Passion and Affect by Laurie Colwin

eyes.
    â€œBetty Helen quit today,” said Guido. “Her husband is going to Oklahoma to study with someone called Mezzrobian. Did you ever hear of anyone called Mezzrobian? It sounded like someone everybody’s heard of.”
    â€œThere isn’t anybody called Mezzrobian. There isn’t even a Mr. Betty Helen Carnhoops. Jesus, who would marry her?”
    â€œWell, she’s gone. She had to go pack for the movers. Now I have to start this gavotte all over again. I suppose you’ll start nagging me about Miss Berkowitz.”
    â€œNo,” said Vincent brightly. “She says she’ll stay at the Board and see how we go.”
    â€œWhat does that mean?”
    â€œIt means how we work out together.”
    â€œWomen are very strange,” said Guido. “Even if they do what you want them to, they’re not understandable.”
    â€œHow’s Holly?”
    â€œShe’s looking for a new apartment for us. She says the old one is filled with bad vibrations and we should start out fresh.”
    â€œSo you’re back.”
    â€œEverything’s back. Do you think you could write a poem about garbage? I have a page open.”
    Vincent sat with a sheaf of papers on his lap. “I have to get this thing in to Urban Affairs Dialogue by Friday.”
    On the desk, the glass bowls twinkled. No one answered the telephone on the first ring. No one typed behind the potted palm. Magna Carta Employment, a part of the foundation that found jobs for nonprofit agencies, was sending over some new girls tomorrow for interviews.
    Guido corrected proofs. Vincent read his garbage study. They worked in silence for two hours. Then they both got up. Vincent had to meet Misty Berkowitz for lunch, and Guido had to meet Holly to look at an apartment. They paced around the quiet office for several minutes. Now that everything was back, they both felt dizzy and misplaced, like dancers after a long ballet.

passion and affect
    G UIDO MORRIS and his wife, the former Holly Stergis, had been separated for almost six months, during which time Holly read the Larousse Gastronomique , went to France with her mother, and wrote Guido one vague postcard which did not explain why their present living arrangement suited her, or why she had thought of it in the first place.
    One day, shortly before the six-month mark, she called from her parents’ house in the country to say that she felt they ought to have dinner and talk things over.
    â€œI think I’ve arranged my mind,” she said.
    It was a brief, explosive meal. They met at the Lalique, an obscure, ornate restaurant that had been the partial scene of their courtship, but neither of them had much in the way of appetite. They left their dinner virtually untouched but drank two bottles of white wine. Holly stared at her glass and said, “This place is littered with memories.” Then they left abruptly, overtipping. At their apartment, the chamber of Guido’s recent solitude, they decided to resume their life together.
    â€œBut we have to move,” said Holly, with whose wardrobe Guido had cohabited silently for months. “I don’t think we should live amongst our separateness.”
    â€œI’m not at all sure what that means,” Guido said.
    â€œIt means that this is where we started, and this is where things didn’t work out. Besides, I never liked the kitchen.”
    â€œI’m not at all sure why you left in the first place,” said Guido. “You never said you didn’t like the kitchen.”
    â€œI told you why I left,” said Holly. “I needed time to be alone with myself and now I have. I thought it would be a profitable emotional experience for both of us.” She propped her neck with one of the ornamental bed pillows she had resurrected from the closet, where Guido, who had not been able to look at them without pain, had put them.
    â€œHolly, did I do something wrong? Are you,