herself might be the destined prophetess, but had long since recognised the impossibility that any mission of divine and mysterious truth should be confided to a woman stained with sin, bowed down with shame, or even burdened with a life-long sorrow. The angel and apostle of the coming revelation must be a woman, indeed, but lofty, pure, and beautiful, and wise; moreover, not through dusky grief, but the ethereal medium of joy; and showing how sacred love should make us happy, by the truest test of a life successful to such an end.% So said Hester Prynne, and glanced her sad eyes downward at the scarlet letter. And, after many, many years, a new grave was delved, near an old and sunken one, in that burial-ground beside which King's Chapel has since been built. It was near that old and sunken grave, yet with a space between, as if the dust of the two sleepers had no right to mingle. Yet one tomb-stone served for both. All around, there were monuments carved with armorial bearings; and on this simple slab of slate--as the curious investigator may still discern, and perplex himself with the purport--there appeared the semblance of an engraved escutcheon. It bore a device, a herald's wording of which may serve for a motto and brief description of our now concluded legend; so sombre is it, and relieved only by one ever-glowing point of light gloomier than the shadow: -- "ON A FIELD, SABLE, THE LETTER A, GULES" Thesaurus engraved: (adj) carved, inscribed, terms, doubtfulness. ANTONYMS: amaze, mystify, astonish, nonplus, etched, sculptured, chased, cut in, (n) possibility, probability. complicate, confound, disconcert, graphic, graven; (prep) insculptured; lofty: (adj, v) high, elevated; (adj) bother, get. ANTONYMS: (v) (v) fixed, imprinted. exalted, eminent, arrogant, grand, simplify, clarify, enlighten, placate, escutcheon: (n) buckler, shield, tall, haughty, great, distinguished, explain. esquire, protection, plate, arms, a majestic. ANTONYMS: (adj) short, sunken: (adj) concave, depressed, shield, cover plate, escocheon, finger lowly, base, modest, deferential, submerged, empty, underwater, plate. humble. cavernous, recessed, gaunt, low, impossibility: (n) impossibleness, motto: (n) catchword, adage, epigraph, depression, submarine. ANTONYM: option, nonexistence, absurdity, maxim, slogan, device, proverb, saw, (adj) convex. inability, impracticability, alternative, saying, shibboleth, aphorism. choice, contradiction, contradiction in perplex: (adj, v) confuse, puzzle; (v) Nathaniel Hawthorne 255 GLOSSARY abased: (adj) groveling, slavish, shower down, stream, rain, exuberantly, largely, bountifully. sniveling, humbled, lowered, soapy, abundance; (adj) abundant. ANTONYMS: (adv) fruitlessly, cringing, dependent, oily, pliant, ANTONYM: (v) disperse insufficiently, stingily, meagerly, corrupt absorbing: (adj) fascinating, scantily abashed: (adj, v) discomfited; (adj) engrossing, charming, enthralling, abyss: (n) gorge, ravine, chasm, gulf, mortified, sheepish, embarrassed, gripping, captivating, riveting, deep, purgatory, depth, hell, gap, ashamed, confused, humiliated, absorbent, attractive, readable; (adj, Gehenna, pit. ANTONYMS: (n) afraid, shamefaced, confounded; (v) v) exciting. ANTONYMS: (adj) dull, junction, juncture dashed. ANTONYMS: (adj) proud, irksome, tedious, repellent, accomplish: (v) perform, reach, do, undaunted, reassured, pleased, uninteresting compass, perfect, attain, make, heartened, emboldened, cool, abstracted: (adj) absentminded, fulfill, realize, execute, carry out. confident, composed, relaxed, separate, absent-minded, abstract, ANTONYMS: (v) abandon, neglect, unabashed distrait, inattentive, pensive, choke, blow, lose abate: (v) bate,


