She’s an elementary school teacher, see, so there’s this joke between us, from the very first night we met and took down in the order of three pints of beer and half a pack of cigarettes each and then went home and screwed until dawn, about how if I’d only known that’s what my elementary school teacher did when she wasn’t teaching us our ABCs and the magic word, I might’ve given her a little peace.

Mi amore, Missus Moore, I’ll teach you everything you haven’t already taught me, of Catherine and Heathcliff’s passion on the moors and Othello, the Moor of Venice, and that sometimes less is more. Missus Moore, mi amore, I’ve learned things since we last met, so many things you might find me changed, unrecognizable, yet calling, ever calling, mi amore, Missus Moore. I’m not the little boy you remember and you’re not the Missus Moore I remember either, after a square meal and a glass of milk, asking faintly for another slice of pie.