would fall, but still. Lady, you wanna save money I can’t blame you, but it could wind up costing you a whole lot more later. Is all I’m saying. Following the boss’s orders, Willy deflected them, and off they sloped, shrugging as they went.
She went over and looked at the oak after the Santolinis had wandered away, and although she could not, in fact, see all of it, the long, sculptural limb extending toward, then curving away from the roof of Mitchell’s office did not look damaged to her. Probably Mitchell was right about the Santolinis.
With the feeling that Faber had once again proved his worth in absentia, Willy prepared a light, nearly gravity-free lunch of two tablespoons of tuna salad smoothed along a piece of crispbread, half an heirloom tomato cut into tiny wedges, and a can of caffeine-free Diet Coke. She dined upon this feast while watching
One Life to Live
on the little TV from her former apartment, now installed on the kitchen counter. To a narrative-drenched mind,
One Life to Live
presented an astonishing banquet. Each new course was richer and more florid than the last; and the banquet went on forever, endlessly, at the rate of one hour per day. In the past, the day’s installment had often returned Willy to her desk with the sense that a river of story flowed through her, ready always to be tapped.
Unfortunately, the spell cast by her soap opera seemed not to have survived the move from East Seventy-seventh Street to Guilderland Road; and Willy spent hours pushing at stubborn sentences that trickled along until they dried up.
That evening, the two glasses of wine she had with dinner put her to sleep somewhere in the middle of the first chapter of
The Ambassadors.
(Willy typically read English novelists, A. N. Wilson, A. S. Byatt, Iris Murdoch, Muriel Spark. When out of sorts, she devoured crime novels; when depressed, she enjoyed Tim Underhill’s books, which were not crime novels, exactly, except that they always had crimes, usually appalling ones, in them; in exceptionally good moods, she picked up nonfiction books with titles like
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.
)
At 11:00 P.M . she came awake and decanted herself into her bed, almost immediately to suffer through one of the worst nightmares of her life.
From a point about eight feet off the ground, she was observing, camera-like, the back of a teenaged boy staring at an abandoned house. He had short, dark hair and wore floppy jeans and layered T-shirts. His posture struck her as oddly poised, even graceful, and she thought he must have a nice-looking face. With the unquestioned conviction of dreams, another thought came to her: the boy’s face would be a more youthful, more masculine, but otherwise virtually identical version of her own. The boy took a tentative step toward the empty house. As soon as he moved forward, Willy understood that the house, which was empty only technically, represented a mortal danger to this boy. If he went through that door, the house would close around him like a trap; the filthy, ravenous spirit that looked out from the front windows would claim him forever. Willy’s consciousness of his danger did not slow the boy in his steady progress toward the door. Inwardly, the entire building trembled to devour him—she could feel the bottomlessness of its hunger. She could not move; she could not speak. Her dread redoubled itself, and the dread deepened her paralysis.
The boy took another step forward on the little broken path leading to the porch and the awaiting door. As if within a snow globe emptied of its snow, the house and the boy stood isolated in a no-place defined entirely by themselves. Within the globe, intolerably to our watching Willy, a sick desire fattened upon itself. As it whispered to the boy, his hesitant footsteps carried him nearer and nearer to the porch. At last she could bear it no longer: the sheer pitch of her dread let her overflow her confinement and
She went over and looked at the oak after the Santolinis had wandered away, and although she could not, in fact, see all of it, the long, sculptural limb extending toward, then curving away from the roof of Mitchell’s office did not look damaged to her. Probably Mitchell was right about the Santolinis.
With the feeling that Faber had once again proved his worth in absentia, Willy prepared a light, nearly gravity-free lunch of two tablespoons of tuna salad smoothed along a piece of crispbread, half an heirloom tomato cut into tiny wedges, and a can of caffeine-free Diet Coke. She dined upon this feast while watching
One Life to Live
on the little TV from her former apartment, now installed on the kitchen counter. To a narrative-drenched mind,
One Life to Live
presented an astonishing banquet. Each new course was richer and more florid than the last; and the banquet went on forever, endlessly, at the rate of one hour per day. In the past, the day’s installment had often returned Willy to her desk with the sense that a river of story flowed through her, ready always to be tapped.
Unfortunately, the spell cast by her soap opera seemed not to have survived the move from East Seventy-seventh Street to Guilderland Road; and Willy spent hours pushing at stubborn sentences that trickled along until they dried up.
That evening, the two glasses of wine she had with dinner put her to sleep somewhere in the middle of the first chapter of
The Ambassadors.
(Willy typically read English novelists, A. N. Wilson, A. S. Byatt, Iris Murdoch, Muriel Spark. When out of sorts, she devoured crime novels; when depressed, she enjoyed Tim Underhill’s books, which were not crime novels, exactly, except that they always had crimes, usually appalling ones, in them; in exceptionally good moods, she picked up nonfiction books with titles like
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.
)
At 11:00 P.M . she came awake and decanted herself into her bed, almost immediately to suffer through one of the worst nightmares of her life.
From a point about eight feet off the ground, she was observing, camera-like, the back of a teenaged boy staring at an abandoned house. He had short, dark hair and wore floppy jeans and layered T-shirts. His posture struck her as oddly poised, even graceful, and she thought he must have a nice-looking face. With the unquestioned conviction of dreams, another thought came to her: the boy’s face would be a more youthful, more masculine, but otherwise virtually identical version of her own. The boy took a tentative step toward the empty house. As soon as he moved forward, Willy understood that the house, which was empty only technically, represented a mortal danger to this boy. If he went through that door, the house would close around him like a trap; the filthy, ravenous spirit that looked out from the front windows would claim him forever. Willy’s consciousness of his danger did not slow the boy in his steady progress toward the door. Inwardly, the entire building trembled to devour him—she could feel the bottomlessness of its hunger. She could not move; she could not speak. Her dread redoubled itself, and the dread deepened her paralysis.
The boy took another step forward on the little broken path leading to the porch and the awaiting door. As if within a snow globe emptied of its snow, the house and the boy stood isolated in a no-place defined entirely by themselves. Within the globe, intolerably to our watching Willy, a sick desire fattened upon itself. As it whispered to the boy, his hesitant footsteps carried him nearer and nearer to the porch. At last she could bear it no longer: the sheer pitch of her dread let her overflow her confinement and
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