treasure we had long thought lost.’ Unora took a layer of cloth from the middle of the table, revealing the oily blue stone. ‘Empress Mokwo wrote of a stone that could command the waters and the winds. Even the gods heeded its call,’ she said. ‘It was said to resemble a moon, so the Grand Empress did expect it to be pale.’ Dumai watched her face. It had been a long time since she had seen her mother look nervous. ‘The moon has been known to turn blue.’ Emperor Jorodu wore a strange expression of his own. ‘Mokwo claimed a human could use this stone, but that only a chosen few could wake it – that for others, it would turn to dead rock. It will not answer to my touch or my wish, but I wonder if it will to yours, Dumai.’ Dumai reached out to set a single fingertip on its surface. A gentle thrum answered. ‘I feel the power churning in it . . . but I don’t know how to draw it,’ she said with a small frown, trying to articulate the feeling as it came. ‘As if I had the hook and bait, and the water boils with life, but no fish come to me.’ She released the stone. ‘Why not go to Furtia for counsel, Father?’ ‘You must not.’ Unora spoke very softly. ‘The woman who last possessed this is dead. For all we know, it could have killed her. No human should wield the gods’ power.’ ‘Yet we must keep it, else it could be stolen again. If the Kuposa found it —’ Emperor Jorodu paused. ‘Dumai, does the Lady of Faces know of it?’ ‘Perhaps, if she looked in my pouch.’ Nikeya had saved her. She remembered a white glow shining from her hand, arms around her, the desperate pleas. Furtia had followed her light, but Nikeya had pulled her into the saddle. ‘I would not have lived without her,’ Dumai said. ‘She could have abandoned me to Brhazat.’ ‘And now you are indebted to her,’ Emperor Jorodu said grimly. ‘That has always been their way. The River Lord will try to take advantage of it, to move her into a higher position. We must act quickly now.’ Unora covered the stone. ‘Dumai, your mother will protect this relic on Mount Ipyeda. In the meantime, you must be enthroned.’ Dumai glanced at her mother in silent confusion. Unora seemed unable to meet her gaze. ‘Father,’ she said, ‘there is no time for that. Surely we should concentrate on bolstering our defences.’ Seeing his expression, she stopped, heart catching. ‘What is it?’ ‘I have faced stiff resistance on the matter from the Council of State. They remain suspicious of your motives for ringing the Queen Bell.’ He always looked tired, but she saw both his age and his pain, in that moment. ‘They cannot truly fear what they have not yet seen, Dumai. I think they are reluctant to send the provinces into upheaval.’ ‘What do they imagine wyrmfire will do there?’ ‘I know. That


drop from? I must have been sound asleep in the hammock. Everybody else has gone to Newport. Did you ring?" she incoherently enquired. Archer's confusion was greater than hers. "I--no-- that is, I was just going to. I had to come up the island to see about a horse, and I drove over on a chance of finding Mrs. Blenker and your visitors. But the house seemed empty--so I sat down to wait." Miss Blenker, shaking off the fumes of sleep, looked at him with increasing interest. "The house IS empty. Mother's not here, or the Marchioness--or anybody but me." Her glance became faintly reproachful. "Didn't you know that Professor and Mrs. Sillerton are giving a garden-party for mother and all of us this afternoon? It was too unlucky that I couldn't go; but I've had a sore throat, and mother was afraid of the drive home this evening. Did you ever know anything so disappointing? Of course," she added gaily, "I shouldn't have minded half as much if I'd known you were coming." Symptoms of a lumbering coquetry became visible in her, and Archer found the strength to break in: "But Madame Olenska--has she gone to Newport too?" Miss Blenker looked at him with surprise. "Madame Olenska--didn't you know she'd been called away?" "Called away?--" "Oh, my best parasol! I lent it to that goose of a Katie, because it matched her ribbons, and the careless thing must have dropped it here. We Blenkers are all like that . . . real Bohemians!" Recovering the sunshade with a powerful hand she unfurled it and suspended its rosy dome above her head. "Yes, Ellen was called away yesterday: she lets us call her Ellen, you know. A telegram came from Boston: she said she might be gone for two days. I do LOVE the way she does her hair, don't you?" Miss Blenker rambled on. Archer continued to stare through her as though she had been transparent. All he saw was the trumpery parasol that arched its pinkness above her giggling head. After a moment he ventured: "You don't happen to know why Madame Olenska went to Boston? I hope it was not on account of bad news?" Miss Blenker took this with a cheerful incredulity. "Oh, I don't believe so. She didn't tell us what was in the telegram. I think she didn't want the Marchioness to know. She's so romantic-looking, isn't she? Doesn't she remind you of Mrs. Scott-Siddons when she reads `Lady Geraldine's Courtship'? Did you never hear her?" Archer was dealing hurriedly with crowding thoughts. His whole future seemed suddenly to be unrolled before him; and passing down its endless emptiness he saw the dwindling figure of a man to whom nothing was ever to happen. He glanced about him at the unpruned garden, the tumble-down house, and the oak- grove under which the dusk was gathering. It had seemed so exactly the place in which he ought to have found Madame Olenska; and she was far away, and even the pink sunshade was not hers . .


