jerk at their sudden freedom. His face twists into an expression of extreme unhappiness. His cry is healthy and strong. I quickly wrap him in swaddling, leave him on the table, and gesture for one of the boy eunuchs to come watch over the infant. The baby will be fine while I check on Meiling. Across the room, the empress beseeches, “Let me see him. Let me see him,” even as one of the helper-midwives catches the placenta before it hits the straw bedding. The boy eunuchs are uncustomarily quiet, and I realize it’s because two of them have crept out of the room to relate the news of the birth to those with even bigger eyes and ears. Meiling whimpers. She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “This isn’t happening. Don’t let it happen.” Her words are like fingers squeezing my throat. I was sure these were random pains… Maybe I should have insisted she stay in bed and keep her legs elevated… But she had to help the empress… There must be something I can do… Meiling’s struggles attract the empress’s attention. “What are you doing over there?” Her voice obliges an answer, but I’m afraid to give it. “You! Find out what the fuss is about.” Midwife Quon crosses the room to us. She understands the problem immediately. “We need to get you out of here,” she says as discreetly as possible. “Can you walk?” “I’ll try.” But as Meiling rises, she screams as blood suddenly streams through her silk gown, and she collapses back to the floor. “What is that commotion?” the empress demands. Midwife Quon begins to pull away the layers of Meiling’s clothing. I remember every caution my grandparents gave me about the polluting qualities of blood. I should recoil, but my concern for my friend has even greater force. Meiling screams again, and I take her hand. “Don’t let this happen, Yunxian,” she moans. “Please, please, please…” But there’s nothing I can do to stop or even slow the inevitable. “Help me sit up,” the empress orders. “I want to see—” Meiling cries out. The other helper-midwife is attending to the empress, and the boy eunuchs have no duty to Meiling. Midwife Quon locks eyes with mine, wordlessly sending instructions. I support Meiling with my arms as her baby falls from the childbirth gate in a river of blood. It’s a girl—a tiny blessing—and she is too small, too blue, and too still to be alive. I put a hand over Meiling’s eyes, but she’s already seen what cannot be unseen. Her body heaves with sobs. Blood Once we are back in the Lodge of Ritual and Ceremony, Midwife Quon insists that Meiling’s childbirth gate be packed with clean gauze to stem the bleeding. I offer a roll of brand-new bindings made by the spinster aunts that I brought with me from home. “What a waste of something so precious,” Midwife Quon comments when I hand her the untouched roll. Later, as I walk her to the door, I ask how she thinks Meiling


A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt

he rested the tips of the fingers of one hand upon the palm of the other hand, scarcely touching it lightly. But the pressure of her fingers had been lighter and steadier: and suddenly the memory of their touch traversed his brain and body like an invisible wave. A boy came towards them, running along under the shed. He was excited and breathless. --O, Dedalus, he cried, Doyle is in a great bake about you. You're to go in at once and get dressed for the play. Hurry up, you better. --He's coming now, said Heron to the messenger with a haughty drawl, when he wants to. The boy turned to Heron and repeated: --But Doyle is in an awful bake. --Will you tell Doyle with my best compliments that I damned his eyes? answered Heron. --Well, I must go now, said Stephen, who cared little for such points of honour. --I wouldn't, said Heron, damn me if I would. That's no way to send for one of the senior boys. In a bake, indeed! I think it's quite enough that you're taking a part in his bally old play. This spirit of quarrelsome comradeship which he had observed lately in his rival had not seduced Stephen from his habits of quiet obedience. He mistrusted the turbulence and doubted the sincerity of such comradeship which seemed to him a sorry anticipation of manhood. The question of honour here raised was, like all such questions, trivial to him. While his mind had been pursuing its intangible phantoms and turning in irresolution from such pursuit he had heard about him the constant voices of his father and of his masters, urging him to be a gentleman above all things and urging him to be a good catholic above all things. These voices had now come to be hollow-sounding in his ears. When the gymnasium had been opened he had heard another voice urging him to be strong and manly and healthy and when the movement towards national revival had begun to be felt in the college yet another voice had bidden him be true to his country and help to raise up her language and tradition. In the profane world, as he foresaw, a worldly voice would bid him raise up his father's fallen state by his labours and, meanwhile, the voice of his school comrades urged him to be a decent fellow, to shield others from blame or to beg them off and to do his best to get free days for the school. And it was the din of all these hollow-sounding voices that made him halt irresolutely in the pursuit of phantoms. He gave them ear only for a time but he was happy only when he was far from them, beyond their call, alone or in the company of phantasmal comrades. In the vestry a plump fresh-faced jesuit and an elderly man, in shabby blue clothes, were dabbling in a case of paints and chalks. The boys who had been painted walked about or stood still awkwardly, touching their faces


reluctantly lets him go as I reach for him. “There, there.” “Pop,” he sobs. “I know, baby boy. We’ll go see Mrs. Taylor and get another one.” I kiss his head . . . oh, he smells so good. He smells of my baby boy. “Pop,” he sniffs. I take his hand and kiss his sticky fingers. “I can taste your popsicle here on your fingers.” Ted stops crying and examines his hand. “Put your fingers in your mouth.” He does. “Pop!” “Yes. Popsicle.” He grins. My mercurial little boy, just like his dad. Well, at least he has an excuse—he’s only two. 516/551 “Shall we go see Mrs. Taylor?” He nods, smiling his beautiful baby smile. “Will you let Daddy carry you?” He shakes his head and wraps his arms around my neck, hugging me tightly, his face pressed against my throat. “I think Daddy wants to taste popsicle, too,” I whisper in Ted’s little ear. Ted frowns at me, then looks at his hand and holds it out to Christian. Christian smiles and puts Ted’s fingers in his mouth. “Hmm . . . tasty.” Ted giggles and reaches up, wanting Christian to hold him. Christian grins at me and takes Ted in his arms, settling him on his hip. “Sophie, where’s Gail?” “She was in the big house.” I glance at Christian. His smile has turned bittersweet, and I wonder what he’s thinking. “You’re so good with him,” he murmurs. “This little one?” I ruffle Ted’s hair. “It’s only because I have the measure of you Grey men.” I smirk at my husband. He laughs. “Yes, you do, Mrs. Grey.” Teddy squirms out of Christian’s hold. Now he wants to walk, my stubborn little man. I take one of his hands, and his dad takes the other, and together we swing Teddy between us all the way back to the house, Sophie skipping along in front of us. I wave to Taylor who, on a rare day-off, is outside the garage, dressed in jeans and a wife-beater, as he tinkers with an old motorbike. 517/551 I pause outside the door to Ted’s room and listen as Christian reads to Ted. “I am the Lorax! I speak for the trees . . .” 1 When I peek in, Teddy is fast asleep while Christian continues to read. He glances up when I open the door and closes the book. He puts his finger to his lips and switches on the baby monitor beside Ted’s crib. He adjusts Ted’s bedclothes, strokes his cheek, then straightens up, and tiptoes over to me without making a sound. It’s hard not to giggle at him. Out in the hallway, Christian pulls me into his embrace. “God, I love him, but it’s great when he’s asleep,” he murmurs against my lips. “I couldn’t agree with you more.” He gazes down at me, eyes soft. “I can hardly believe he’s been with us for two years.” “I know.” I kiss him, and for a moment, I’m transported back to Teddy’s birth: the emergency caesarian, Christian’s crippling anxiety,


Ezinma? You are older than Obiageli but she has more sense." He uncovered his second wife's dish and began to eat from it. Obiageli took the first dish and returned to her mother's hut. And then Nkechi came in, bringing the third dish. Nkechi was the daughter of Okonkwo's third wife. In the distance the drums continued to beat. CHAPTER Six The whole village turned out on the ilo, men, women and children. They stood round in a huge circle leaving the centre of the playground free. The elders and grandees of the village sat on their own stools brought there by their young sons or slaves. Okonkwo was among them. All others stood except those who came early enough to secure places on the few stands which had been built by placing smooth logs on forked pillars. The wrestlers were not there yet and the drummers held the field. They too sat just in front of the huge circle of spectators, facing the elders. Behind them was the big and ancient silk-cotton tree which was sacred. Spirits of good children lived in that tree waiting to be born. On ordinary days young women who desired children came to sit under its shade. There were seven drums and they were arranged according to their sizes in a long wooden basket. Three men beat them with sticks, working feverishly from one drum to another. They were possessed by the spirit of the drums. The young men who kept order on these occasions dashed about, consulting among themselves and with the leaders of the two wrestling teams, who were still outside the circle, behind the crowd. Once in a while two young men carrying palm fronds ran round the circle and kept the crowd back by beating the ground in front of them or, if they were stubborn, their legs and feet. At last the two teams danced into the circle and the crowd roared and clapped. The drums rose to a frenzy. The people surged forward. The young men who kept order flew around, waving their palm fronds. Old men nodded to the beat of the drums and remembered the days when they wrestled to its intoxicating rhythm. The contest began with boys of fifteen or sixteen. There were only three such boys in each team. They were not the real wrestlers,-they merely set the scene. Within a short time the first two bouts were over. But the third created a big sensation even among the elders who did not usually show their excitement so openly. It was as quick as the other two, perhaps even quicker. But very few people had ever seen that kind of wrestling before. As soon as the two boys closed in, one of them did something which no one could describe because it had been as quick as a flash. And the other boy was flat on his back. The crowd roared and clapped and for a while drowned the frenzied drums. Okonkwo sprang to his feet and quickly sat down again. Three young men from the


