This is the big pay off.
            I'm sitting on edge of her bed in boxer shorts and socks. She's at the desk, wrapped in a blanket, talking to a friend on her cellular telephone.
            After two months of plying her with alcohol and little gifts, sidelong glances from ex-boyfriends at coffee houses and bars, the late nights parked in her driveway, talking until the sun crawled up out of ocean, this is the payoff.
            I climb down from the bed and scrawl a note on an envelope sitting on her desk.
            Tell them you have to go, it says. I slide the note into her field of vision.
            And she waves me away.
            Hold on, she mouths.
            Later, we're in bed.
            I ash my cigarette out the window and she begins to speak.
            "You know, I never thought--" she pauses.
            "What?"
            "Well, I never thought I'd lose my virginity to, you know, a sportfuck."
            I flick my cigarette out the window. It sails to ground, unextinguished, a spot of smoldering orange against the night.
            I sit up in bed and think of all the horrible mean vindictive things I can say to her.
            Instead, I take a slow breath and ask: "Is that what this meant to you?"
            This time, it is my phone that rings. I sit motionless on the bed, still waiting for her answer.
            "Well, don't be rude," she says. "See what they want."
            My ex-roommate wants me to drive him to the Snipers from Mars at the Swank Hole, I politely decline and hang up the phone.
            "Claire," I say. "Let's go to Malibu."
            "Josh," she says. "Malibu?"
            "Tomorrow morning, let's pack a lunch, get in my car and go to Malibu. Let's leave our cell phones here, eat at a nice restaurant, shack up at some beachside motel and get away from all of this for a little bit."
            "All of this?"
            "That's the fifth call tonight. I've been keeping track. Our friends won't leave us the fuck alone. So, let's not tell them we're going. Just vanish into the air without a trace for a day. It'll be good for both of us." [read on]