record that he used peculiar severity towards a certain woman who was among the accused; and the husband of this woman prophesied that God would take revenge upon his wife's persecutors. This circumstance doubtless furnished a hint for that piece of tradition in the book which represents a Pyncheon of a former generation as having persecuted one Maule, who declared that God would give his enemy "blood to drink." It became a conviction with The Hawthorne family that a curse had been pronounced upon its members, which continued in force in the time of The romancer; a conviction perhaps derived from the recorded prophecy of The injured woman's husband, just mentioned; and, here again, we have a correspondence with Maule's malediction in The story. Furthermore, there occurs in The "American Note-Books" (August 27, 1837), a reminiscence of The author's family, to the following effect. Philip English, a character well-known in early Salem annals, was among those who suffered from John Hathorne's magisterial harshness, and he maintained in consequence a lasting feud with the old Puritan official. But at his death English left daughters, one of whom is said to have married the son of Justice John Hathorne, whom English had declared he would never forgive. It is scarcely necessary to point out how clearly this foreshadows the final union of those hereditary foes, the Pyncheons and Maules, through the marriage of Phoebe and Holgrave. The romance, however, describes the Maules as possessing some of the traits known to have been characteristic of the Hawthornes: for example, "so long as any of the race were to be found, they had been marked out from other men--not strikingly, nor as with a sharp line, but with an effect that was felt rather than spoken of--by an hereditary characteristic of reserve." Thus, while the general suggestion of the Hawthorne line and its fortunes was followed in the romance, the Pyncheons taking the place of The author's family, certain distinguishing marks of the Hawthornes were assigned to the imaginary Maule posterity. There are one or two other points which indicate Hawthorne's method of basing his compositions, the result in the main of pure invention, on the solid ground of particular facts. Allusion is made, in the first chapter of the "Seven Gables," to a grant of lands in Waldo County, Maine, owned by the Pyncheon family. In the "American Note-Books" there is an entry, dated August 12, 1837, which speaks of the Revolutionary general, Knox, and his land-grant in Waldo County, by virtue of which the owner had hoped to establish an estate on the English plan, with a tenantry to make it profitable for him. An incident of much greater importance in the story is the supposed murder of one of the Pyncheons by his nephew, to whom we are introduced as Clifford Pyncheon. In all probability Hawthorne connected with this, in his mind, the murder of Mr. White, a wealthy gentleman of Salem, killed by a man whom his nephew had hired. This took place a few years after Hawthorne's gradation from college, and