make the last adjustments. She couldn’t wait to fix it to Madam’s skin. She tried to conceal all this with a shaky smile. “I’ve only been working here five minutes,” she said. “You think that matters? Miss de Vries is an excellent judge of character. She’ll know if you’re behaving strangely.” Alice pictured Miss de Vries’s eyes. Gray, changeable, penetrating her. Was she behaving strangely? All Alice’s emotions felt entirely strange. “Fine. Tell me what to do.” “You tell me.” Alice began to sweat. She had been given the easiest job of any of them, and that made her even more anxious. Watch Madam. That’s all she had to do. Just watch her. Nothing more than that. If she got this wrong, she’d have failed them all, ruined the whole enterprise. She felt sick. “Alice?” “I suppose I’d...feel badly about things. Being a snitch, I mean. I’d be hemming and hawing about whether to say anything.” “Good, that sounds right.” “I’d say, I don’t wish to cast any aspersions...” “Hm.” “All right, I’d say, I don’t want to cause any trouble.” “Better.” Winnie squeezed her arm. “And you should look guilty. Go red, if you can.” “I can’t make myself do that.” “Picture Miss de Vries trying to skin you alive.” Alice paled. That idea gave her a quick, hard kick of pain—something altogether unexpected. She released her breath. “Look here, Winnie, I don’t see how I can do it. She’s impossible to control. There’s no earthly way I can get her downstairs.” Winnie gave her a nervy smile. “Certainly you can. You’re doing marvelously. Now, once she’s finished in the servants’ hall, you must trail her. Stay on her all night—indoors, outdoors, everywhere. Mrs. Bone’s men won’t go near her rooms until the last possible moment, for safety’s sake. The second we give you the word, bring her to us—wherever you are, no matter what’s happening. Make her come.” Alice had been over and over this part of the plan. “I’ll try.” “Alice, what’s up? You look terribly pale.” Alice shook her head. “Nothing.” “I told you: Mrs. King’s awfully pleased. She trusts you implicitly.” “Who does? Mrs. King, or Madam?” Winnie frowned. “Mrs. King, naturally.” Winnie paused. Then said, with care, “How are things, with Miss de Vries?” Alice felt a wave of unease. “Fine. I mean, splendid.” Was that right? “I hardly know. She’s up at five. She spends her morning on her letters and the papers. Reads from two till teatime. Then it’s dinner, bed. Not much to tell you, really.” Alice laughed, a hollow sound. Winnie studied her, silent. “She’s a very captivating person,” she said. Alice looked away. “If you say so.” “I do say so. She can be terribly charming. Perceptive. Good sense of humor. You’re new here, so you’re easily susceptible to it.” “Oh, naturally, I’m everybody’s chump.” Alice’s own anger caught her off guard. She swallowed it. “I don’t mean to be rude,” she added. “Perhaps it’s...the strain.” “Then I suggest you take a deep breath,” Winnie said seriously, looking down at her


slipped through the curtain, feeling enormously self-conscious. The nurse looked up from her station as Louise hobbled past. “Dr. Daresh is on her way for the postsurgical conference,” she said. Louise smiled but didn’t stop hobbling. If she stopped she didn’t think she’d be able to start again. “Bathroom,” she said. “Be fast,” the nurse said, then looked back down at her screen. Louise hobbled out of the recovery unit and limped across the waiting room, passed the bathroom, and headed for the elevator, feeling like she was making a prison break. As she waited for the elevator, she wondered if people thought she was a battered wife or a car crash victim. By the time she got to the lobby she didn’t care what anyone thought. By the time she got into her cold little Kia she just hurt. Her skin ached. Every bruise felt connected to another bruise. She didn’t remember navigating traffic to get onto the Crosstown, or going over the bridge, or turning onto McCants, but the next thing she remembered she was pulling up outside the house. The paramedics had left the garage door open. She got out and walked directly into its maw and snapped on the light. She didn’t look at the enormous bloodstains on the floor. She slapped the door-close button and the door ground shut, hitting the driveway with a bang, making everything inside turn dim. She got the grill tongs and a white plastic bottle of lighter fluid sitting next to them and went out back. She dragged the rusty green grill they’d maybe used once in her life away from the wall of the house, opened it up, and used the tongs to scatter the old ashes, then built up a mound of sticks she found in the yard. The more she moved, the more it worked the stiffness out of her joints. She sprayed the sticks down with lighter fluid until they glistened. On the shelf next to where the lighter fluid had been she found a long fire starter. Then she heaved the garbage bag off the trash can and threw its lid open. Pupkin sprawled on his back, smiling up at her, gory and merry, cutting his eyes to one side, mischievous and sly. Mark’s blood stained one half of his white plastic face. Pupkin fun! she heard him sing inside her head. She picked him up with the tongs. Wheeeee! Pupkin said. She didn’t look at him as she marched him into the backyard and over to the grill. As they got closer she thought she felt the tongs twitch. She shot a quick look down, and Pupkin was squirming as she walked. He squirmed faster. He put one nubby arm over the end of the tongs and looked up at her. No, Pupkin said, his voice thick with panic. Not Pupkin. Pupkin love you! She raised the tongs and dropped him on the mound of sticks. where nancy nancy help, help pupkin please please pupkin love— She clicked the fire starter and touched it to the


Hannah Whitten - The Foxglove King-Orbit (2023).txt

“You’re holding it too stiffly, so when you swing, you’re hitting the ball with the side of the mallet instead of the front.” “So I should bend it?” In the past hour, Lore had discovered that while she held no real love for croquet, she especially didn’t hold any love for losing. She stuck out her elbow, taking it from straight to nearly a right angle. “Not that much.” Alie pushed her arm in slightly. “There. Now give it a go.” Lore did. The ball missed the nearest arch, but curved enough to inch through another. “Finally!” She straightened, beaming, and resisted pumping the mallet over her head in victory. Bastian, leaning on his own mallet at the edge of the playing field, gave her a gleaming grin. “Wrong wicket, dearest.” Well, shit. “That makes the score ten for us and four for you.” When Cecelia had first started keeping score, she’d sounded excited that she, Bastian, and Olivier were winning so handily. Now she almost sounded embarrassed. Olivier, however, smothered a laugh in his palm. Cecelia smacked her brother’s shoulder. She really wasn’t that bad, when she wasn’t sipping belladonna tea. Next to Lore, Gabe sighed and hefted his own mallet. It seemed he hated losing just as much as Lore did. Alie watched him line up his shot, her lip between her teeth. Lore picked up her mallet and came to stand next to her. “Sorry I’m making you lose.” “Oh, don’t be silly.” Alie waved a hand. “Last week, I beat Olivier in all three rounds we played on singles, so now he’s just trying to save face and show off for Bastian.” Her words were light, but her eyes still tracked Gabe. Lore couldn’t quite read the other woman’s expression. It was too complicated to be longing, too soft to really be regret. Gabe, for his part, had hardly spoken to his former betrothed beyond what was courteous. Lore had seen Alie try more than once to strike up a conversation, and while Gabe wasn’t rude, he didn’t do much more than nod. When Alie was near him, he itched at his eye patch, as if her presence reminded him it was there. “Well,” Lore said, “maybe you and I and Gabe can have a few practice rounds before next time.” A sunny smile broke over the other woman’s face. “That sounds lovely. And it reminds me: I sent you that tea invitation for later this week, but I wanted you to know it was a standing invite—my friends and I meet every Sixth Day, and we’d love to have you join us whenever you’re able.” Unfamiliar warmth suffused Lore’s chest. This offer of friendship was probably more about Gabe than it was about her—the way Alie watched him made it clear she wanted to know the man her former betrothed had become—but she’d take it. She hadn’t had friends in a while. And being friends with Alie might help her find more information about who in the court could be working with Kirythea. “Thank you,” Lore said.


He helped Ella stand up. “We’re going to take you to the hospital to get you checked out.” “I don’t want to.” “We need to be sure you’re okay. Your mom and dad and sister will go with you.” Maud didn’t even know where Louise had gone, then saw her, hovering next to Peter. The officer headed toward his squad car. “You folks take Ella on to the ER in Rhinebeck. I’ll radio ahead. My colleague will meet you.” “I don’t want to,” Ella said again from the grass. Gently, Peter picked her up, as if she were a baby. “How many times did you go over there?” Maud asked Ella as Peter settled her in the car. “Shut up,” Ella told her. Maud drove, since she knew the route, Louise’s suncatcher swinging on the rearview mirror. Peter sat in the backseat with Ella. Louise was up front, her hands on the dash as if preparing for an accident. Panic kept seizing Maud, like the aftershocks of the earthquakes she’d experienced as a girl, when she’d crouch under her school desk until the shaking stopped. Why had Ella screamed at Gabriel like that? Why had she been going to his cottage? Why hadn’t he said anything about it? “Did something happen with Gabriel?” she asked Ella again, craning her neck to look into the backseat, where Ella was sheltered under Peter’s arm. “No,” Ella choked through her sobs. “Stop asking.” “Watch the road,” Peter said as the car lurched close to the shoulder. Next to her, Louise gasped. “Sweetheart, did he ever touch you?” Maud asked again. “Leave me the fuck alone,” Ella said. 9 At the hospital in Rhinebeck, three women clipped through the swinging doors—a nurse, a police officer, and another woman in clogs and jeans with reading glasses on her head, who introduced herself as a social worker. Peter had coaxed Ella out of the backseat, and now she hung on his arm. She’d been whimpering since they’d left the parking lot. Sprawled in a waiting-room chair, a man held a bloody dish towel to his head. A coughing toddler bucked in a stroller, pushing away his mother as she tried to soothe him. “You must be Mom,” the social worker said to Maud. She squatted next to Louise. “And you must be Louise. Your sister had a rough night. The doctor’s going to check her all out. Do you like cartoons? Do you want to watch some with me?” “I want to stay with my mom,” Louise said. Maud put her hand on her head, then took it away so Louise wouldn’t feel the shaking. “It’s all right, honey. I’ll come check on you soon.” “Why is Ella making that noise?” “She’s just upset. Go on.” Maud gave her a quick, hopefully reassuring hug. “I’ll find you.” “We’ll be right down there at the nurses’ station,” the social worker said. The police officer had hung back by the doors. The nurse asked Ella if she felt she could walk to the examining room. “I can get you a


