The Wishbones by Tom Perrotta

brightness of the day. Then she rolled easily onto her side and smiled at him.
    “Hey,” she said.
    “Hey.”
    She poked a finger into his thigh. “You know what I want to do?”
    “What?”
    She pushed herself up from the ground into sitting position and glanced around to make sure no one was within listening range.
    “I want to go to a motel.”
    “Right now?”
    She nodded slowly, biting her bottom lip, her face flushed with color.
    “This very minute,” she said.
    Dave's blood began to celebrate; a giddy torrent of ideas flooded his brain. Aside from a few hurried, mostly clothed interludeson the rec room couch, they hadn't really made love in well over a month, not since her parents’ ill-fated jaunt to Atlantic City. He wanted to watch her undress slowly, one article of clothing at a time. He wanted to reacquaint himself with her body.
    “It's quarter to three,” he said, glancing quickly at his watch. “That gives us almost an hour and a half.”
    Her expression changed. Her teeth let go of her lip.
    “Shit,” she said.
    “What?”
    “You have a wedding.” She made it sound like an awful thing —a disease, something to be ashamed of.
    “I'm sure I told you.”
    “I forgot. We were having such a nice day, I guess I pushed it out of my mind.”
    “An hour and a half is enough. We've done it in a lot less time than that.”
    “I'm sick of hurrying.” To illustrate this point, she reached up with both hands and gathered her loose hair into a ponytail with exquisite, painstaking care. “I just want to have a nice quiet Saturday alone with you for once.”
    “Sorry. I'm not the one who schedules the gigs.”
    She grabbed her shoes from the corner of the blanket and slipped them on her feet. Just like that, he realized, their picnic had been canceled. She pulled the laces tight and stared at him.
    “How much longer do you plan on doing this?”
    “Doing what?”
    “The Wishbones.”
    Dave felt shell-shocked. On the blanket, a black ant was struggling with an enormous bread crumb, bigger than its own head. The ant kept lifting it, staggering forward, dropping it, then lifting it again.
    “Are you asking me to quit the band?”
    Her voice softened. “Haven't you thought about it?”
    “It never even occurred to me.”
    “Well, I don't feel like spending the rest of my life alone on Saturday night while my husband's out having a good time.”
    “It's not a good time,” he said, still reeling from the suddenness of her attack. “It's a job. A good one. I wouldn't be making a living without it.”
    “You're not planning on being a courier for the rest of your life, are you?”
    “No,” he said. “But it's not like I've got lots of other prospects at the moment.”
    “You should start thinking about it. I'd like to start a family in the next couple of years.”
    “Me, too. What does that have to do with the band?”
    She stood up and grabbed two corners of the blanket. “Come on. Help me fold this.”
    Obediently, Dave rose to his feet, still trying to figure out how they'd moved from talking about checking into a motel to talking about him quitting the band.
    “Heads up!”
    This time Dave was ready. He turned and poised himself for the catch, waiting with his hands up as the Frisbee drifted toward him at a dreamy velocity, a vibrating curve of neon. At the very last second, though, it took a freak hop, jumping right over his hands and striking him smack in the middle of his forehead, much harder than he'd expected, more like a dinner plate than a flimsy piece of molded plastic. Fireworks of pain exploded on the inside of his eyelids.
    “Sorry, dude,” the kid called out.
    “No problem.”
    Smiling through his discomfort, Dave bent down and picked up the Frisbee. He flicked his wrist to return it, but somethingslipped. It wobbled feebly through the air and died like a duck at the kid's feet. He turned sheepishly to Julie, rubbing at the sore spot between his eyebrows.
    “I guess I'm a