Baratheon looked at his eldest son. "So he will. Perhaps they will teach him a lesson. Ned, see that your daughter is disciplined. I will do the same with my son." "Gladly, Your Grace," Ned said with vast relief. Robert started to walk away, but the queen was not done. "And what of the direwolf?" she called after him. "What of the beast that savaged your son?" The king stopped, turned back, frowned. "I'd forgotten about the damned wolf." Ned could see Arya tense in Jory's arms. Jory spoke up quickly. "We found no trace of the direwolf, Your Grace." Robert did not look unhappy. "No? So be it." The queen raised her voice. "A hundred golden dragons to the man who brings me its skin!" "A costly pelt," Robert grumbled. "I want no part of this, woman. You can damn well buy your furs with Lannister gold." The queen regarded him coolly. "I had not thought you so niggardly. The king I'd thought to wed would have laid a wolfskin across my bed before the sun went down." 140 GEORGE R.R. MARTIN Robert's face darkened with anger. "That would be a fine trick, without a wolf." "We have a wolf," Cersei Lannister said. Her voice was very quiet, but her green eyes shone with triumph. It took them all a moment to comprehend her words, but when they did, the king shrugged irritably. "As you will. Have Ser Ilyn see to it." "Robert, you cannot mean this," Ned protested. The king was in no mood for more argument. "Enough, Ned, I will hear no more. A direwolf is a savage beast. Sooner or later it would have turned on your girl the same way the other did on my son. Get her a dog, she'll be happier for it." That was when Sansa finally seemed to comprehend. Her eyes were frightened as they went to her father. "He doesn't mean Lady, does he?" She saw the truth on his face. "No," she said. "No, not Lady, Lady didn't bite anybody, she's good . . ." "Lady wasn't there," Arya shouted angrily. "You leave her alone!" "Stop them," Sansa pleaded, "don't let them do it, please, please, it wasn't Lady, it was Nymeria, Arya did it, you can't, it wasn't Lady, don't let them hurt Lady, I'll make her be good, I promise, I promise . . ." She started to cry. All Ned could do was take her in his arms and hold her while she wept. He looked across the room at Robert. His old friend, closer than any brother. "Please, Robert. For the love you bear me. For the love you bore my sister. Please." The king looked at them for a long moment, then turned his eyes on his wife. "Damn you, Cersei," he said with loathing. Ned stood, gently disengaging himself from Sansa's grasp. All the weariness of the past four days had returned to him. "Do it yourself then, Robert," he said in a voice cold and sharp as steel. "At least have the courage to


were looking for on their imperial tour?—and they don’t go down smoothly. Maoren looks as though he’s swallowed a lizard and it’s trying to escape back up his throat. His Dragon scheming didn’t work in the way he’d hoped. “Go to her,” he says, refusing to call Meiling by her name or her title. “Remind her where this opportunity comes from. Make her see how important it is to help the Yang family.” I don’t know what he hopes I’ll achieve, but he arranges for a palanquin to take me straightaway to Meiling’s home—openly, without any secret ploys or tricks to deceive his mother. When I arrive at Grace Tranquility Teas, Midwife Shi has her mouth set in a grim slit as she tries to wrangle a room filled with demanding customers. The news of Meiling’s good fortune has already spread and is serving as an enticement to patrons who hope some of this family’s luck will rub off. I slip through the crowd and up the back stairs to find Meiling and Kailoo in the main room, standing before an open trunk, surrounded by piles of clothes and shoes. “I don’t think anything I own is right for the palace,” Meiling says when she sees me. “They haven’t requested you for the quality of your silks and brocades,” I respond. “That’s what I’ve been telling her.” Kailoo’s face shines with pride. “Perhaps I can help,” I say. Apparently, these are the exact words Kailoo has longed to hear, for he leaves the room in seconds. Meiling shakes her head and smiles. “I will miss him.” I approach and take her hands. “And I will miss you.” She draws away. “I’m scared.” “Of the trip? Don’t be. You’ll be on the Grand Canal for five weeks, maybe shorter, weather and conditions permitting. You remember that I once traveled—” “I’m not afraid of the journey. They want me to care for women in the court!” “So Maoren has told me.” I pause, hoping my serenity will calm her. “You are the best midwife in Wuxi.” “But there are cities much larger than this one, where midwives must have greater skills—” “Those midwives didn’t meet the right people,” I point out. “Even if they did, I doubt many would have your refinement.” “But what if I have to treat the empress?” I laugh at the idea, and she joins in. Once I’ve collected myself, I say, “Even if this were so, does Empress Zhang have a childbirth gate different from yours or mine or any woman’s across our great country?” Meiling acknowledges this truth with a dip of her chin, but her worried expression remains. “If anything should go wrong—” “They requested you because Lady Liu and Widow Bao saw you at work.” “I was only passing messages!” “You gave Doctor Wong the diagnosis,” I correct her. “Besides, do you honestly think their inquiries stopped after that day?” “Emissaries came to speak with Doctor Wong,” she admits. “He must have said good things about me—” “Because your light shines on him too. The same