those so called judgments of God which at times are said to overtake some men. This latter circumstance, with its own particular accompaniments, forming what may be called the secret part of the tragedy about to be narrated, never reached the ears of Captain Ahab or his mates. For that secret part of the story was unknown to the captain of the Town-Ho himself. It was the private property of three confederate white seamen of that ship, one of whom, it seems, communicated it to Tashtego with Romish injunctions of secresy, but the following night Tashtego rambled in his sleep, and revealed so much of it in that way, that when he was wakened he could not well withhold the rest. Nevertheless, so potent an influence did this thing have on those seamen in the Pequod who came to the full knowledge of it, and by such a strange delicacy, to call it so, were they governed in this matter, that they kept the secret among themselves so that it never transpired abaft the Pequod's main-mast. Interweaving in its proper place this darker thread with the story as publicly narrated on the ship, the whole of this strange affair I now proceed to put on lasting record. For my humor's sake, I shall preserve the style in which I once narrated it at Lima, to a lounging circle of my Spanish friends, one saint's eve, smoking upon the thick-gilt tiled piazza of the Golden Inn. Of those fine cavaliers, the young Dons, Pedro and Sebastian, were on the closer terms with me; and hence the interluding questions they occasionally put, and which are duly answered at the time. Some two years prior to my first learning the events which I am about rehearsing to you, gentlemen, the Town-Ho, Sperm .. <p 242 > Whaler of Nantucket, was cruising in your Pacific here, not very many days' sail westward from the eaves of this good Golden Inn. She was somewhere to the northward of the Line. One morning upon handling the pumps, according to daily usage, it was observed that she made more water in her hold than common. They supposed a sword-fish had stabbed her, gentlemen. But the captain, having some unusual reason for believing that rare good luck awaited him in those latitudes; and therefore being very averse to quit them, and the leak not being then considered at all dangerous, though, indeed, they could not find it after searching the hold as low down as was possible in rather heavy weather, the ship still continued her cruisings, the mariners working at the pumps at wide and easy intervals; but no good luck came; more days went by, and not only was the leak yet undiscovered, but it sensibly increased. So much so, that now taking some alarm, the captain, making all sail, stood away for the nearest harbor among the islands, there to have his hull hove out and repaired. Though no small passage was before her, yet, if the commonest chance favored, he did not at all fear that


head. “No, I don’t think it is.” * * * After almost two hours, we leave the coffee shop and stop outside my station. Alex asks, “Is it all right if I kiss you?” It’s a soft kiss that makes my stomach pleasantly churn. We say goodbye and I smile all the way to the supermarket. Then I remember that I don’t actually have a barbecue to go to and head back to the flat. Chapter Thirty Mum LONDON Maddie how is your fathers eulogy coming? I sigh and flop back onto my bed. I’ve been avoiding having to write this tribute, but I’m running out of time. I love my dad and spent most of my time with him, so I expected the words to pour out of me, to effortlessly flow, but my notebook is still blank. This is an impossible thing to put into words. To some, it will look like we didn’t have much of a relationship, even at the end. What is a relationship if there’s hardly any conversation; if I don’t know what he’s thinking and he doesn’t understand what I’m saying? The thought that Dawoud might find writing this easier than I do stings a little. Google: How do you write a eulogy for your dad? How to Write Your Dad’s Eulogy It’s never easy at the beginning, but you want to start off by brainstorming. Put your dad’s name in the middle of the page and around it, write down treasured memories and anecdotes. You’ll find words start to flow after that. Essentially, you want to tell the audience about him. Was he funny? Did he have any dad jokes? What were his hobbies? I shake my head. “No, this isn’t my dad,” I tell my phone. “Anecdotes, jokes, hobbies? Dad was different. He was complicated.” I shake my head again. “You wouldn’t understand.” A Father’s Eulogy from a Daughter At the end of the day, a eulogy is all about memories. Daughters tend to be more “Daddy’s girl” than “Mummy’s girl” so you just have to talk about him: the times you shared together and the things he did to make you smile. Why are you a “Daddy’s girl”? The words “Daddy’s girl” make me cringe. What did he do to make me smile? Whenever my dad came home with a chocolate bar for me, I No, a singular chocolate bar isn’t impressive if other dads are buying their daughters cars. But the chocolate bars meant a lot to me. Other people just won’t get why. My dad was the light of my life Then why did you leave? My dad grew up as one of four siblings And now there’re only two left. My dad enjoyed watching TV and Before my father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, he liked to He spent most of his time He used to be a librarian I rub the bridge of my nose. I’ll try again tomorrow. Chapter Thirty-one I’m returning to the office today after two weeks away. Already I’m looking forward to getting home this


I landed on my side. Huff, who hadn’t totally lost his balance, landed with his hands on either side of me. I was laughing as I rolled on my back. Huff wasn’t laughing. He was studying me. He popped up and offered me his hand, pulling me up. I brushed myself off and stepped closer to him, wiping an invisible speck of sand from his face. “I didn’t hit a home run,” I said sadly. “And I scraped my hand.” He took the hand that was on his face and turned it over to kiss my palm, which felt like both the sweetest and the most illicit thing anyone had ever done. “Is that better?” I grinned, trying to think of something clever to say, but found myself lost in his eyes, mesmerized by what I knew was about to happen. I rose onto my tiptoes and wrapped my arms around Huff’s neck as his wrapped his around my back. And maybe it should have felt weird because this was Lanier’s big brother, but as our lips met, I felt an electric jolt through my entire body that I’d never felt before. I was breathless as he pulled me toward him and kept kissing me. I don’t know how long we kissed. Seconds? Minutes? But I knew when I pulled away that I was forever changed, that this, this thing right here, was what ruined my mother. Because I couldn’t see a way out. I had no idea how I would possibly walk away. “Damn,” he said under his breath. And I thought it must have hit him too, how complicated this all was. But then he said, “Where did you learn to kiss like that?” I didn’t say anything, just smiled, although I could return the compliment. I had kissed my fair share of boys, and although Huff was a great kisser, there was more to it. We had a connection that, until this moment, we’d both been able to deny. There was no denying it now. “You know we could do that a lot at prom.” He laughed. “That’s a good point.” “So will you go with me?” He leaned down and kissed me again. “Daphne Miller, I’ll go anywhere you want.” It’s a promise Huff is still keeping today, twelve years later, as Great-Aunt Gracie’s house isn’t a convenient place for him to meet me. When I hear the tires of his truck crackling over the gravel, I open the screen door and stand on the small stoop, waiting like I’m not nervous. “Well, hi,” I say as he gets out of the truck and grins at me, putting his hands over his heart. He walks to me, eyes glued to mine. And with one hand around my neck and the other around my waist, he pulls me in and kisses me long and slow. This is the kind of heat that I have dreamed of—that, I realize, I have missed. We have all day. We have nowhere to be. Before I can even realize it, he is pulling


foreknowledge which had sickened his heart and made his legs sag suddenly as he raced round the park, the same intuition which had made him glance with mistrust at his trainer's flabby stubble-covered face as it bent heavily over his long stained fingers, dissipated any vision of the future. In a vague way he understood that his father was in trouble and that this was the reason why he himself had not been sent back to Clongowes. For some time he had felt the slight change in his house; and those changes in what he had deemed unchangeable were so many slight shocks to his boyish conception of the world. The ambition which he felt astir at times in the darkness of his soul sought no outlet. A dusk like that of the outer world obscured his mind as he heard the mare's hoofs clattering along the tramtrack on the Rock Road and the great can swaying and rattling behind him. He returned to Mercedes and, as he brooded upon her image, a strange unrest crept into his blood. Sometimes a fever gathered within him and led him to rove alone in the evening along the quiet avenue. The peace of the gardens and the kindly lights in the windows poured a tender influence into his restless heart. The noise of children at play annoyed him and their silly voices made him feel, even more keenly than he had felt at Clongowes, that he was different from others. He did not want to play. He wanted to meet in the real world the unsubstantial image which his soul so constantly beheld. He did not know where to seek it or how, but a premonition which led him on told him that this image would, without any overt act of his, encounter him. They would meet quietly as if they had known each other and had made their tryst, perhaps at one of the gates or in some more secret place. They would be alone, surrounded by darkness and silence: and in that moment of supreme tenderness he would be transfigured. He would fade into something impalpable under her eyes and then in a moment he would be transfigured. Weakness and timidity and inexperience would fall from him in that magic moment. * * * * * Two great yellow caravans had halted one morning before the door and men had come tramping into the house to dismantle it. The furniture had been hustled out through the front garden which was strewn with wisps of straw and rope ends and into the huge vans at the gate. When all had been safely stowed the vans had set off noisily down the avenue: and from the window of the railway carriage, in which he had sat with his red-eyed mother, Stephen had seen them lumbering along the Merrion Road. The parlour fire would not draw that evening and Mr Dedalus rested the poker against the bars of the grate to attract the flame. Uncle Charles dozed in a corner of the half furnished uncarpeted


like to jump. They are for a moment oblivious of Calaphas. No one’s life is a smooth ride from the womb to the grave. The poor and the rich, the wise and the foolish, the smart and the dumb, the beautiful and the ugly all suffer on occasion as they journey through the world. Physical pain, mental anguish, worry and failure, loneliness and sorrow are visited on everyone, even if not in equal distribution. Calaphas has arrived at the conclusion that we endure the pain of living by taking refuge in dreams. We dream of striking it rich, of falling in love with—and being loved by—an ideal mate, of being acclaimed for what talent we might possess, of jumping the bones of an actress with epic cleavage. In Calaphas’s opinion, these dreams are drugs as surely as are marijuana and cocaine and heroin, and all but one of them can be the death of you if you don’t indulge it in moderation. The only such dream certain to bring you genuine pleasure and spare you the suffering that people can cause you is the dream of exercising absolute power over others, but only if you act on the dream. As Santana and Harris belatedly look away from the cleavage on which the camera lingers, glasses of Macallan Scotch in their right hands, Calaphas acts on his dream. He puts one metal-jacketed round point-blank in Santana’s face, another in Harris’s throat, and he steps around the corner of the island and looks down where they have fallen in sprays of blood and brains and spilled Scotch. Rudy is dead, the architecture of his face remodeled beyond anything Picasso might have imagined. A rasping noise escapes Harris along with blood that spurts between the fingers of the hand that he has clamped to his throat. Calaphas says, “The Hermès jacket is high fashion, but being fashionable is a particularly shallow dream,” and drills him with another round. A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC Aleem doesn’t do bad weather. Snow is cocaine, which he sells, but the real stuff has no appeal for him. Ski gear makes every dude who wears it look like he belongs in an advertisement for stupid pills. To learn the slopes, you’ve got to fall down and make a fool of yourself a few hundred times, and Aleem has too much self-respect for that. The only men who slop around in the rain are those who have no choice, because either they’re job slaves who have to work when it’s wet or they’re under some woman’s thumb, running errands that she won’t do unless the sun is shining and birds are singing, or they’re mental cases who sooner or later are going to drown like turkeys do, just standing in the rain with their mouths open. To Aleem’s way of thinking, when shit is falling out of the sky, the only right places to be are a pool hall, a backroom poker game, a casino with cocktail waitresses who have cleavage worth looking at when the cards aren’t, or in bed with


