without his date, wearing sneakers and a flag-themed tracksuit and bearing a bug-eaten bouquet of white and yellow supermarket roses.
“For you,” he said, laying the flowers in front of Jesse. He stood there, apparently waiting for her to smell them, with a brilliant pink rash in the center of his throat that made him look like an agitated songbird. When our waiter approached, he ordered a neat manhattan without looking up from the flowers.
“Sit down,” I said. “I’m perspiring just watching you. Where’s Sabrina, Kent?”
“The hospital. Her friend Colonel Geoff had a crisis about an hour ago. As soon as my drink comes, I’m headed over there. Jesse, darling? Jesse, honey?”
“Yes?” She seemed insufficiently afraid of him. Their time as a couple, from what she’d told me, had been brief and mutually unsatisfying, and yet I detected a tolerance between them that reminded me of my parents’ relationship in the last few years before my father died. They’d seen every behavior that the other one was capable of and could no longer be disappointed, hurt, startled, or angered.
“What?” said Jesse. “Tell me.”
Selkirk collected his drink and tipped it back, cherry and all, into his blushing gullet. He set the glass down on the table and zipped his tracksuit top up to his chin, as though he’d suffered a chill.
“By the way, in the lobby just now,” he said, losing his focus or his nerve, perhaps, “I saw that Malivia woman from that show we loved.”
Jesse nodded.
“We watched too much TV, I think. We didn’t talk enough,” said Selkirk. “Nobody does anymore. That’s going to change, though. It was a temporary imbalance, Jesse. It’s all coming back to us. All that power. Soon. At AidSat tomorrow, I’m going to spread the word. I’m going to tell all my callers to prepare themselves.”
“Sit, Kent,” I said. An order. But he ignored it. I opened my menu and withdrew. I’d planned an evening of mischief and provocation, hoping that with enough jealousy and alcohol I could arouse in this circle of latent offenders a measure of overt hostility—toward me to begin with and, later on, perhaps, toward society at large. There were so many outrages and brutalities that I could imagine them being guilty of, but I couldn’t wreak their havoc for them. I could only flush out their desire to do damage and suggest possible means for its expression.
But not tonight. I’d given up. All I wanted now was a rare ribeye.
“And when this new world comes,” said Kent, “I want us to go forth in it together. Tell me you will. Say yes.”
“To what?” said Jesse. “I don’t know what you’re saying to me, exactly.”
“You will,” said Selkirk. “Right now I have to run, though. I’m needed at the VA hospital. Good night, friends.”
After he left us, hustling through the parking lot and up an alley between two banks, I asked my girl the question that he’d been too confused to ask, I felt, or at least too jazzed up to ask straightforwardly. I’d had three martinis by then but wasn’t drunk. I asked because I liked her stockings and all the other naughty fineries I’d filled her closet with. I couldn’t stand the idea that some other man might one day benefit from my lavish outlay.
Her answer: “No.”
Her reasons: “Besides the fact we hardly know each other, I just don’t love you. I love someone else .”
My reaction: “Try their blackened T-bone. I hear it’s a killer piece of meat.”
22.
[ExpressLink.com]
Sabrina,
We fear for you, big sister. You don’t reply. And you haven’t acknowledged receiving the research file that my pal here at eBay assembled on Kent Selkirk. I’m guessing that you haven’t read it, because if you had, you would have gotten back to me, almost certainly in tears.
So let me be the bearer of bad tidings: Not only isn’t this character who he says he is, he isn’t (from what I can gather) anyone.
Though there was a Kent Selkirk, once
“For you,” he said, laying the flowers in front of Jesse. He stood there, apparently waiting for her to smell them, with a brilliant pink rash in the center of his throat that made him look like an agitated songbird. When our waiter approached, he ordered a neat manhattan without looking up from the flowers.
“Sit down,” I said. “I’m perspiring just watching you. Where’s Sabrina, Kent?”
“The hospital. Her friend Colonel Geoff had a crisis about an hour ago. As soon as my drink comes, I’m headed over there. Jesse, darling? Jesse, honey?”
“Yes?” She seemed insufficiently afraid of him. Their time as a couple, from what she’d told me, had been brief and mutually unsatisfying, and yet I detected a tolerance between them that reminded me of my parents’ relationship in the last few years before my father died. They’d seen every behavior that the other one was capable of and could no longer be disappointed, hurt, startled, or angered.
“What?” said Jesse. “Tell me.”
Selkirk collected his drink and tipped it back, cherry and all, into his blushing gullet. He set the glass down on the table and zipped his tracksuit top up to his chin, as though he’d suffered a chill.
“By the way, in the lobby just now,” he said, losing his focus or his nerve, perhaps, “I saw that Malivia woman from that show we loved.”
Jesse nodded.
“We watched too much TV, I think. We didn’t talk enough,” said Selkirk. “Nobody does anymore. That’s going to change, though. It was a temporary imbalance, Jesse. It’s all coming back to us. All that power. Soon. At AidSat tomorrow, I’m going to spread the word. I’m going to tell all my callers to prepare themselves.”
“Sit, Kent,” I said. An order. But he ignored it. I opened my menu and withdrew. I’d planned an evening of mischief and provocation, hoping that with enough jealousy and alcohol I could arouse in this circle of latent offenders a measure of overt hostility—toward me to begin with and, later on, perhaps, toward society at large. There were so many outrages and brutalities that I could imagine them being guilty of, but I couldn’t wreak their havoc for them. I could only flush out their desire to do damage and suggest possible means for its expression.
But not tonight. I’d given up. All I wanted now was a rare ribeye.
“And when this new world comes,” said Kent, “I want us to go forth in it together. Tell me you will. Say yes.”
“To what?” said Jesse. “I don’t know what you’re saying to me, exactly.”
“You will,” said Selkirk. “Right now I have to run, though. I’m needed at the VA hospital. Good night, friends.”
After he left us, hustling through the parking lot and up an alley between two banks, I asked my girl the question that he’d been too confused to ask, I felt, or at least too jazzed up to ask straightforwardly. I’d had three martinis by then but wasn’t drunk. I asked because I liked her stockings and all the other naughty fineries I’d filled her closet with. I couldn’t stand the idea that some other man might one day benefit from my lavish outlay.
Her answer: “No.”
Her reasons: “Besides the fact we hardly know each other, I just don’t love you. I love someone else .”
My reaction: “Try their blackened T-bone. I hear it’s a killer piece of meat.”
22.
[ExpressLink.com]
Sabrina,
We fear for you, big sister. You don’t reply. And you haven’t acknowledged receiving the research file that my pal here at eBay assembled on Kent Selkirk. I’m guessing that you haven’t read it, because if you had, you would have gotten back to me, almost certainly in tears.
So let me be the bearer of bad tidings: Not only isn’t this character who he says he is, he isn’t (from what I can gather) anyone.
Though there was a Kent Selkirk, once
Similar Books
