you.”
She doesn’t know if she should scream or laugh, slap him across the face or merely brush him aside. “It’s an unusual way to be used,” she says quietly.
He seems to take this as some sort of acquiescence because he smiles, shaking his head. “Oh, all writers do it,” he says. “They use everybody. You should know that. One of my teachers at Vanderbilt once said that a good writer sells out everybody he knows, sooner or later.”
She smiles at him. If she were to tell him now what Vista is about, what the fate of his masterpiece will be, what kind of “writer” he is, what kind of “editor” she is …
He moves his hand up her leg, grips her thigh.
“But I’m sorry I made you angry,” he says. And then, looking down, “I’ll go.”
She makes no move to stop him, but watches him put on his coat, his shoes.
He stands in the middle of her room, face once again sad. “Can I call you?” he asks. “At home?”
She nods, realizing she feels a certain disappointment. Not, she thinks, because he’s finally leaving, or because she’s made up her mind not to sleep with him again, but because the questioning has stopped. Or maybe because the questioning had nothing to do with her, was for himself, his book.
She nods, feeling again like the child hiding in the darkbasement, crouched on the cold linoleum behind an open door. The child who hears (her stomach dancing) the footsteps approaching, stopping nearby, turning, and then walking away, up the stairs to the light, to other, perhaps easier, discoveries. Feeling like the child in that minute when the hiding becomes being lost, forgotten.
“Yes,” she says, nodding. “Call me. Please.”
Chapter 6
It was at a party, she began. I’ve told you the story, haven’t I?
I said that she had, a long time ago, and then realized she had not asked the question to avoid repeating herself, but merely to determine what part of my own memory I would bring to the story as she told it, the way a recently returned traveler might ask: Have you ever seen this part of the world? with the lights already out and the slide projector humming beside him.
I told her I didn’t remember it very well. We were on the beach, sitting on some large black rocks, a pale-blue comforter beneath us. It was where she liked to sit while it grew dark.
Betty had invited us. You remember poor Betty?
The poor was for a small patch of oil and rain that, six years before, had sent her car into a utility pole on Queens Boulevard as she drove from the beauty parlor to her semidetached ranch.
I said of course I remembered her. And remembered her again as heavy perfume and coats with fur collars and cuffs. As cigarette butts stained darkly with lipstick. As my mother’s eternal “girlfriend.” I remembered that she always clinked withbracelets and seemed unaware of the thin husband who followed her into our living room; that she had spent the last hour of her silly life under a hooded dryer, tales of the Lennon Sisters on her lap, the tips of her small ears burning.
My mother pulled her legs to her chest, hugging her knees like an uncertain survivor. It was a girlish pose, made possible by her new thinness.
It was quite a party. Park Avenue, very posh.
I looked out over the slate-colored sand, the black water laced with foam, speckled with white gulls. I was, by then, already planning my steps once I got back to New York, and so, I suppose, with my own future once again imaginable I didn’t mind letting her tell the story. She was full of stories that summer, stories about Ward’s long devotion to his late mother, about some woman in town who’d had three husbands, about her childhood and mine—our past selves as useful as any third party in keeping us from discussing who and what we were now.
I sat slightly behind her and looked at her hair tangled around the thin rubber band, pulling from it, looping around it, a fine spray of gray sand, and wondered who and what now.
It
She doesn’t know if she should scream or laugh, slap him across the face or merely brush him aside. “It’s an unusual way to be used,” she says quietly.
He seems to take this as some sort of acquiescence because he smiles, shaking his head. “Oh, all writers do it,” he says. “They use everybody. You should know that. One of my teachers at Vanderbilt once said that a good writer sells out everybody he knows, sooner or later.”
She smiles at him. If she were to tell him now what Vista is about, what the fate of his masterpiece will be, what kind of “writer” he is, what kind of “editor” she is …
He moves his hand up her leg, grips her thigh.
“But I’m sorry I made you angry,” he says. And then, looking down, “I’ll go.”
She makes no move to stop him, but watches him put on his coat, his shoes.
He stands in the middle of her room, face once again sad. “Can I call you?” he asks. “At home?”
She nods, realizing she feels a certain disappointment. Not, she thinks, because he’s finally leaving, or because she’s made up her mind not to sleep with him again, but because the questioning has stopped. Or maybe because the questioning had nothing to do with her, was for himself, his book.
She nods, feeling again like the child hiding in the darkbasement, crouched on the cold linoleum behind an open door. The child who hears (her stomach dancing) the footsteps approaching, stopping nearby, turning, and then walking away, up the stairs to the light, to other, perhaps easier, discoveries. Feeling like the child in that minute when the hiding becomes being lost, forgotten.
“Yes,” she says, nodding. “Call me. Please.”
Chapter 6
It was at a party, she began. I’ve told you the story, haven’t I?
I said that she had, a long time ago, and then realized she had not asked the question to avoid repeating herself, but merely to determine what part of my own memory I would bring to the story as she told it, the way a recently returned traveler might ask: Have you ever seen this part of the world? with the lights already out and the slide projector humming beside him.
I told her I didn’t remember it very well. We were on the beach, sitting on some large black rocks, a pale-blue comforter beneath us. It was where she liked to sit while it grew dark.
Betty had invited us. You remember poor Betty?
The poor was for a small patch of oil and rain that, six years before, had sent her car into a utility pole on Queens Boulevard as she drove from the beauty parlor to her semidetached ranch.
I said of course I remembered her. And remembered her again as heavy perfume and coats with fur collars and cuffs. As cigarette butts stained darkly with lipstick. As my mother’s eternal “girlfriend.” I remembered that she always clinked withbracelets and seemed unaware of the thin husband who followed her into our living room; that she had spent the last hour of her silly life under a hooded dryer, tales of the Lennon Sisters on her lap, the tips of her small ears burning.
My mother pulled her legs to her chest, hugging her knees like an uncertain survivor. It was a girlish pose, made possible by her new thinness.
It was quite a party. Park Avenue, very posh.
I looked out over the slate-colored sand, the black water laced with foam, speckled with white gulls. I was, by then, already planning my steps once I got back to New York, and so, I suppose, with my own future once again imaginable I didn’t mind letting her tell the story. She was full of stories that summer, stories about Ward’s long devotion to his late mother, about some woman in town who’d had three husbands, about her childhood and mine—our past selves as useful as any third party in keeping us from discussing who and what we were now.
I sat slightly behind her and looked at her hair tangled around the thin rubber band, pulling from it, looping around it, a fine spray of gray sand, and wondered who and what now.
It
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