did when Linda and her friends came over.” Nick glares at him as if he suggested putting bowls of cereal out for supper. “That is the problem. I made lasagna when Linda came over the last time. And anyway, lasagna is . . .” He makes a dismissive gesture. “I’ve never had a dinner party.” Andy doesn’t point out that Linda has scrounged food from Nick a dozen times. Apparently the addition of Emily and Jeanne means something. He considers telling Nick that he’s seen Emily eat caviar with tiny mother-of-pearl spoons and he’s seen Emily eat Chex mix out of her palm, and, with the expansive taste of people who have been raised with everything, she doesn’t seem to really prefer one over the other. But Nick will not be making Chex mix for Emily and Jeanne Warburton and probably would be offended by the idea, so Andy keeps his mouth shut and follows Nick down the street. “What’s the deal with that cop who’s always across the street now?” Andy asks. It’s the friendly-looking cop straight out of central casting again. “They probably think junk’s being sold out of that jazz club,” Nick grumbles. “Before eight o’clock on a Saturday morning?” “Neighborhood’s always crawling with cops. You’d think they’d have better things to do.” First, they go to the A&P, where Nick buys noodles, canned tomatoes, and a lot of weird-looking vegetables that Andy refrains from commenting about. “They’re eggplants, Andy,” Nick says, so maybe Andy’s face is doing some commenting of its own. “Trust me.” “I do,” says Andy, maybe a little too earnestly. “Everything you make is delicious.” Then they go to the bakery on Cornelia Street, where Nick gets two loaves of bread, glowers away Andy’s offer to pay, then hands the grocery bag to Andy to carry. A few doors down is a cheese store that Andy has passed a dozen times but is too intimidated by to consider going in. “Where else are we going?” Andy asks when Nick emerges with two paper-wrapped parcels of mysterious cheese that he dumps into Andy’s shopping bag. “Just the butcher.” The butcher Nick likes is a block away on Jones Street, a hole-in-the-wall that’s long since passed old-fashioned and ascended into a sort of battered permanence. The floor is covered in sawdust and meat hangs in the window. There’s no need for Andy to go in—he could wait on the sidewalk as he had at the cheese shop and say hello to all the dogs that come past. Except. Well. Nick greets the butcher in Italian. He’s told Andy that he only speaks kitchen Italian, but this is a flat-out lie because right now the butcher is clearly trying to sell him what looks like beef and Nick is saying no, no, he wants something else. The butcher asks a question, Nick answers, and, honestly, somebody speaking a language that literal millions of other people speak shouldn’t affect Andy in quite this way. In fact, there’s the butcher speaking Italian right now, and Andy in no way wants


he claimed, the boon of a brand snatched from the burning. Earnestness is ever deeply solemn. First, as I listened to that prayer, I wondered at his; then, when it continued and rose, I was touched by it, and at last awed. He felt the greatness and the goodness of his purpose so sincerely; others who heard him plead for it could not but feel it too.     The prayer over, we took leave of him: he was to go at a very early hour in the morning. Diana and Mary having kissed him, left the room in compliance, I think, with a whispered hint from him. I tendered my hand and wished him a pleasant journey.     "Thank you, Jane. As I said, I shall return from Cambridge in a fortnight; that space, then, is yet left you for reflection. If I listened to human pride I should say no more to you of marriage with me; but I listen to my duty, and keep steadily in view my first aim to do all things to the glory of God. My Master was long-suffering: so will I be. I cannot give you up to perdition as a vessel of wrath; repent resolve, while there is yet time. Remember, we are bid to work while it is day warned that 'the night cometh when no man shall work.' Remember the fate of Dives, who had his good things in this life. God give you strength to choose that better part which shall not be taken from you!"     He laid his hand on my head as he uttered the last words. He had spoken earnestly, mildly: his look was not, indeed, that of a lover beholding his mistress, but it was that of a pastor recalling his wandering sheep or better, of a guardian angel watching the soul for which he is responsible. All men of talent, whether they be men of feeling or not, whether they be zealots, or aspirants, or despots provided only they be sincere have their sublime moments; when they subdue and rule. I felt veneration for St. John veneration so strong that its impetus thrust me at once to the point I had so long shunned. I was tempted to cease struggling with him to rush down the torrent of his will into the gulf of his existence, and there lose my own. I was almost as hard beset by him now as I had been once before, in a different way, by another. I was a fool both times. To have yielded then would have been an error of principle; to have yielded now would have been an error of judgment. So I think at this hour when I look back to the crisis through the quiet medium of time: I was unconscious of folly at the instant.     I stood motionless under my hierophant's touch. My refusals were forgotten my fears overcome my wrestling paralyzed. The Impossible i. e.,my marriage with St. John


has to be a huge undertaking. Who knows what the future holds, right? Besides, you have someone waiting for you back home, right? The guy with the flashy car?” Was that a touch of jealousy in Peter’s question? Or was he relieved that it appeared she was already taken? She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “No. I broke it off with him.” “You did?” He looked at her with wide eyes. Marion nodded, trying to add a cheery, breezy note to her voice. “Of course, like you said, who knows what’s ahead, right?” “That’s true.” The waiter came by, asking about dessert. They both declined. Later, outside, Marion stepped in front of him as he tried to hail a cab. “Peter, what’s going on? I thought that we—” He let his hand fall to his side. “We do, but—” She didn’t want to hear what else was coming. Instead, she reached up and took his face in her hands and kissed him. He pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her waist, and they stayed like that for what seemed like minutes, lips on fire, pressed against each other. She hadn’t imagined it. And she didn’t want to let go. She let her mind empty of everything but the heat of his breath and the strength of his embrace. He pulled back first, looking at her as if he were memorizing her face. “I can’t, I’m so sorry.” He didn’t love her. A panicked numbness swept over her as she absorbed his words, and she swayed a little on her feet. She thought she might be sick. “Why not?” “It’s hard to say. I want to tell you, but—” She couldn’t bear his bumbling. She’d thrown herself at him—literally—and he had declined her invitation. They were nothing to each other, not even friends. Marion raised her arm up again and a cab raced to the curb. She avoided Peter’s eyes as she opened the door. “I want to explain,” said Peter. But Marion’s humiliation was complete. “No. I don’t want to hear it. I’ve had enough.” She rolled down the taxi window all the way as she zoomed uptown, the sting of the cold air adding to the sting of her tears. * * * Marion woke with a throbbing headache. She was still confused about why her relationship with Peter had suddenly nose-dived. Maybe, because they had both lived through the roller-coaster ride of the past few weeks, it was destined to turn sour. He knew her at her worst, when she was grief-stricken and wild. That wasn’t what a man wanted in a partner. She’d hoped Peter would be different from most men. She pushed him from her mind. That day, she was determined to track down her father. It was time to deal with the consequences of what she’d done, of what he’d done. First, though, she went to the Hoags’ office in Times Square to sign the contract for her new job. The salary was even more than she expected, and she’d be able to afford her