in person (most of them), who was an asshole (not many, but definitely a few), who was shockingly vacuous (the lead from a popular police procedural stood out), and who you wished would stay on the show forever because they were so great in the sketches and also just so fun to hang out with in the middle of the night. Nigel glanced to his left, where a writer was sitting at his feet, and said, “Benji, why don’t you kick things off?” Benji pitched a sketch about the former FBI director, James Comey, writing the memoir he’d just published, dictating Dear Diary–style girlish reminiscences. Then a cast member named Oliver said he was working on an idea with Rohit, another writer (it wouldn’t become clear until the read-through of the sketches on Wednesday if this was true or an excuse on Oliver’s part). Then a writer named Lianna pitched a sketch where Noah Brewster would play the token hot straight boy in a high school chorus, then a writer named Tony pitched a sketch where Noah Brewster would play a preppy white guy running for office and guest-preaching in a Black church. Henrietta, who was one of the two cast members I worked with the most, said she and Viv, who was the other cast member I worked with the most, wanted to do a sketch about Internet searches made by dogs. I went sixth. “I think of this one as The Danny Horst Rule,” I said. “Because it’s inspired by my very own officemate, whose big news I trust we’re all aware of.” Everyone clapped or hooted. Over the weekend, after seven weeks of dating, Danny and Annabel Lily had gotten engaged, as revealed in a post on Annabel’s Instagram account showing a close-up of a ring on her finger, her hand resting atop Danny’s. Celebrity gossip websites immediately reported that the diamond was an emerald-cut halo with a pavé setting, and estimated that the ring had cost $110,000. Although I myself had been married briefly in my twenties, I had no idea what emerald cut, halo, or pavé setting meant—my ex-husband and I had both worn plain gold bands. As the cheering died down, Danny, who was sitting on the floor two people to my left, said, “Thanks, everyone. And, yeah, pretty fucking psyched that I get to be Mr. Annabel Lily.” There was another round of cheers, and Danny added, “If you’re wondering, Sally did warn me that she’d be exploiting me to advance her career.” “I’m trying to convince Danny to write it with me,” I said. “But we’ll put a pin in that for now. Anyway, I want to write about the phenomenon where—sorry, Danny, I really do love you—but where men at TNO date above their station, but women never do.” There was widespread laughter, though laughter at the pitch meeting could mean you’d revealed your punchlines too early. For this reason, some people pitched only decoys, though I took the risk of sharing my real ideas in order to lay claim to them in


that their manners should not be bad; the more glaring and disgusting any loudness, or coarseness, or awkwardness becomes. What is passable in youth is detestable in later age. Mr. Martin is now awkward and abrupt; what will he be at Mr. Weston's time of life?" "There is no saying, indeed," replied Harriet rather solemnly. "But there may be pretty good guessing. He will be a completely gross, vulgar farmer, totally inattentive to appearances, and thinking of nothing but profit and loss." "Will he, indeed? That will be very bad." "How much his business engrosses him already is very plain from the circumstance of his forgetting to inquire for the book you recommended. He was a great deal too full of the market to think of any thing else--which is just as it should be, for a thriving man. What has he to do with books? And I have no doubt that he will thrive, and be a very rich man in time--and his being illiterate and coarse need not disturb us." "I wonder he did not remember the book"--was all Harriet's answer, and spoken with a degree of grave displeasure which Emma thought might be safely left to itself. She, therefore, said no more for some time. Her next beginning was, "In one respect, perhaps, Mr. Elton's manners are superior to Mr. Knightley's or Mr. Weston's. They have more gentleness. They might be more safely held up as a pattern. There is an openness, a quickness, almost a bluntness in Mr. Weston, which every body likes in him, because there is so much good-humour with it--but that would not do to be copied. Neither would Mr. Knightley's downright, decided, commanding sort of manner, though it suits him very well; his figure, and look, and situation in life seem to allow it; but if any young man were to set about copying him, he would not be sufferable. On the contrary, I think a young man might be very safely recommended to take Mr. Elton as a model. Mr. Elton is good-humoured, cheerful, obliging, and gentle. He seems to me to be grown particularly gentle of late. I do not know whether he has any design of ingratiating himself with either of us, Harriet, by additional softness, but it strikes me that his manners are softer than they used to be. If he means any thing, it must be to please you. Did not I tell you what he said of you the other day?" She then repeated some warm personal praise which she had drawn from Mr. Elton, and now did full justice to; and Harriet blushed and smiled, and said she had always thought Mr. Elton very agreeable. Mr. Elton was the very person fixed on by Emma for driving the young farmer out of Harriet's head. She thought it would be an excellent match; and only too palpably desirable, natural, and probable, for her to have much merit in planning it. She feared it was what every body else must think of and predict. It was not likely, however,


Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.txt

glad that the exams weren't far away. All the studying he had to do kept his mind off his misery. He, Ron, and Hermione kept to themselves, working late into the night, trying to remember the ingredients in complicated potions, learn charms and spells by heart, memorize the dates of magical discoveries and goblin rebellions... Then, about a week before the exams were due to start, Harry's new resolution not to interfere in anything that didn't concern him was put to an unexpected test. Walking back from the library on his own one afternoon, he heard somebody whimpering from a classroom up ahead. As he drew closer, he heard Quirrell's voice. "No -- no -- not again, please -- " It sounded as though someone was threatening him. Harry moved closer. "All right -- all right -- " he heard Quirrell sob. Next second, Quirrell came hurrying out of the classroom straightening his turban. He was pale and looked as though he was about to cry. He strode out of sight; Harry didn't think Quirrell had even noticed him. He waited until Quirrell's footsteps had disappeared, then peered into the classroom. It was empty, but a door stood ajar at the other end. Harry was halfway toward it before he remembered what he'd promised himself about not meddling. All the same, he'd have gambled twelve Sorcerer's Stones that Snape had just left the room, and from what Harry had just heard, Snape would be walking with a new spring in his step -- Quirrell seemed to have given in at last. Harry went back to the library, where Hermione was testing Ron on Astronomy. Harry told them what he'd heard. "Snape's done it, then!" said Ron. "If Quirrell's told him how to break his Anti-Dark Force spell -- " "There's still Fluffy, though," said Hermione. "Maybe Snape's found out how to get past him without asking Hagrid," said Ron, looking up at the thousands of books surrounding them. "I bet there's a book somewhere in here telling you how to get past a giant three-headed dog. So what do we do, Harry?" The light of adventure was kindling again in Ron's eyes, but Hermione answered before Harry could. "Go to Dumbledore. That's what we should have done ages ago. If we try anything ourselves we'll be thrown out for sure." "But we've got no proof!" said Harry. "Quirrell's too scared to back us up. Snape's only got to say he doesn't know how the troll got in at Halloween and that he was nowhere near the third floor -- who do you think they'll believe, him or us? It's not exactly a secret we hate him, Dumbledore'll think we made it up to get him sacked. Filch wouldn't help us if his life depended on it, he's too friendly with Snape, and the more students get thrown out, the better, he'll think. And don't forget, we're not supposed to know about the Stone or Fluffy. That'll take a lot of explaining." Hermione looked convinced, but Ron didn't. "If we just do a


at that black line with disbelief, getting to his feet. That wasn't the police, he thought. He looked down the boulevard. It was clear now. A carful of children, all ages, God knew, from twelve to sixteen, out 124 FAHRENHEIT 451 whistling, yelling, hurrahing, had seen a man, a very extraordinary sight, a man strolling, a rarity, and simply said, "Let's get him," not knowing he was the fugitive Mr. Montag, simply a,number of children out for a long night of roaring five or six hundred miles in a few moonlit hours, their faces icy with wind, and coming home or not coming at dawn, alive or not alive, that made the adventure. They would have killed me, thought Montag, swaying, the air still torn and stirring about him in dust, touching his bruised cheek. For no reason at all in the world they would have killed me. He walked toward the far kerb telling each foot to go and keep going. Somehow he had picked up the spilled books; he didn't remember bending or touching them. He kept moving them from hand to hand as if they were a poker hand he could not figure. I wonder if they were the ones who killed Clarisse? He stopped and his mind said it again, very loud. I wonder if they were the ones who killed Clarisse! He wanted to run after them yelling. His eyes watered. The thing that had saved him was falling flat. The driver of that car, seeing Montag down, instinctively considered the probability that running over a body at that speed might turn the car upside down and spill them out. If Montag had remained an upright target. . . ? Montag gasped. Far down the boulevard, four blocks away, the beetle had slowed, spun about on two wheels, and was now racing back, slanting over on the wrong side of the street, picking up speed. But Montag was gone, hidden in the safety of the dark alley for which he had set out on a long journey, an hour or was it a minute, ago? He stood shivering in the night, looking back out as the beetle ran by and skidded back to the centre of the avenue, whirling laughter in the air all about it, gone. Further on, as Montag moved in darkness, he could see the helicopters falling, falling, like the first flakes of snow in the long winter. to come.... The house was silent. Montag approached from the rear, creeping through a thick night-moistened scent of daffodils and roses and wet grass. He touched the screen door in back, found it open, slipped in, moved across the porch, listening. Mrs. Black, are you asleep in there? he thought. This isn't good, but your husband did it to others and never asked and never wondered and never worried. And now since you're a fireman's wife, it's your house and your turn, for all the houses your husband burned and the people he hurt without thinking. . The house did not reply. He hid the books


