It was cold for no good reason. If it was going to be cold someone ought to have come up with something: a locked room, a sweating air conditioning machine. An ice skating rink. A walk-in freezer full of interestingly named ice creams in big uniform cardboard tubes. No one had bothered to think up any reasonable excuses, of which there obviously could have been many. It was freezing, God. It was July! Do you know what that’s like? Maybe you do, if you live in one of those cold places. I’m talking to somebody else here. She said she’d call me from the gallery. The gallery or the studio or whatever or what have you. When she left I was turned over on my stomach in bed, my face sideways-pressed into the pillow, buried underneath the comforter and the quilt she and I had dug out from the chest in the spare room in the dead of night. The frost had hit like a splash of cold water down our underwear at about two thirty in the morning, decidedly without warning. When that happened, we fumbled to turn on the lights; we fumbled to turn off the big box fans that blew at us from either direction, formerly mercifully; then we shot up erect, equally bothered and confused. It was only those much smaller parts of us, which neither of us called attention to as we found the heavy blankets, which needed much airing out, and as we shut the heavy storm windows—it was only those much smaller parts of us that were scared. 


She was supposed to call me from the gallery or the studio or, well. I noticed that she’d forgotten, but I was still still sleeping by the time the phone rang.
“Sorry I forgot” she said.
“It’s okay” I said.
“Everything is all screwed cause like”
“I’ve been sleeping”
“That’s good”
“How’s it going”
“Everything is all screwed cause it’s like can we even do the exhibit anymore or should we make it about this about how it’s like.”
“About how it’s cold for no good reason”
“Mmmhmm”
“The blanket smells weird” I said.
“Yeah I know” she said. “I had a bagel for breakfast. It was good”
“Oh shit. Probably I’ll just have eggs”
“Yup”
So I was thinking maybe it was time for me to get up and smell the roses. I wrapped myself up in the quilt and then I put on three sweaters and my two best pairs of soft pants.
Then I went into the kitchen and put on some water to boil.
Her exhibit was called The 39 Lovers. She had been preparing it for about a month and a half. That’s her turnaround. She either doesn’t explain or I just don’t ask. I got to be one of the lovers, you know. I went to her studio when the sun was at three-quarters length and we did Saturday things. I assume it was documented. 
One day when we were sitting at a restaurant sharing noodle cabbage soup she asked me if I was going to be jealous of the other 38. The other 38 Lovers. I told her the thought had hardly crossed my mind. After this she mostly lost her appetite. It was too hot out for soup anyway. We paid cash.
That day—the day when it turned cold—I’m back to talking about that again—I made black tea— three cups—and I drank them back to back, and I looked out the window. It looked normal outside. The grass was green, except for the tan spots. I decided against making eggs for breakfast, because. Just. I preheated the oven and baked a strange bit of oatmeal health cookies without any recipe. Eggs were incorporated. These could really be eaten for any meal, including dessert. 


That evening, I put on a terrible outfit; it was mostly terrible because of how warm it was meant to keep me. It did alright at that. 
I went to the studio or gallery or oh God and there she was in a big fluffy coat. There she was next to a sign that said The 39 Lovers. 
“Well come  on in” she said.
So ok then I did.
Inside there were plenty of suggestive and sometimes altogether erotic but always altogether artistic depictions of people’s faces in the prime positions of Love. I walked through the whole darn thing with a plastic cup of warm sparkling white wine in my cold hand. I recognized some of the faces. Many of them were brand new. She followed close enough behind me.
When I got to the end, I turned around to her and I said
“But where was mine?”
And she said
“I took yours away”
And then I was like
“Oh”
And she was like
“Remember”
We kissed and then later it snowed and then later it rained for four days straight and it overflowed the swimming pools. You were better off staying inside, even though the temperature was just right for what it was.