Linda. He was certain that Bill
was going to see her again, probably very soon. Probably they would be making
plans that afternoon for a reunion. Bill and Linda, Stan thought, were
obviously not made for each other, but they didn’t seem to be compatible with
anyone else either. They seemed doomed to be together, since they couldn’t
tolerate being alone. Stan knew of other relationships that were sustained by a
mutual fear of singleness, but none had the amount of differences and dislike
that Linda and Bill had for each other. As Stan often did, he donned the role
of devil’s advocate and asked, “Why don’t you look for someone else?”
    “I’m thinking about it,” Bill said, which was true; he
sometimes was, but he didn’t do more than that.
    Although Stan knew what the answer was going to be, because
he had made