epic live performances is a weather event involving precipitation,” I said, and he grinned again. “And it doesn’t even have to be natural,” he said. “It can be man-made. Have you really never appeared onstage here?” “Yes,” I said. “I really never have. I prefer lurking in the shadows like a goblin.” He made a concerned expression, and I said, “I don’t mean goblin in a bad way. It’s a point of pride.” His expression shifted to something warmer as he said, “Goblin definitely isn’t the word I’d have picked for you.” Surely, if I were a person adept at banter in real life, I’d have batted my eyelashes and said, “What word would you pick?” But I was adept at banter only on the page, and I said, “Anyway, about the panther, if you’re into the idea, great, and if you’re not, just say so to Elliot.” “Where’s the fun in that?” And then Autumn materialized at his elbow and said, “Noah, it’s time for your tux fitting.” Looking at me, Noah said, “Aren’t I fancy? See you at the Blabbermouth rehearsal.” Before I could reply, he’d been whisked away. I pulled out my phone and texted Viv, Where’d u go She responded with a photo of herself sitting in the armchair in her dressing room, making a festive expression and holding aloft a can of Diet Coke the way a person might hold up a champagne flute. Within a minute, I was knocking on her dressing room door. “Bad news,” I said as I entered. “I realized Noah Brewster is hot.” She laughed. “Welcome to 2001.” “Why didn’t anyone tell me?” “That an aging white boy heartthrob walks among us? Sally, there are certain insights a woman has to have on her own.” “Do you think he’s a cocky jerk?” “Probably.” “But based on working with him so far?” “At the dinner on Monday, he was pretty down-to-earth. He told a story about spraining his ankle while doing parkour with his agent.” I wanted to convey that it seemed as if there was some sort of attraction between Noah and me, but it felt embarrassing because Viv occupied a different plane than I did and there were options available to her that were unavailable to me. And didn’t this discrepancy mean that if I described what it had been like when Noah was in my office, or when I’d watched him sing, or just now after the rehearsal where Viv had been present, that I’d need to make a joke of it? And was I really ready to make a joke of it, if only to purge myself of my agitation, or would some small part of me be hoping that Viv would confirm that an attraction between Noah and me was possible? Not that we were about to violate the Danny Horst Rule and start dating but that there could be a moment of fleeting flirtation. Except that if there could, wouldn’t Viv have picked up on it at the rehearsal? Aloud, I said, “Did you respond to Dr.


Emily Wildes Encyclopaedia of Faeries.txt

“Is it a faerie forest?” “Oh—I don’t know,” he said. “It is leaf and bole and the scent of pine. That’s all I care about.” Indeed, I did catch the faintest aroma of needles, now that I was thinking about it. Summer needles on a forest floor, warmly fragrant as they snapped underfoot. I settled beside the fire, even though I was exhausted; in truth, I felt a little giddy. The snowy ride through that wild country; the conversation with the faerie woman—in and of itself a greater triumph than most dryadologists could hope for in their entire career. The things I had learned in a single night would give me material for a year’s worth of papers. I downed the wine and sank back into my chair, my mind already dancing through the additions I would make in my encyclopaedia. He sat with me, chattering away about our triumphant return to Cambridge and ICODEF, and myriad other things, and not expecting anything substantial in reply, which is one of my favourite qualities about him. It sounds odd to admit that I find the company of such a boisterous person restful, but perhaps it is always restful to be around someone who does not expect anything from you beyond what is in your nature. After a while, though, I felt an unexpected guilt. “You don’t have to stay with me,” I said. “You can go down to the tavern and regale the villagers with the tale of our success.” “Why would I do that? I prefer your company, Em.” He said it as if it were obvious. I snorted again, assuming he was teasing me. “Over the company of a tavern filled with a rapt and grateful audience? I’m sure you do.” “Over anyone else’s company.” Again, he said it with some amusement, as if wondering what I was doing speculating about something so evident. “You are drunk,” I said. “Shall I prove it to you?” “No, you shan’t,” I said, alarmed, but he was already sweeping to the floor, bending his knee and taking my hand between his. “What in God’s name are you doing?” I said between my teeth. “And why are you doing it now?” “Shall I make an appointment?” he said, then laughed. “Yes, I believe you would like that. Well, name the time when it would be convenient for you to receive a declaration of love.” “Oh, get up,” I said, furious now. “What sort of jest is this, Wendell?” “You don’t believe me?” He smiled, all mischief, a look I’d seen from other Folk, enough to know not to trust him one inch. “Ask for my true name, and I’ll give it to you.” “Why on earth would you do that?” I demanded, yanking my hand back. “Oh, Em,” he said forlornly. “You are the cleverest dolt I have ever met.” I stared at him, my heart thundering. Of course, I am not a dolt in any sense; I had supposed he felt something for me and had only hoped he would keep it to himself.


Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt

upon the flighty temper of Turkey, and the fiery one of Nippers. I should have stated before that ground glass folding-doors divided my premises into two parts, one of which was occupied by my scriveners, the other by myself. According to my humor I threw open these doors, or closed them. I resolved to assign Bartleby a corner by the folding-doors, but on my side of them, so as to have this quiet man within easy call, in case any trifling thing was to be done. I placed his desk close up to a small side-window in that part of the room, a window which originally had afforded a lateral view of certain grimy back-yards and bricks, but which, owing to subsequent erections, commanded at present no view at all, though it gave some light. Within three feet of the panes was a wall, and the light came down from far above, between two lofty buildings, as from a very small opening in a dome. Still further to a satisfactory arrangement, I procured a high green folding screen, which might entirely isolate Bartleby from my sight, though not remove him from my voice. And thus, in a manner, privacy and society were conjoined. At first Bartleby did an extraordinary quantity of writing. As if long famishing for something to copy, he seemed to gorge himself on my documents. There was no pause for digestion. He ran a day and night line, copying by sun-light and by candle-light. I should have been quite delighted with his application, had he been cheerfully industrious. But he wrote on silently, palely, mechanically. It is, of course, an indispensable part of a scrivener’s business to verify the accuracy of his copy, word by word. Where there are two or more scriveners in an office, they assist each other in this examination, one reading from the copy, the other holding the original. It is a very dull, wearisome, and lethargic affair. I can readily imagine that to some sanguine temperaments it would be altogether intolerable. For example, I cannot credit that the mettlesome poet Byron would have contentedly sat down with Bartleby to examine a law document of, say five hundred pages, closely written in a crimpy hand. Now and then, in the haste of business, it had been my habit to assist in comparing some brief document myself, calling Turkey or Nippers for this purpose. One object I had in placing Bartleby so handy to me behind the screen, was to avail myself of his services on such trivial occasions. It was on the third day, I think, of his being with me, and before any necessity had arisen for having his own writing examined, that, being much hurried to complete a small affair I had in hand, I abruptly called to Bartleby. In my haste and natural expectancy of instant compliance, I sat with my head bent over the original on my desk, and my right hand sideways, and somewhat nervously extended with the copy, so that immediately upon emerging from his retreat, Bartleby might snatch


as if they were buying a goat or a cow in the market." "That is very bad," said Obierika's eldest brother. "But what is good in one place is bad in another place. In Umunso they do not bargain at all, not even with broomsticks. The suitor just goes on bringing bags of cowries until his in-laws tell him to stop. It is a bad custom because it always leads to a quarrel." "The world is large," said Okonkwo. "I have even heard that in some tribes a man's children belong to his wife and her family." "That cannot be," said Machi. "You might as well say that the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the children." "It is like the story of white men who, they say, are white like this piece of chalk," said Obierika. He held up a piece of chalk, which every man kept in his obi and with which his guests drew lines on the floor before they ate kola nuts. "And these white men, they say, have no toes." "And have you never seen them?" asked Machi. "Have you?" asked Obierika. "One of them passes here frequently," said Machi. "His name is Amadi." Those who knew Amadi laughed. He was a leper, and the polite name for leprosy was "the white skin." CHAPTER NINE For the first time in three nights, Okonkwo slept. He woke up once in the middle of the night and his mind went back to the past three days without making him feel uneasy. He began to wonder why he had felt uneasy at all. It was like a man wondering in broad daylight why a dream had appeared so terrible to him at night. He stretched himself and scratched his thigh where a mosquito had bitten him as he slept. Another one was wailing near his right ear. He slapped the ear and hoped he had killed it. Why do they always go for one's ears? When he was a child his mother had told him a story about it. But it was as silly as all women's stories. Mosquito, she had said, had asked Ear to marry him, whereupon Ear fell on the floor in uncontrollable laughter. "How much longer do you think you will live?" she asked. "You are already a skeleton." Mosquito went away humiliated, and any time he passed her way he told Ear that he was still alive. Okonkwo turned on his side and went back to sleep. He was roused in the morning by someone banging on his door. "Who is that?" he growled. He knew it must be Ekwefi. Of his three wives Ekwefi was the only one who would have the audacity to bang on his door. "Ezinma is dying," came her voice, and all the tragedy and sorrow of her life were packed in those words. Okonkwo sprang from his bed, pushed back the bolt on his door and ran into Ekwefi's hut. Ezinma lay shivering on a mat beside a huge fire that her mother had


much did he give you?” I asked. Some money made sense. We’d needed it, Jim had it. “Thirty thousand,” Dad said, and any assumption of goodwill I’d had withered up into itself. “And he took care of the lawyers and everything.” After the hospital, I’d had a succession of lawyers who were with me whenever I talked to the police. Serving as my “advocates.” They made sure I didn’t have to answer too many questions, that no one upset me. Or pushed me on my story. And Jim Green had paid for them. “You think Jim’s the one that hurt you,” Dad said. “Not just me,” I said. If Jim attacked me, it was because of Jessi. “Can you prove where the money came from?” “I’ve got the papers someplace,” he said. “So no, then,” I said. He glared at me. “All that stuff ended up in a box. I know where it is, I just gotta get to it.” “It’s fine,” I said. “Don’t worry about it.” “When Jim gave me that money, I wondered if there was something he didn’t want me knowing. But we needed the cash,” Dad said. Guilt inflected his voice. “You thought Jim might’ve had something to do with it?” I asked. Dad shifted his weight uncomfortably. “I assumed it was Oscar,” he confessed. “You thought Oscar attacked me and you didn’t do anything about it?” I asked, not bothering to hide my disgust. “What was the point of saying anything? You were alive, and … well, that money could give you more of a future than I ever could.” Oscar. I’d had the same thought, of course, but that was because I knew about Jessi. “Why would Oscar go after me? He was a psycho, sure. But it seems extreme,” I said leadingly. “There was that thing with you and Cody,” Dad said. “You knew about that?” “I knew a bit,” Dad said. “Oscar was hassling you and Cody beat the shit out of him.” I huffed a breath. “He deserved worse.” “Worse would have killed him,” Dad replied matter-of-factly. “If Marsha hadn’t called Miller, I’m not sure Cody would have stopped before that boy was dead.” “It wasn’t— That wasn’t what happened,” I said. Except I didn’t know, did I? Cody told me to run. I thought the fight was over by then. “Cody was still on him when Miller got there,” Dad said. “Cody told us why he’d done it, but Miller talked me out of making a stink. Convinced me that Oscar got his comeuppance already. I told him I just wished I’d gotten to watch.” I’d thought Oscar was just avoiding me after that. I smirked a little. Yeah, he deserved it. “Why wasn’t Cody arrested?” I asked. “Big Jim pulled strings for him,” Dad said. “I think he could see Cody was starting to turn himself around. Had a chance to make something of himself—as long as he didn’t have a felony on his record. Anyway, Oscar going after you might’ve made some sense after that. If he blamed you.”


