answer.
Five with four zeroes to eight with four zeroes.
Listen, Ky. It could be a long time before I finish this.
Not necessarily. In her heyday, Enid Blyton was writing about ten thousand words a day, or a book a week.
Well Iâm not Enid Blyton and this isnât my heyday.
When was your heyday?
I donât think Iâve had one.
Oh good, itâs probably coming soon.
Gailâs taking a night course. She wants a better handle on businesss for when the catering takes off. Maxine reads over her term paper. Loss leader? Maxine checks it in the dictionary, but Gail was right. Maxine always thought it was lost leader, a phrase that brought to mind a forest, King Arthur wandering wanly in search of Camelot, Charlemagne trying to find his way back through the Basque country. The poignancy of the muddied hero. Accuracy can be so banal, so disappointing.
Many people, Maxine has learned to her surprise, dislike the present tense. They find it pretentious. It creates a distance between the reader and the characters. It is, apparently, jarring, fancy, overused, and self-conscious. These things donât bother Maxine one bit. The reason she prefers the past tense is that itâs safe. Whatever Frédérique did in the past is over and done with, unlikely to cause any ripples now. With the present, you never know where you are. Things keep happeningâitâs disruptive and untidy. Furthermore, Maxine has discovered, tense isnât just about verbs. Itâs much bigger than that. She was fixing a paragraph, changing it over from the present to the past, and realized that Here she is now does not easily translate as here she was now . Somehow, here is no longer here once youâve changed the verb; itâs more like there . Nor does now translate neatly into a past then . Place and time have swum around before your eyes. Substitute rhubarb for apple in the pie, and when it comes out of the oven youâve got pot roast.
Maxine is lying on her back on the living-room floor next to the phone, bum tucked against the baseboard, legs up the wall. Periodically she spreads them apart in a V, keeping them very straight, then draws them slowly back up together.
I have one word for you. Listen up. The word is dingbat.
I couldnât help it, Gail, I just had to get out of there.
That guy is totally cute. And heâs nice too. He wasnât making you feel weird?
No, no, it wasnât him.
Well then what the hell was your problem?
I know, but it was something about the smell in the room, it was making my skin go all prickly. I felt likeâsomething really bad would happen. If I stayed there.
Itâs a pet store. It smells funny because there are pets in it.
Yeah, I know, but.
This really nice guy is practically inviting you to spend the weekend with himâ
Ga-yul! A walk is not spending the weekendâ
âand you turn him down because your skin feels pricklyâ
I had to get outsideâ
What do you think would have happened, for Chrissake? If youâd stayed? Iâm searching for enlightenment here. Iâm on a quest. What is the terrible thing that could have happened?
Maxine bends her knees and rolls onto her side.
I donât know, she says quietly.
Frédérique slid out from under the duvet, pulled on a silk robe the colour of milky coffee, and left the room quietly. A few minutes later she returned, pulled the covers down on the other side of the bed and exposed a broad shoulder.
âJerome,â she said. âJerome, time to go.â She shook his shoulder gently. He was so young. The skin of his shoulder felt smooth and warm. She shook him again, harder. âJerome! You must go now. Get dressed.â Jerome sat up and yawned.
âIâve called you a taxi,â Frédérique said.
âWhy?What time is it?â
âItâs five oâclock. I need to work now, and you will be a distraction.â She handed him a pair of
Five with four zeroes to eight with four zeroes.
Listen, Ky. It could be a long time before I finish this.
Not necessarily. In her heyday, Enid Blyton was writing about ten thousand words a day, or a book a week.
Well Iâm not Enid Blyton and this isnât my heyday.
When was your heyday?
I donât think Iâve had one.
Oh good, itâs probably coming soon.
Gailâs taking a night course. She wants a better handle on businesss for when the catering takes off. Maxine reads over her term paper. Loss leader? Maxine checks it in the dictionary, but Gail was right. Maxine always thought it was lost leader, a phrase that brought to mind a forest, King Arthur wandering wanly in search of Camelot, Charlemagne trying to find his way back through the Basque country. The poignancy of the muddied hero. Accuracy can be so banal, so disappointing.
Many people, Maxine has learned to her surprise, dislike the present tense. They find it pretentious. It creates a distance between the reader and the characters. It is, apparently, jarring, fancy, overused, and self-conscious. These things donât bother Maxine one bit. The reason she prefers the past tense is that itâs safe. Whatever Frédérique did in the past is over and done with, unlikely to cause any ripples now. With the present, you never know where you are. Things keep happeningâitâs disruptive and untidy. Furthermore, Maxine has discovered, tense isnât just about verbs. Itâs much bigger than that. She was fixing a paragraph, changing it over from the present to the past, and realized that Here she is now does not easily translate as here she was now . Somehow, here is no longer here once youâve changed the verb; itâs more like there . Nor does now translate neatly into a past then . Place and time have swum around before your eyes. Substitute rhubarb for apple in the pie, and when it comes out of the oven youâve got pot roast.
Maxine is lying on her back on the living-room floor next to the phone, bum tucked against the baseboard, legs up the wall. Periodically she spreads them apart in a V, keeping them very straight, then draws them slowly back up together.
I have one word for you. Listen up. The word is dingbat.
I couldnât help it, Gail, I just had to get out of there.
That guy is totally cute. And heâs nice too. He wasnât making you feel weird?
No, no, it wasnât him.
Well then what the hell was your problem?
I know, but it was something about the smell in the room, it was making my skin go all prickly. I felt likeâsomething really bad would happen. If I stayed there.
Itâs a pet store. It smells funny because there are pets in it.
Yeah, I know, but.
This really nice guy is practically inviting you to spend the weekend with himâ
Ga-yul! A walk is not spending the weekendâ
âand you turn him down because your skin feels pricklyâ
I had to get outsideâ
What do you think would have happened, for Chrissake? If youâd stayed? Iâm searching for enlightenment here. Iâm on a quest. What is the terrible thing that could have happened?
Maxine bends her knees and rolls onto her side.
I donât know, she says quietly.
Frédérique slid out from under the duvet, pulled on a silk robe the colour of milky coffee, and left the room quietly. A few minutes later she returned, pulled the covers down on the other side of the bed and exposed a broad shoulder.
âJerome,â she said. âJerome, time to go.â She shook his shoulder gently. He was so young. The skin of his shoulder felt smooth and warm. She shook him again, harder. âJerome! You must go now. Get dressed.â Jerome sat up and yawned.
âIâve called you a taxi,â Frédérique said.
âWhy?What time is it?â
âItâs five oâclock. I need to work now, and you will be a distraction.â She handed him a pair of
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