On the Seriousness of Tourists #3
“We could go to the Museum of Contemporary Art,” he said.
“I’m fine,” his wife said.
She doesn’t hold up well in the heat, he thought. And now it’s going to rain. “We’re probably in people’s vacation pictures,” he said. “We could go to lunch.”
““I said I’m fine.””
We could go back to the hotel and fuck, he thought.
I’m watching, she answered, although she didn’t utter a word. I’m watching all the beauty: the castle, the tiled roofs, the people. The stone column cooled her back. She watched the younger women with their shiny skin flouncing into selfies. They didn’t even seem to notice the castle. How could they afford this trip? Hostels, she supposed. Where they probably met boys and had sex.
Her husband, he wouldn’t want to waste their day in Budapest having sex. She sighed. “Lunch is fine.”