honest.” The look on his face—I can’t describe it in any other way except genuinely affected. “Thank you,” he says, voice solid and true. “For telling me. For trusting me with this.” “If someone’s going to be part of my life, I need them to know this about me. And I need them to accept it. Otherwise . . . either we won’t be close, I guess, or we won’t be in each other’s lives for very long.” Too late, I realize I’ve indicated some closeness between us that extends beyond this trip, beyond this book. But Finn doesn’t even flinch. “I’d like to be in your life for a while,” he says. “If you’ll let me.” He raises an arm, glancing at me, eyes asking a silent question. When I nod, he drapes it across my shoulders. Rubs my back. I drop my chin to his shoulder, letting myself exhale into him. It’s too nice, being held like this. I try not to think about whether that niceness has an expiration date, if we’ll still talk once he goes back to Hollywood and I go back to Seattle. If the extent of our friendship at that point will be me watching him on a TV screen, him no longer answering my texts because he’s surrounded by more interesting people. “Jesus, it’s almost three in the morning,” I say when I catch sight of the clock on the nightstand. “We should get some sleep.” He seems a bit jarred by the way I suddenly push away, but he doesn’t argue. “Just don’t touch me with your weird socked feet.” Of course, I can’t resist doing exactly this. “At least I’ll be warm.” chapter twenty SOMEWHERE IN SOUTH-CENTRAL OHIO I wake to the scent of maple syrup. “Hope you don’t mind that I made you a plate,” Finn says from across the room. “I was up at an ungodly hour, and the good stuff was going fast. Didn’t want you to miss out.” “Oh—thank you.” I drag a palm across my face, smoothing the last blurred edges of sleep. It’s the first time he’s seen me in the morning, and I have to fight the urge to rush to the bathroom to make myself look presentable, raking a hand through my hair and scrubbing at my teeth with an index finger. The aforementioned plate waits on the table in front of the fireplace, and plate is too tame a term. Epic brunch feast is more like it, piled high with pancakes and waffles, potato wedges, scrambled eggs, crispy peppered bacon, and at least five kinds of cheese. “I also wasn’t sure what you might want, so I just got a bit of everything.” “It’s perfect.” My growling stomach answers in kind. “They really don’t skimp on the ‘breakfast’ part of B and B, huh?” The storm hasn’t let up, and after breakfast, when we call a tow truck for the rental car, we’re told they probably can’t dig it out until tomorrow. I’ve always loved the snow and we don’t get nearly enough


and the possibility of not being here for my own kids. I imagine one of them in the hospital, struggling to breathe, confused, terrified, alone. And that is always where my mind spins to a stop. As the days go by and virtual work and learning continue, our children’s discontent hardens into bored resignation. I start polling others about what I should do, partly because it is so hard to trust my own sanity and judgment. My questions are always the same, but a few patient friends pick up every single time to listen to me run through the terrible choices. Everyone is quick to say that they wouldn’t blame me for going. But they also don’t think I should travel across the country, not right now. “If it were only you, and you didn’t have kids, and you were close enough to get there on a short, direct flight, I’d say go,” my friend Nicole tells me one day. “But you do have kids. A whole day of travel? All those cars and planes, all the people who aren’t wearing masks? We don’t know enough about how this thing spreads, we don’t have any good treatments that can knock it back, and now there’s this multisystem inflammatory syndrome some kids are getting.” I’m standing under the dogwood tree in my backyard, where I often take phone calls now—outside, so my kids won’t hear me cry. Every tree and plant in sight is blooming, bursting with new life, and it feels like a mockery. It’s raining, a light spring drizzle. I estimate that I have about three more minutes to talk on the phone here before I’ll need to make a run for it. “I can’t bear this,” I say. “Of course you can’t,” she says. “It’s unbearable. You know that episode of Star Trek where Counselor Troi is trying to become a commander?” Saturday-night Star Trek was appointment television for me and my dad, so I know very well that the Troi commander storyline is the B plot in the seventh-season Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Thine Own Self.” In it, Troi keeps trying and failing to pass a particular bridge officer’s test, which happens to be a test not of technical skill or problem-solving ability but of duty and grit. When she fails, as she does multiple times, it’s because she will not accept that which feels impossible to accept. She finally realizes that while she has been trying to save the ship without losing anyone—without sending a friend, a person she serves with and cares for, to die—giving that order is the only way to pass the test. As soon as she tells a holographic crewmate to sacrifice himself for the good of the ship, the simulated disaster ends and she is promoted. “Your kids, your husband, they are your ship now,” Nicole says. “They’re your priority. Even though it’s the hardest thing, and it’s so unfair, because your mother is dying and there’s a fucking pandemic and none of this should be happening. You do what you


as luck would have it, Mrs. Lynde was talking to Marilla at the lane fence. "Oh, Matthew," exclaimed Anne, "I've passed and I'm first-or one of the first! I'm not vain, but I'm thankful." "Well now, I always said it," said Matthew, gazing at the pass list delightedly. "I knew you could beat them all easy." "You've done pretty well, I must say, Anne," said Marilla, trying to hide her extreme pride in Anne from Mrs. Rachel's critical eye. But that good soul said heartily: "I just guess she has done well, and far be it from me to be backward in saying it. You're a credit to your friends, Anne, that's what, and we're all proud of you." That night Anne, who had wound up the delightful evening with a serious little talk with Mrs. Allan at the manse, knelt sweetly by her open window in a great sheen of moonshine and murmured a prayer of gratitude and aspiration that came straight from her heart. There was in it thankfulness for the past and reverent petition for the future; and when she slept on her white pillow her dreams were as fair and bright and beautiful as maidenhood might desire. 33. The Hotel Concert Put on your white organdy, by all means, Anne," advised Diana decidedly. They were together in the east gable chamber; outside it was only twilight-a lovely yellowish-green twilight with a clear-blue cloudless sky. A big round moon, slowly deepening from her pallid luster into burnished silver, hung over the Haunted Wood; the air was full of sweet summer sounds-sleepy birds twittering, freakish breezes, faraway voices and laughter. But in Anne's room the blind was drawn and the lamp lighted, for an important toilet was being made. The east gable was a very different place from what it had been on that night four years before, when Anne had felt its bareness penetrate to the marrow of her spirit with its inhospitable chill. Changes had crept in, Marilla conniving at them resignedly, until it was as sweet and dainty a nest as a young girl could desire. The velvet carpet with the pink roses and the pink silk curtains of Anne's early visions had certainly never materialized; but her dreams had kept pace with her growth, and it is not probable she lamented them. The floor was covered with a pretty matting, and the curtains that softened the high window and fluttered in the vagrant breezes were of pale-green art muslin. The walls, hung not with gold and silver brocade tapestry, but with a dainty apple-blossom paper, were adorned with a few good pictures given Anne by Mrs. Allan. Miss Stacy's photograph occupied the place of honor, and Anne made a sentimental point of keeping fresh flowers on the bracket under it. Tonight a spike of white lilies faintly perfumed the room like the dream of a fragrance. There was no "mahogany furniture," but there was a white-painted bookcase filled with books, a cushioned wicker rocker, a toilet table befrilled with white muslin, a quaint, gilt-framed mirror with


lost, as she was shrinking rapidly; so she set to work at once to eat some of the other bit. Her chin was pressed so closely against her foot, that there was hardly room to open her mouth; but she did it at last, and managed to swallow a morsel of the lefthand bit. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * `Come, my head's free at last!' said Alice in a tone of delight, which changed into alarm in another moment, when she found that her shoulders were nowhere to be found: all she could see, when she looked down, was an immense length of neck, which seemed to rise like a stalk out of a sea of green leaves that lay far below her. `What CAN all that green stuff be?' said Alice. `And where HAVE my shoulders got to? And oh, my poor hands, how is it I can't see you?' She was moving them about as she spoke, but no result seemed to follow, except a little shaking among the distant green leaves. As there seemed to be no chance of getting her hands up to her head, she tried to get her head down to them, and was delighted to find that her neck would bend about easily in any direction, like a serpent. She had just succeeded in curving it down into a graceful zigzag, and was going to dive in among the leaves, which she found to be nothing but the tops of the trees under which she had been wandering, when a sharp hiss made her draw back in a hurry: a large pigeon had flown into her face, and was beating her violently with its wings. `Serpent!' screamed the Pigeon. `I'm NOT a serpent!' said Alice indignantly. `Let me alone!' `Serpent, I say again!' repeated the Pigeon, but in a more subdued tone, and added with a kind of sob, `I've tried every way, and nothing seems to suit them!' `I haven't the least idea what you're talking about,' said Alice. `I've tried the roots of trees, and I've tried banks, and I've tried hedges,' the Pigeon went on, without attending to her; `but those serpents! There's no pleasing them!' Alice was more and more puzzled, but she thought there was no use in saying anything more till the Pigeon had finished. `As if it wasn't trouble enough hatching the eggs,' said the Pigeon; `but I must be on the look-out for serpents night and day! Why, I haven't had a wink of sleep these three weeks!' `I'm very sorry you've been annoyed,' said Alice, who was beginning to see its meaning. `And just as I'd taken the highest tree in the wood,' continued the Pigeon, raising its voice to a shriek, `and just as I was thinking I should be free of them at last, they must needs come wriggling down from the sky! Ugh, Serpent!' `But I'm NOT a serpent, I tell you!' said Alice. `I'm a--I'm a--' `Well!