a little when she released me. She’d changed her hair once again, to my disappointment. She was a dirty blonde now, with cat-eye eyeliner and a stud in her nose. She wore a crop top despite the changing weather, and her neat navel was visible just above the waistband of her jeans. “Can I get you anything? Do you want tea? Coffee? We have Coke, too, or just plain seltzers.” “I’m fine.” Footsteps above us. “He’s upstairs?” She nodded pertly. “You can go up whenever you want.” Orson was sitting on the edge of their surprisingly modest bed, head in hands, cigarette wedged between his left index and middle fingers. He wore a furry bathrobe and slippers. He didn’t hear me come in, so I knocked on the door, and when he turned to see me, his face brightened, which sent me into nostalgic ecstasy. There resurfaced tons of small memories: his teeth colliding against my lips and our subsequent laughter, his flips in the middle of the room, all the times I’d lit one of my cigarettes on the burning end of his. He patted the bed next to him and I sat down, feeling his warmth, carefully positioning my hand as close to his thigh as I could. “I’m glad you’re here, little dude,” he said. “Me too.” He took a drag and handed me the cigarette. I took my own drag, tasting his lips on the filter. “I should really quit,” he said. “It’s bad for my image. But I never know what to do with my hands, you know?” Obviously I knew. I’d known this for years, for his whole life. I knew him better than he knew himself. “Yeah,” I said. “You’re busy in New York?” he asked. “Well—I, um. That’s actually what I came here to tell you about.” He nodded, unhearing. “People are expecting a lot of me,” he said. “You start to feel the pressure in situations like this.” “I can only imagine.” “What do you think people want next?” “I—I mean, I really don’t know. That seems like the kind of thing you’d know.” “Mm.” He leaned back on his hands and looked at the ceiling. “I’m thinking people want to know what happens after death.” His body was forming beautiful angles. “Do you know what happens after death?” I asked. He laughed. “No, not yet. But I can figure it out. A little meditating. Some solitude. They’ve both worked so far.” He seemed to be in a pleasant reverie, and I didn’t want to interrupt it, but I knew I had to. “Have you seen the news?” He shook his head. “No externalities.” “Right, okay. I just—” He looked pointedly at me, but I pressed on. “I just need to tell you about what happened in Urmau.” He sighed. “What?” I told him as quickly as I could about taking part in the coup, about Genial’s death and the country’s plunge into chaos. “Okay,” he said. “What does that have to do with anything?” “Well, it means we’re in trouble financially. We


Then we weren’t in touch for a few months, and I texted him, and he texted back that he had a girlfriend but wished me the best of luck.” Noah’s head was still raised, and I rolled my eyes. “And that’s the story of how I was dumped by my mediocre fuck buddy.” “That sends chills down my spine.” “Which part?” “Being called a mediocre fuck buddy, for one thing. Poor guy.” “You’re not a mediocre fuck buddy. You’re a stellar fuck buddy.” I was slightly surprised that Noah didn’t laugh or even seem pleased. “Anyway,” I said, “the dynamic between Gene and me was completely different from our dynamic. He and I never really talked about anything. And not because we had such an animal attraction that we tore off each other’s clothes the minute we were together. Our conversations were just pointless and uninteresting. They were about how it was crazy that Christmas was almost here, or could you believe that thunderstorm the other day? And also—” I paused. “I lied to him about my job. And I’d done that before, lied to other guys. I said I was still a medical newsletter writer because I didn’t want to talk to them about TNO or be asked for tickets. After the text where Gene told me he had a girlfriend, he sent another text saying, By the way it’s cool you’re a writer for TNO. I asked how he knew, and he said he’d seen a fleece jacket with the TNO logo at my apartment and assumed I’d bought it at the gift shop in the 66 Building, but later