Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman Page B

7
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
    T
he next
day I talk Simon into playing hooky from work and coming with me to the movies. I can tell he really hasn't the time for this kind of foolishness, that he's got serious, adult things to take care of, real work to do. Simon is a labor lawyer, but only while he waits for the ACLU to hire him. He applies, year after year, for every opening they have, even those in the reproductive rights project. Meanwhile he will likely make partner at his union-side labor firm, even though he hates the work. Simon is smart, diligent, and not easily distracted. His devotion to a job he despises is the reason I am forced to play the dead-baby card.
    â€œThat's not fair, Emilia,” he says.
    â€œTell me about it,” I say. “It's at the Angelika, it's Cambodian, and it's three and a half hours long. I'll buy you a double espresso.”
    We are the only people at the theater at eleven in the morning, despite the fact that this morose exercise in Far Eastern tedium has been nominated for an Oscar. The movie is so gloomy that Simon begins to supply alternative