country. The minister gave out the hymn, and read it through with a relish, in a peculiar style which was much admired in that part of the country. His voice began on a medium key and climbed steadily up till it reached a certain point, where it bore with strong emphasis upon the topmost word and then plunged down as if from a spring-board: --------------------------------------------------------- -60- [Image] Shall I be car-ri-ed toe the skies, on flow'ry beds of ease, Whilst others fight to win the prize, and sail thro' bloody seas? He was regarded as a wonderful reader. At church "sociables" he was always called upon to read poetry; and when he was through, the ladies would lift up their hands and let them fall helplessly in their laps, and "wall" their eyes, and shake their heads, as much as to say, "Words cannot express it; it is too beautiful, too beautiful for this mortal earth." After the hymn had been sung, the Rev. Mr. Sprague turned himself into a bulletin-board, and read off "notices" of meetings and societies and things till it seemed that the list would stretch out to the crack of doom -- a queer custom which is still kept up in America, even in cities, away here in this age of abundant newspapers. Often, the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it. And now the minister prayed. A good, generous prayer it was, and went into details: it pleaded for the church, and the little children of the church; for the other churches of the village; for the village itself; for the county; for the State; for the State officers; for the United States; for the churches of the United States; for Congress; for the President; for the officers of the Government; for poor sailors, tossed by stormy seas; for the oppressed millions --------------------------------------------------------- -61- groaning under the heel of European monarchies and Oriental despotisms; for such as have the light and the good tidings, and yet have not eyes to see nor ears to hear withal; for the heathen in the far islands of the sea; and closed with a supplication that the words he was about to speak might find grace and favor, and be as seed sown in fertile ground, yielding in time a grateful harvest of good. Amen. There was a rustling of dresses, and the standing congregation sat down. The boy whose history this book relates did not enjoy the prayer, he only endured it -- if he even did that much. He was restive all through it; he kept tally of the details of the prayer, unconsciously -- for he was not listening, but he knew the ground of old, and the clergyman's regular route over it -- and when a little trifle of new matter was interlarded, his ear detected it and his whole nature resented it; he considered additions unfair, and scoundrelly. In the midst of the prayer a fly had lit on the back of the pew in front


to see if he was following. Until the day Eileen, Madame Bowden, decided to succumb to ‘the ruination of the twentieth century’ and ordered a television. I was busy in the kitchen making her lunch (poached salmon and baby potatoes) and when I took her tray into the living room and saw a man walking through the front door, I dropped the tray and stood frozen to the spot. ‘Ah, sorry, love, I knocked but the door was open,’ he said, clearly mortified and struggling with the heavy package. I kept staring at him, trying to trust my eyes. It’s not him, I kept repeating silently; It’s not him. I recovered as quickly as I was able and began to clear up the mess. My hands were shaking so badly that he offered to help. I couldn’t even look him in the eye, I was so embarrassed. The following morning, Madame Bowden asked me to give a good dusting to her study, a small room on the first floor facing the street. It had gorgeous flowery wallpaper and a writing desk beside the window. The other walls were fully shelved and, just like a library, were filled with books. ‘It’s time for a good spring clean in here,’ she announced and directed me to take down each and every book and with a damp cloth, wipe the dust off every single one. ‘No, not too damp!’ she warned, then gave me a dry towel to remove any moisture afterwards. While the task seemed overwhelming at first, I soon developed a method to make things easier. I took one shelf at a time and brought all of the books to the floor, placing them on an old sheet. I put a cushion under my knees and carefully wiped each and every book. Some of them were very old and threatened to come apart in my hands. Others were in foreign languages I couldn’t understand. Madame Bowden must have been highly educated, I thought, envying her. Books and I never really got along. No, that wasn’t right. Books made me nervous. Always had done. For as long as I could remember, I’d had this kind of reaction to them. Almost like they were a threat to me. I preferred to read people. People were easier than books. My mother taught me how to read a person’s story without them ever having to utter a word. Like Madame Bowden: I knew she was afraid of getting senile and that was why she was so angry with the world. I knew that my mother was carrying some emotional pain that she didn’t have words for. And I knew that the English man outside my window was in love with a woman called Isabelle. For the longest time I assumed everyone could do this, but it was only when my friends became angry with me for finding out their secrets that I saw it was a gift belonging to me alone. Or a curse. The real curse was how I couldn’t read my husband after I fell


those places, or when they failed out. I didn’t know that when I got here. I thought it was full of the smartest kids in the world, and I was gonna flunk. I wasn’t a great student, but I passed my classes just fine.” Oliver looked confused, and I could tell I was rambling. I was busy thinking that if I no longer had a job either, we could get by on Jerome’s sales—but it occurred to me that those might dry up, too. “All to say,” I said, attempting to recover, “it was a very special school for perfectly average kids.” He said, “I can see how this school would draw you back. Like your friend who never left. It feels like a place you could settle into.” He looked terrified, and a little glassy, and I understood that he was falling in love. Presumably with Amber, but maybe with the place, too. He was picturing a life for himself at Granby, with her. I said, “I really believed in magic when I was here. Maybe that’s because of the age I was, but—I had a lot of magical thinking going on.” I was glad he didn’t press for details, because I couldn’t explain about the marks I made for Ace, the pay phone, the earnest séances, the way I took everything as a sign. Maybe I was falling into that thinking again, but the universe seemed to be pointing me in such an obvious direction: Bring me back to Granby, throw Britt and Alder in my path, take away Yahav, take away any stability Jerome had once provided. Give me Thalia’s yearbook quote and the dots in her planner and show me Beth Docherty’s flask. And what was left in front of me but one clear path? Oliver stared into the salsa as if it might hold answers for him. I’d seen him on that couch at the party. I’d seen his eyes as he talked to Amber over giant dining hall waffles. I said, “This isn’t the moment for caution.” He looked up at me, either startled that I’d seen into his soul or baffled. I stood, because I needed to go upstairs and email Lance and tell him that I really truly was done, that I released him, that he should look for a new cohost right away. I had a few in mind. I said, “You should tell her how you feel.” 56 When you’re eighteen, a month is a few years. Thalia’s death, Puja walking out into the night, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Tokyo subway attack, the O. J. Simpson trial, the Bosnian war, our classmates’ car crash—they were all the clutter of one busy spring and didn’t seem to occur in any particular psychological proximity. What I remember: Puja, having fallen out with Rachel and Beth, taking off into the night, then getting swept away from Granby. Tim Busse and Graham Waite driving back drunk from Quebec and crashing, Graham holding on for a day in the ICU without any real hope. (Two boys


Wuthering Heights in such an unlikely plight, and where she meant to go, as she refused remaining with us. "I ought and I wish to remain," answered she---"to cheer Edgar and take care of the baby, for two things, and because the Grange is my right home. But I tell you he wouldn't let me. Do you think he could bear to see me grow fat and merry, could bear to think that we were tranquil, and not resolve on poisoning our com- fort? Now, I have the satisfaction of being sure that he detests me to the point of its annoying him seriously to have me within earshot or eyesight. I notice, when I enter his presence, the muscles of his countenance are involuntarily distorted into an expression of hatred, partly arising from his knowledge of the good causes I have to feel that sentiment for him, and partly from original aversion. It is strong enough to make me feel pretty certain that he would not chase me over England supposing I contrived a clear escape, and therefore I must get quite away. I've recovered from my first de- sire to be killed by him; I'd rather he'd kill himself! He has extinguished my love effectually, and so I'm at my ease. I can recollect yet how I loved him, and can dimly imagine that I could still be loving him, if---no, no! Even if he had doted on me, the devilish nature would have revealed its existence somehow. Catherine had an awfully perverted taste to esteem him so dearly, knowing him so well. Monster! Would that he could be blotted out of creation and out of my memory!" "Hush, hush! He's a human being," I said. "Be more charitable. There are worse men than he is yet." "He's not a human being," she retorted, "and he has no claim on my charity. I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death, and flung it back to me. People feel with their hearts, Ellen; and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him, and I would not, though he groaned from this to his dy- ing day, and wept tears of blood for Catherine! No, in- deed, indeed, I wouldn't!" And here Isabella began to cry; but, immediately dashing the water from her lashes, she recommenced. "You asked, what has driven me to flight at last? I was compelled to attempt it, because I had succeeded in rousing his rage a pitch above his malignity. Pulling out the nerves with red- hot pincers requires more coolness than knocking on the head. He was worked up to forget the fiendish pru- dence he boasted of, and proceeded to murderous vio- lence. I experienced pleasure in being able to exasper- ate him; the sense of pleasure woke my instinct of self- preservation, so I fairly broke free; and if ever I come into his hands again, he is welcome to a signal revenge. "Yesterday, you know, Mr. Earnshaw should have been at the funeral.


