about her work. She’s in her third year of graduate school, came in for an NYU conference at which she will read a rebuttal to an article entitled: “Why There Are No People.”
The evening is cool. You find yourself walking the Village, pointing out landmarks and favorite townhouses. Only yesterday you would have considered such a stroll too New Jersey for words, but tonight you remember how much you used to like this part of the city. The whole neighborhood smells of Italian food. The streets have friendly names and cut weird angles into the rectilinear map of the city. The buildings are humble in scale and don’t try to intimidate you. Gay giants stride past on hypertrophied thighs, swathed in leather and chains, and they do intimidate you.
Vicky stops in front of an antique shop window on Bleecker and points to a wooden carousel horse, painted red and white, mounted on a pedestal. “I’d like to have the kind of house someday where a carousel horse wouldn’t be out of place in the living room.”
“How about a jukebox?”
“Oh, definitely. There’s always room for a jukebox. And maybe a pinball machine. A really old one with Buck Rogers stuff.”
As you resume your walk she describes the house in which she grew up. A rambling Tudor affair on the shore in Marblehead, which started out early in the century as a summer house and, despite the formal dining room, never quite lost its wet-towel ambience. There were empty rooms to play in, and a closed alcove under the stairs which no one could enter without her permission. Pets galore. A gazebo where the four girls had tealess tea parties presided over by Vicky’s eldest sister. Their father kept chickens in the boathouse and spent years trying to bring a vegetable patch to life. Every morning he woke up at five and went for a swim. Mother stayed in bed till her daughters and the pets gathered in her room.
What she tells you is enhanced by the increasing animation of her gestures and facial expressions and becomes a vivid image of this childhood Arcadia. You notice for the first time that she has freckles. You didn’t know they still made them. You imagine her as a child carrying a bucket of sand down to the beach. You see yourself watching from the bluff, through a time warp, saying: Someday I will meet this girl . You want to watch over her through the interval, protect her from the cruelty of schoolchildren and the careless lust of young men. The irrevocable past tense of the narration suggests to you some intervening tragedy. You suspect a snake in the vegetable garden.
“Your parents?” you say.
“Divorced three years ago. Yours?”
“Happy marriage,” you say.
“You’re lucky.”
Lucky is not the word you would have chosen, except maybe out of a hat.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters,” she asks.
“Three brothers. The youngest are twins.”
“That’s nice. Symmetrical, I mean. I’ve got three sisters. Boys were very mysterious to us.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Listen. Do we have to meet Tad later?”
“Tad has no intention of meeting us. Or, rather, he has good intentions, but he won’t be there.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“No, it’s just that I know him. Tad is always on his way, but he seldom arrives.”
“What did he tell you about me,” she asks, after you have been seated in the courtyard of a café on Charles Street. She has a conspiratorial smile. She seems to think that your allegiance to Tad will crumble before this new intimacy.
“Not much,” you say.
“Come on.”
“He tried to build you up. I was expecting a field hockey player with monogrammed knee socks and thick glasses.”
She does not press for the compliment. Just smiles and looks down at the menu.
You tell her what a good guy Tad is. You like his energy and his style— joie de vivre, je ne sais quoi, savoir-faire, sprezzatura . You are nearly sincere. Having a cousin like Vicky tips the scales in his favor. You are inclined to
The evening is cool. You find yourself walking the Village, pointing out landmarks and favorite townhouses. Only yesterday you would have considered such a stroll too New Jersey for words, but tonight you remember how much you used to like this part of the city. The whole neighborhood smells of Italian food. The streets have friendly names and cut weird angles into the rectilinear map of the city. The buildings are humble in scale and don’t try to intimidate you. Gay giants stride past on hypertrophied thighs, swathed in leather and chains, and they do intimidate you.
Vicky stops in front of an antique shop window on Bleecker and points to a wooden carousel horse, painted red and white, mounted on a pedestal. “I’d like to have the kind of house someday where a carousel horse wouldn’t be out of place in the living room.”
“How about a jukebox?”
“Oh, definitely. There’s always room for a jukebox. And maybe a pinball machine. A really old one with Buck Rogers stuff.”
As you resume your walk she describes the house in which she grew up. A rambling Tudor affair on the shore in Marblehead, which started out early in the century as a summer house and, despite the formal dining room, never quite lost its wet-towel ambience. There were empty rooms to play in, and a closed alcove under the stairs which no one could enter without her permission. Pets galore. A gazebo where the four girls had tealess tea parties presided over by Vicky’s eldest sister. Their father kept chickens in the boathouse and spent years trying to bring a vegetable patch to life. Every morning he woke up at five and went for a swim. Mother stayed in bed till her daughters and the pets gathered in her room.
What she tells you is enhanced by the increasing animation of her gestures and facial expressions and becomes a vivid image of this childhood Arcadia. You notice for the first time that she has freckles. You didn’t know they still made them. You imagine her as a child carrying a bucket of sand down to the beach. You see yourself watching from the bluff, through a time warp, saying: Someday I will meet this girl . You want to watch over her through the interval, protect her from the cruelty of schoolchildren and the careless lust of young men. The irrevocable past tense of the narration suggests to you some intervening tragedy. You suspect a snake in the vegetable garden.
“Your parents?” you say.
“Divorced three years ago. Yours?”
“Happy marriage,” you say.
“You’re lucky.”
Lucky is not the word you would have chosen, except maybe out of a hat.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters,” she asks.
“Three brothers. The youngest are twins.”
“That’s nice. Symmetrical, I mean. I’ve got three sisters. Boys were very mysterious to us.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Listen. Do we have to meet Tad later?”
“Tad has no intention of meeting us. Or, rather, he has good intentions, but he won’t be there.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“No, it’s just that I know him. Tad is always on his way, but he seldom arrives.”
“What did he tell you about me,” she asks, after you have been seated in the courtyard of a café on Charles Street. She has a conspiratorial smile. She seems to think that your allegiance to Tad will crumble before this new intimacy.
“Not much,” you say.
“Come on.”
“He tried to build you up. I was expecting a field hockey player with monogrammed knee socks and thick glasses.”
She does not press for the compliment. Just smiles and looks down at the menu.
You tell her what a good guy Tad is. You like his energy and his style— joie de vivre, je ne sais quoi, savoir-faire, sprezzatura . You are nearly sincere. Having a cousin like Vicky tips the scales in his favor. You are inclined to
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