It Will Come to Me by Emily Fox Gordon Page A

either of his names. The fourth was Charles Johns.
    The conversation was languid and intermittent, touching on such topics as Internet movie rentals and the new sushi stand in the Student Union food court. It was the smoking ritual that was the main thing, the communal ritual of inhale and exhale and the wavering room of smoke that housed them all in the heavy warm air. How could she have forsaken the company of smokers? It seemed to her that a certain necessary kind of humanintimacy had all but disappeared from the world, and that one of the few places it could still be found was among the members of these transient communities of exiles who huddle outside hospitals and office buildings and houses. The idea made her want to laugh, and so she did, deeply and inwardly but not inaudibly, because Charles Johns, who was standing apart from the group a little, began to laugh with her and also to cough.
    She wanted to talk to him, to take advantage of the marvelous elision of transitions that drunkenness makes possible, but before she could edge over to where he stood, her attention was caught by the face of the chunky young man whose name she didn't know. He had turned so that the light caught his profile. Who was it he resembled, with that high forehead, those dark, liquid, exophthalmic eyes, those curls? Was it Beethoven? No. Was it Orson Welles? No. Then it came to her. “Byron,” she blurted out. “Do you know you look like Byron? George Gordon Lord Byron?” This was her first conversational offering, and apparently it was unacceptable. The young man gaped at her. His companions smirked. Charles Johns, standing out of the light, seemed to be toeing the ground with his shoe.
    T ime had elapsed and she was sitting on the wrought-iron bench among the weedy flagstones at the very back of the property. She had no glass of wine and though she couldn't remember exactly what series of events had caused her to be here and not where she'd been before, she had the impression she'd been left alone in a condition of disgrace. She felt desolate enough to weep.
    She had her back to the house and the light, so she was mildlysurprised when Charles Johns settled himself on the bench, close enough so that she could feel both the fat and the muscle in the arm and the thigh that pressed companionably against hers.
“Zoë mou sas agapo,”
he said. His voice was a comforting rumble.
    “Maid of Athens, Ere We Part” said Ruth. The region of her brain that stored titles and verses and song lyrics was unassailable. No amount of alcohol could shut it down.
    Charles Johns had brought her a selection of miniature quiches and some slices of brisket and what looked like a mound of rice and beans, all piled on a sagging paper plate. “Have something to eat,” he said. “Have you eaten today?” She hadn't, except for a spoonful or two of ill-fated chicken chili and the wasabi peas she'd force-fed herself an hour or so earlier. She took the fork he offered her and made her way doggedly around the plate. The food tasted of nothing, but already she'd begun to feel steadier and clearer. “Thank you,” she said. “I think I'm a little better.”
    “Eat it all,” said Charles. “Every bit. You need some buffering fats in your system when you drink.” His accent, she realized, was not slightly British, as she'd thought, but slightly and aristocratically Southern—a Tidewater accent. She finished the food.
    “At our age we can't push it as we once did,” he said as he took the damp plate away from her and folded it into a tidy wedge. This from a man who must have weighed two hundred and eighty pounds. If she hadn't felt so grateful she might have bristled. “I've been looking forward so much to meeting you,” she said. For the first time that evening her voice sounded sane and natural. “I've been reading Ricia's book and I was looking forward to talking to her.”
    “She was sorry—” Charles Johns began, but Ruth waved him off. “It's