here, O Mouse!' (Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen in her brother's Latin Grammar, `A mouse--of a mouse--to a mouse--a mouse--O mouse!' The Mouse looked at her rather inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes, but it said nothing. `Perhaps it doesn't understand English,' thought Alice; `I daresay it's a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror.' (For, with all her knowledge of history, Alice had no very clear notion how long ago anything had happened.) So she began again: `Ou est ma chatte?' which was the first sentence in her French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the water, and seemed to quiver all over with fright. `Oh, I beg your pardon!' cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the poor animal's feelings. `I quite forgot you didn't like cats.' `Not like cats!' cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate voice. `Would YOU like cats if you were me?' `Well, perhaps not,' said Alice in a soothing tone: `don't be angry about it. And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah: I think you'd take a fancy to cats if you could only see her. She is such a dear quiet thing,' Alice went on, half to herself, as she swam lazily about in the pool, `and she sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking her paws and washing her face--and she is such a nice soft thing to nurse--and she's such a capital one for catching mice--oh, I beg your pardon!' cried Alice again, for this time the Mouse was bristling all over, and she felt certain it must be really offended. `We won't talk about her any more if you'd rather not.' `We indeed!' cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the end of his tail. `As if I would talk on such a subject! Our family always HATED cats: nasty, low, vulgar things! Don't let me hear the name again!' `I won't indeed!' said Alice, in a great hurry to change the subject of conversation. `Are you--are you fond--of--of dogs?' The Mouse did not answer, so Alice went on eagerly: `There is such a nice little dog near our house I should like to show you! A little bright-eyed terrier, you know, with oh, such long curly brown hair! And it'll fetch things when you throw them, and it'll sit up and beg for its dinner, and all sorts of things--I can't remember half of them--and it belongs to a farmer, you know, and he says it's so useful, it's worth a hundred pounds! He says it kills all the rats and--oh dear!' cried Alice in a sorrowful tone, `I'm afraid I've offended it again!' For the Mouse was swimming away from her as hard as it could go, and making quite a commotion in the pool as it went. So she called softly after it, `Mouse dear! Do come back again,


they wanted a cellar nobody knew, but they wanted one and they dug one, and they spent the rest of their lives chasing generations of children out of it. Misses Tutti and Frutti (their names were Sarah and Frances), aside from their Yankee ways, were both deaf. Miss Tutti denied it and lived in a world of silence, but Miss Frutti, not about to miss anything, employed an ear trumpet so enormous that Jem declared it was a loudspeaker from one of those dog Victrolas. With these facts in mind and Halloween at hand, some wicked children had waited until the Misses Barber were thoroughly asleep, slipped into their livingroom (nobody but the Radleys locked up at night), stealthily made away with every stick of furniture therein, and hid it in the cellar. I deny having taken part in such a thing. "I heard 'em!" was the cry that awoke the Misses Barber's neighbors at dawn next morning. "Heard 'em drive a truck up to the door! Stomped around like horses. They're in New Orleans by now!" Miss Tutti was sure those traveling fur sellers who came through town two days ago had purloined their furniture. "Da-rk they were," she said. "Syrians." Mr. Heck Tate was summoned. He surveyed the area and said he thought it was a local job. Miss Frutti said she'd know a Maycomb voice anywhere, and there were no Maycomb voices in that parlor last night- rolling their r's all over her premises, they were. Nothing less than the bloodhounds must be used to locate their furniture, Miss Tutti insisted, so Mr. Tate was obliged to go ten miles out the road, round up the county hounds, and put them on the trail. Mr. Tate started them off at the Misses Barber's front steps, but all they did was run around to the back of the house and howl at the cellar door. When Mr. Tate set them in motion three times, he finally guessed the truth. By noontime that day, there was not a barefooted child to be seen in Maycomb and nobody took off his shoes until the hounds were returned. So the Maycomb ladies said things would be different this year. The high-school auditorium would be open, there would be a pageant for the grown-ups; apple-bobbing, taffy-pulling, pinning the tail on the donkey for the children. There would also be a prize of twenty-five cents for the best Halloween costume, created by the wearer. Jem and I both groaned. Not that we'd ever done anything, it was the principle of the thing. Jem considered himself too old for Halloween anyway; he said he wouldn't be caught anywhere near the high school at something like that. Oh well, I thought, Atticus would take me. I soon learned, however, that my services would be required on stage that evening. Mrs. Grace Merriweather had composed an original pageant entitled Maycomb County: Ad Astra Per Aspera, and I was to be a ham. She thought it would be adorable if some of the children were costumed to represent the


Nick’s head, an arm and a leg flung heavily across Nick’s body. Nick reaches out and gropes around on his nightstand for a pack of cigarettes. Andy must hear the click of the lighter because he lifts his hand and makes a grabbing motion. Nick puts the cigarette into his hand and Andy shifts over, sitting up against the headboard. Nick cranes his neck to look. Andy is still flushed, pink and rosy from what they did together. His hair is rumpled and his jawline and neck are red from rubbing against Nick’s stubble. He looks gently debauched. “You’re staring,” Andy says. “Mm-hmm.” Andy rolls his eyes. “Want me to stop?” Nick asks. “Knock yourself out,” Andy says, making a sort of help yourself gesture. When they first met, Nick thought Andy was at best generically handsome, like models in the Sears catalog or ads for soap. He thought Andy’s looks were bland, forgettable, boring WASPy straight-nosed pale-skinned dullness. And then he started to notice the other things: the way Andy’s ears stick out a little, the way his smile tilts to the side, how his expression never stays the same for more than five seconds and instead acts like a television screen, displaying everything that passes through his head. None of that is in the least boring. Now when he looks at Andy, he doesn’t even see his component parts unless he makes himself pay attention. Instead it all coalesces into the shape of Nick’s favorite person. Even when he looks at the parts he doesn’t usually get to see—strong shoulders covered in the freckles of a dozen sunburns, the soft insides of his thighs, pink nipples and a dusting of dark blond chest hair—it’s all still Andy. “Jesus,” says Andy, looking away. Another part of him that Nick doesn’t usually get to see is taking renewed interest. “You’ve been looking at me for weeks,” Nick points out, stealing the cigarette from Andy’s hand. “You walk around half naked! It’s impossible not to look.” “Is that so?” Nick crawls over Andy’s lap and stubs out the cigarette in the ashtray. “You like what you saw?” “Fishing for compliments is beneath you,” Andy says, even as he smooths his hands down Nick’s shoulders. “I want to know what made you have your gay awakening.” He waggles his eyebrows. “I want to know what about me is so powerfully attractive that it contributed to your degeneracy.” Andy suddenly looks serious. “I don’t think I’m gay.” Nick gestures at Andy’s hard-on. “Coulda fooled me, champ.” Andy smacks his hand. “I mean I’m not only gay. I definitely like women. And I like men, too.” Nick nods. “Okay, fair enough.” “I just mean that I wasn’t living a lie or whatever. But if you really want to know what about you made me consider whether I like men, and we’re going to pretend that the fact that you’re my best friend has nothing to do with it, then it’s this spot here.” He touches the dip in Nick’s clavicle. “That?” He’d been ready to hear


words,' said poor Alice, and her eyes filled with tears again as she went on, `I must be Mabel after all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky little house, and have next to no toys to play with, and oh! ever so many lessons to learn! No, I've made up my mind about it; if I'm Mabel, I'll stay down here! It'll be no use their putting their heads down and saying "Come up again, dear!" I shall only look up and say "Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I'll come up: if not, I'll stay down here till I'm somebody else"--but, oh dear!' cried Alice, with a sudden burst of tears, `I do wish they WOULD put their heads down! I am so VERY tired of being all alone here!' As she said this she looked down at her hands, and was surprised to see that she had put on one of the Rabbit's little white kid gloves while she was talking. `How CAN I have done that?' she thought. `I must be growing small again.' She got up and went to the table to measure herself by it, and found that, as nearly as she could guess, she was now about two feet high, and was going on shrinking rapidly: she soon found out that the cause of this was the fan she was holding, and she dropped it hastily, just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether. `That WAS a narrow escape!' said Alice, a good deal frightened at the sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in existence; `and now for the garden!' and she ran with all speed back to the little door: but, alas! the little door was shut again, and the little golden key was lying on the glass table as before, `and things are worse than ever,' thought the poor child, `for I never was so small as this before, never! And I declare it's too bad, that it is!' As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another moment, splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. He first idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea, `and in that case I can go back by railway,' she said to herself. (Alice had been to the seaside once in her life, and had come to the general conclusion, that wherever you go to on the English coast you find a number of bathing machines in the sea, some children digging in the sand with wooden spades, then a row of lodging houses, and behind them a railway station.) However, she soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine feet high. `I wish I hadn't cried so much!' said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. `I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That WILL be a


said Joe. "Why, I bet you Johnny Miller couldn't any more do this than nothing. Just one little snifter would fetch him ." "'Deed it would, Joe. Say -- I wish the boys could see us now." "So do I." "Say -- boys, don't say anything about it, and some time when they're around, I'll come up to you and say, 'Joe, got a pipe? I want a smoke.' And you'll say, kind of careless like, as if it warn't anything, you'll say, 'Yes, I got my old pipe, and another one, but my tobacker ain't very good.' And I'll say, 'Oh, that's all right, if it's strong enough.' And then you'll out with the pipes, and we'll light up just as ca'm, and then just see 'em look!" "By jings, that'll be gay, Tom! I wish it was now!" --------------------------------------------------------- -167- "So do I! And when we tell 'em we learned when we was off pirating, won't they wish they'd been along?" "Oh, I reckon not! I'll just bet they will!" So the talk ran on. But presently it began to flag a trifle, and grow disjointed. The silences widened; the expectoration marvellously increased. Every pore inside the boys' cheeks became a spouting fountain; they could scarcely bail out the cellars under their tongues fast enough to prevent an inundation; little overflowings down their throats occurred in spite of all they could do, and sudden retchings followed every time. Both boys were looking very pale and miserable, now. Joe's pipe dropped from his nerveless fingers. Tom's followed. Both fountains were going furiously and both pumps bailing with might and main. Joe said feebly: "I've lost my knife. I reckon I better go and find it." Tom said, with quivering lips and halting utterance: "I'll help you. You go over that way and I'll hunt around by the spring. No, you needn't come, Huck -- we can find it." So Huck sat down again, and waited an hour. Then he found it lonesome, and went to find his comrades. They were wide apart in the woods, both very pale, both fast asleep. But something informed him that if they had had any trouble they had got rid of it. They were not talkative at supper that night. --------------------------------------------------------- -168- They had a humble look, and when Huck prepared his pipe after the meal and was going to prepare theirs, they said no, they were not feeling very well -- something they ate at dinner had disagreed with them. About midnight Joe awoke, and called the boys. There was a brooding oppressiveness in the air that seemed to bode something. The boys huddled themselves together and sought the friendly companionship of the fire, though the dull dead heat of the breathless atmosphere was stifling. They sat still, intent and waiting. The solemn hush continued. Beyond the light of the fire everything was swallowed up in the blackness of darkness. Presently there came a quivering glow that vaguely revealed the foliage for a moment and then vanished. By and by another came, a little