Lorrie Ann. The international calls were outrageously expensive, and Lorrie Ann’s dial-up connection in the sad, subsidized apartment was so slow it rendered Skype some kind of slow-motion, avant-garde collage. Lorrie Ann could hardly ever afford to call me, and I could afford to call her for only twenty minutes once a month or so. Franklin and I were living off a grant, and Turkey wasn’t as cheap as we’d been hoping. So I didn’t hear all that much about Lor’s life after Dana’s attack. I knew only that Dana recovered but was classified as disabled, and that she had moved in with Lorrie Ann and Zach, which actually solved some of Lorrie Ann’s babysitter problems. In fact, Lorrie Ann seemed preternaturally relaxed about all of this the few times I talked to her.
And so my life became my own again. The narrative concerned only myself, Franklin, and the wonders of ancient Sumer, and I did not have to worry about my opposite twin, who was unlucky, or who else was being punished for sins I did not understand. Left to my own devices, I was richly, deeply, quietly happy.
I was attending the excruciatingly boring reception at which I met Franklin only to steal food. This was back at UMich, during my second-to-last year there. I intended merely to gather a few cheese cubes and chocolate-covered strawberries on my miniature paper plate and snag a glass of wine before hightailing it back to my office, where I could putsome Queen on my fabulous new computer speakers and get back to work on my article. But the chair, a man I adored, whose name was Dr. Wooly, and who was perfectly rubicund and always smiling, much like a 1950s illustration of Santa Claus, insisted that I go shake hands with Franklin.
“It would be good for you to date someone like him,” Dr. Wooly said as he steered me by the elbow, his great mane of white Santa hair cascading down his tweed-clad shoulders. Normally, I rather enjoyed the avuncular way in which Dr. Wooly affected to advise me regarding my love life, but nothing Dr. Wooly could have said would have set me against Franklin so completely. I did not like doing things that were “good for me.” Not even yoga.
And Franklin himself turned out to be a complete snooze. He was nice. He shook my hand. He was, of course, very red haired, a true ginger, with hair the color of Cheetos and skin absolutely covered in freckles of a more muted orange. He was of slightly above average height and with an unusually athletic build. I noted that he was good looking, despite his freckles, but good looking was not everything for me, was not even a must. The most interesting thing about Franklin looks-wise were his eyes, which were an almost iridescent brown that was dangerously close to being orange, like a Halloween cat’s. I have never, before or since, met someone with eyes that color.
It would have ended there, except that, for whatever peculiar reason, Franklin liked me. Later he would say, “I fell in love with you from the moment I saw you.” At first, I thought it was only his romanticism talking, a confusion between lust and love. But later, I came to believe him.
(I am sentimental about only two things in this world: Franklin and Lorrie Ann.)
He began to hang around outside my office, to pop his head in and ask me questions, to stay late working, knowing I stayed late working. This kind of puppyish interest, if anything, made him less attractive to me. Indeed, I had to be wary because most men who were interested in me were masochists who wanted me to flagellate them in ways bothphysical and spiritual, which was, perhaps surprisingly, not in my line at all. If anything, I sought the reverse: men who would overpower me, who could make me feel small and frail and helpless, and for whose love I had to clamor and beg, whine and snivel. They were usually dangerously self-involved, the men I made lovers, one a Russian novelist with a recurrent alcohol problem and delusions of grandeur but with a
And so my life became my own again. The narrative concerned only myself, Franklin, and the wonders of ancient Sumer, and I did not have to worry about my opposite twin, who was unlucky, or who else was being punished for sins I did not understand. Left to my own devices, I was richly, deeply, quietly happy.
I was attending the excruciatingly boring reception at which I met Franklin only to steal food. This was back at UMich, during my second-to-last year there. I intended merely to gather a few cheese cubes and chocolate-covered strawberries on my miniature paper plate and snag a glass of wine before hightailing it back to my office, where I could putsome Queen on my fabulous new computer speakers and get back to work on my article. But the chair, a man I adored, whose name was Dr. Wooly, and who was perfectly rubicund and always smiling, much like a 1950s illustration of Santa Claus, insisted that I go shake hands with Franklin.
“It would be good for you to date someone like him,” Dr. Wooly said as he steered me by the elbow, his great mane of white Santa hair cascading down his tweed-clad shoulders. Normally, I rather enjoyed the avuncular way in which Dr. Wooly affected to advise me regarding my love life, but nothing Dr. Wooly could have said would have set me against Franklin so completely. I did not like doing things that were “good for me.” Not even yoga.
And Franklin himself turned out to be a complete snooze. He was nice. He shook my hand. He was, of course, very red haired, a true ginger, with hair the color of Cheetos and skin absolutely covered in freckles of a more muted orange. He was of slightly above average height and with an unusually athletic build. I noted that he was good looking, despite his freckles, but good looking was not everything for me, was not even a must. The most interesting thing about Franklin looks-wise were his eyes, which were an almost iridescent brown that was dangerously close to being orange, like a Halloween cat’s. I have never, before or since, met someone with eyes that color.
It would have ended there, except that, for whatever peculiar reason, Franklin liked me. Later he would say, “I fell in love with you from the moment I saw you.” At first, I thought it was only his romanticism talking, a confusion between lust and love. But later, I came to believe him.
(I am sentimental about only two things in this world: Franklin and Lorrie Ann.)
He began to hang around outside my office, to pop his head in and ask me questions, to stay late working, knowing I stayed late working. This kind of puppyish interest, if anything, made him less attractive to me. Indeed, I had to be wary because most men who were interested in me were masochists who wanted me to flagellate them in ways bothphysical and spiritual, which was, perhaps surprisingly, not in my line at all. If anything, I sought the reverse: men who would overpower me, who could make me feel small and frail and helpless, and for whose love I had to clamor and beg, whine and snivel. They were usually dangerously self-involved, the men I made lovers, one a Russian novelist with a recurrent alcohol problem and delusions of grandeur but with a
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