Some dark and secluded spot on Corfu. All I know. I’ll be murdered if he knows I told. I’ll end up in a thousand jars of the whipped lamb, while the little Foamwhistles ironically starve.
—When did he leave?
—Yesterday, right after tennis with Spaniard, about eleven.
—How come you’re not with him, secretarying? Who’ll make his Manhattans?
—Roughing it. Didn’t want me. Just him and Gerber, he said. Man to man. They may arm-wrestle, who knows? Alternately poking each other in the ribs, singing Amherst songs, trying to sink knives in each other’s backs. A market-share struggle is not a pretty sight.
—Damn it, he told me to call him, and this was like this morning. He’s got to ... hey, you haven’t heard from Dad’s grandmother, have you?
—Lenore? No, thank God. Is she OK?
—Yes. Listen, I’m desperate, here. When exactly do you think he’ll be back?
—There’s an enormous skull on my tentative calendar in the square marked three days from now. That can only mean one thing.
—Hot spit in a hole.
—Listen, seriously, if there’s anything I can do ...
—Sweet Sigurd. My thing’s lighting. I have another call. I have to go.
—Stay in touch.
—Bye ... wait!
—What?
—What about Rummage? Did he take Rummage?
—Hey now, I don’t know. That’s definitely a thought. Try over at Rummage and Naw. You have the number?
—Are you kidding? Numbers I’ve got.
—So long.
—Frequent and Vigorous.
/c/
Which is of course not and never to say that things have been unceasingly rosy. My inability to be truly inside of and surrounded by Lenore Beadsman arouses in me the purely natural reactive desire to have her inside of and contained by me. I am possessive. I want to own her, sometimes. And this of course does not sit well with a girl thoroughly frightened of the possibility that she does not own herself.
I am madly jealous. Lenore has a quality that attracts men. It is not a normal quality, or a quality that can be articulated. “... ,” he said, about to try to articulate it. “Vulnerability” is of course a bad word. “Playfulness” will not do. These both denote, and so fail. Lenore has the quality of a sort of game about her. There. Since that makes very little sense it may be right. Lenore soundlessly invites one to play a game consisting of involved attempts to find out the game’s own rules. How about that. The rules of the game are Lenore, and to play is to be played. Find out the rules of my game, she laughs, with or at. Over the board fall shadows like the teeth of fences: the Erieview Tower, Lenore’s father, Dr. Jay, Lenore’s great-grandmother.
Lenore sometimes sings in the shower, loudly and well, Lord knows she gets enough practice, and I will hunch on the toilet or lean against the sink and read submissions and smoke clove cigarettes, a habit I appropriated from Lenore herself.
Lenore’s relationship with her great-grandmother is not a wholesome thing. I’ve met the woman once or twice, mercifully short appointments in a room so hot it was literally hard to breathe. She is a small, birdish, sharp-featured thing, desperately old. She is not spry. One is not even vaguely tempted ever to say “Bless her heart.” She is a hard woman, a cold woman, a querulous and thoroughly selfish woman, one with vast intellectual pretensions and, I suppose, probably commensurate gifts. She indoctrinates Lenore. She and Lenore “talk for hours.” Rather Lenore listens. There is something sour and unsavory about it. Lenore Beadsman will not tell me anything important about her relationship with Lenore Beadsman. She says nothing to Dr. Jay either, unless the little bastard is holding back one last card on me.
It’s clear, though, that this is a great-grandmother with Views. I believe she is harming Lenore, and I believe she knows that she is, and I believe she does not really care. She has, from what little I can gather, convinced Lenore that she is in possession of
—When did he leave?
—Yesterday, right after tennis with Spaniard, about eleven.
—How come you’re not with him, secretarying? Who’ll make his Manhattans?
—Roughing it. Didn’t want me. Just him and Gerber, he said. Man to man. They may arm-wrestle, who knows? Alternately poking each other in the ribs, singing Amherst songs, trying to sink knives in each other’s backs. A market-share struggle is not a pretty sight.
—Damn it, he told me to call him, and this was like this morning. He’s got to ... hey, you haven’t heard from Dad’s grandmother, have you?
—Lenore? No, thank God. Is she OK?
—Yes. Listen, I’m desperate, here. When exactly do you think he’ll be back?
—There’s an enormous skull on my tentative calendar in the square marked three days from now. That can only mean one thing.
—Hot spit in a hole.
—Listen, seriously, if there’s anything I can do ...
—Sweet Sigurd. My thing’s lighting. I have another call. I have to go.
—Stay in touch.
—Bye ... wait!
—What?
—What about Rummage? Did he take Rummage?
—Hey now, I don’t know. That’s definitely a thought. Try over at Rummage and Naw. You have the number?
—Are you kidding? Numbers I’ve got.
—So long.
—Frequent and Vigorous.
/c/
Which is of course not and never to say that things have been unceasingly rosy. My inability to be truly inside of and surrounded by Lenore Beadsman arouses in me the purely natural reactive desire to have her inside of and contained by me. I am possessive. I want to own her, sometimes. And this of course does not sit well with a girl thoroughly frightened of the possibility that she does not own herself.
I am madly jealous. Lenore has a quality that attracts men. It is not a normal quality, or a quality that can be articulated. “... ,” he said, about to try to articulate it. “Vulnerability” is of course a bad word. “Playfulness” will not do. These both denote, and so fail. Lenore has the quality of a sort of game about her. There. Since that makes very little sense it may be right. Lenore soundlessly invites one to play a game consisting of involved attempts to find out the game’s own rules. How about that. The rules of the game are Lenore, and to play is to be played. Find out the rules of my game, she laughs, with or at. Over the board fall shadows like the teeth of fences: the Erieview Tower, Lenore’s father, Dr. Jay, Lenore’s great-grandmother.
Lenore sometimes sings in the shower, loudly and well, Lord knows she gets enough practice, and I will hunch on the toilet or lean against the sink and read submissions and smoke clove cigarettes, a habit I appropriated from Lenore herself.
Lenore’s relationship with her great-grandmother is not a wholesome thing. I’ve met the woman once or twice, mercifully short appointments in a room so hot it was literally hard to breathe. She is a small, birdish, sharp-featured thing, desperately old. She is not spry. One is not even vaguely tempted ever to say “Bless her heart.” She is a hard woman, a cold woman, a querulous and thoroughly selfish woman, one with vast intellectual pretensions and, I suppose, probably commensurate gifts. She indoctrinates Lenore. She and Lenore “talk for hours.” Rather Lenore listens. There is something sour and unsavory about it. Lenore Beadsman will not tell me anything important about her relationship with Lenore Beadsman. She says nothing to Dr. Jay either, unless the little bastard is holding back one last card on me.
It’s clear, though, that this is a great-grandmother with Views. I believe she is harming Lenore, and I believe she knows that she is, and I believe she does not really care. She has, from what little I can gather, convinced Lenore that she is in possession of
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