Austin knows he'll have to make up for this, storming out before the argument is over. They'll have to talk about it, which means he'll have to listen—again—hear how insensitive he is, how he belittles her work, her goals. It's true: he doesn't like to listen. He's a professor; he imparts knowledge. He likes to talk. OK, hold forth. Well, she knew that when she took up with him. She knew what he was like.

     Austin has a PhD in American History from one Midwestern university and he teaches at another. He met josie his first night in town; she was waiting tables at a nice restaurant someone had told him was a good place for dinner. He'd flirted with her, thinking she was younger than he and not as wise. After a year, he's still not ready to concede the latter point.

    His route to the U never varies, though his mode of transport does. He sometimes rides his bike or walks but today he is piloting a 10-year-old import, because of the rain. Cold rain that in a month will be snow. He is starting his second year at the university, entering his second year of life with josie. She moved in last month.

    Their argument was over, of all things, fruit.

    Austin made a remark about the persimmons josie had in a blue bowl: "Ah, persimmons," he'd said, "food of the gods." Then he'd offered a short history lesson on how the English couldn't wait until winter to eat the bitter fruit the American Indians called "pessamin," didn't realize it ripened and sweetened in the cold. How the Native Americans shared with Hernando de Soto a kind of bread made with what the conquistador thought was prunes. Austin had picked one up, and josie told him it wasn't ripe.

    "I wasn’t going to eat it."

    "Of course not. You were going to pontificate on it, ruminate over it to the point that I no longer want to look at it, let alone bake a tea bread with it—which I definitely won't want to give you a taste of, because I'd just get a lecture on the history of tea, the beverage, the meal, the ritual, the…the…oh, fuck it, Austin, just go to work. Go lecture the people who don’t know anything yet. Talk to the people who want to listen." She threw a handful of spoons into a mixing bowl filled with water in the sink and walked away.

    They've had this conversation before, about how he can’t just enjoy a thing, appreciate the look, the feel, the taste of something. Why couldn't he just observe how striking the contrast of the orange persimmons in the cobalt bowl, if he had to say anything at 7:30 in the morning? He knows this is what she’s thinking.

    Austin understands it’s particularly annoying when the topic is food, because josie herself is a professor, of sorts, of the culinary arts. She is now the chef at that restaurant where they first met. She was not a student back then, but a graduate of the California Culinary Academy and the veteran of several different San Francisco cafés, bistros, and one major restaurant he’d never heard of but evidently should have. She snagged him with her white apron, but she hooked him with her handmade pizza crust. She knows something better than he does, and yes, this troubles him a little, but he’s big enough to know his resistance is ridiculous. He’s working on it.

    The other thing they argue about is his driving to work, when they live only a mile from campus. She wants him to walk or take the bus. It's a waste of gas, especially considering he always stops at Brady's café half way in for a coffee and a muffin, where he's standing right now. It occurs to him just then that before he remarked on the persimmons, he had smelled something in the oven. She had baked him muffins. She'd been talking about it, but usually started her mornings later than he, because she was at the restaurant so late. He hadn't even said good morning or told her how nice it was to see her awake, first thing.

    The girl behind the counter says hello to him, but he turns away, plods back to the car in a daze. He considers driving home and apologizing, but running through that narrative in his mind, he realizes it's forced, contrived, implausible. Better to play out the role of the idiot male and take what's coming when she gets home at midnight. He doesn't notice the two persimmons sitting on the roof until he is unlocking the door. There is a note, written on a crumpled receipt, rain droplets gluing it to the driver's side window:

Hey, Professor. Some goddess loves you.

    A plastic bag hangs from the door handle. She had to have decided in a second what she would do, snatched the persimmons from the bowl, found a bag for the muffins, scribbled a note, all before jumping on the bike, riding like mad. Did she take time to grab a coat? Austin stands there in the drizzle, thinking.

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