he’d also seen a mug that Henrietta had made for my birthday one year that had a picture of me, her, and Viv on it. So then he googled me.” I was quiet, and Noah looked at me. “How’d you feel about that?” “Remorseful. Not because he deserved better, although of course he did, but because who was I really pulling one over on? What was I achieving by sleeping with someone I didn’t want to tell the most basic information about my life?” “Before seeing Louisiana,” Noah said, “I hadn’t had sex for almost a year. In 2019, I went on a bunch of first dates, and a couple second dates, but I felt like I knew beforehand how they’d play out and it just wasn’t worth the energy. If you’re our age and single, dating kind of has to be an act of reckless optimism, right? The triumph of hope over experience?” “Did you really not have sex for almost a year?” “Yes.” “I’m not judging you, I’m just surprised.” “Because I’m a guy?” “Partly.” “Do you buy into the idea of all men as constantly horny? I thought the younger TNO staffers were teaching you that gender stereotypes are nonsense.” “I don’t know if you know this, but you’re also a celebrity. A good-looking celebrity. Don’t women throw their bras at you onstage?” “I don’t think that happens in real life.” “Never? Not even once or twice?”


stood in front of the canvas, looking down at the dear face of my dear friend who I’d known so long, who I’d painted so many times … and I saw nothing but unintelligible nonsense. But I pushed on. My best strategy was to divide the face circle on the canvas into mathematical sections, and mark, in general, where the eyes and nose and mouth should be, and then focus on one puzzle piece at a time, plugging them in where each one ought to go. It was a good plan. But it didn’t work. When I finally finished the pencil sketch, I stepped back and realized that now it, too, looked like puzzle pieces. I had just drawn that picture. But now I couldn’t see it. I asked Sue to check it and see if I was on the right track. She got up all eager, but then slowed way down on the approach. I couldn’t see her expression, but I could definitely read her emotion. And that emotion was “Huh.” “Tell me,” I said. “Do you want me to be honest?” “No. Yes. I don’t know.” “It’s a little funky,” Sue said at last. “What does that mean?” She paused. “It’s not photorealism.” “We knew that already. What are you saying?” “It’s a little bit like a Salvador Dalí painting.” “Oh my god, is your face melting? Like a Dalí clock?” “No … the pieces are all technically kind of in the right place. Ish. It’s not surrealism, exactly. It’s just…” “How bad is it that you can’t even find the words?” “It’s a little ghoulish.” “Ghoulish!” I had my answer. “Ghoulish is super bad. Ghoulish is a catastrophe.” But she came over and hugged me. “It’s certainly eye-catching,” she said, trying to accentuate the positive. “Nobody’s going to be bored looking at this thing.” But eye-catching wasn’t going to cut it. Not bored wasn’t what the judges wanted. And don’t get me started on ghoulish. This was a puppies-and-kittens type of organization. These North American Portrait Society folks were about following the rules—not breaking them. I stared at the painting and tried to see what Sue was talking about—or any face at all. But I just couldn’t. I squinted and concentrated and tried to make the pieces click for so long that frustration finally burst up out of my body like a geyser. I slammed my fist down on the paint table, accidentally hitting a book … that hit a glass jar of brushes … that went flying and shattered on the concrete floor. “Shit,” I said, deflating. I moved to start picking up the shards, but Sue stopped me. “Go sit down. I’ll get this. Take some breaths.” I did as I was told. Sue found a broom and a pan. “What about Chuck Close?” she suggested. “He was a portrait artist with face blindness. How did he do it?” I’d been reading up on him. He was a face-blind artist who painted enormous photorealistic faces. But I shook my head. “He superimposed a grid over a photograph.


The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt

and knee appeared over the edge of the garden fence. In another moment Kemp had ploughed through the asparagus, and was running across the tennis lawn to the house. "You can't come in," said Mr. Heelas, shutting the bolts. "I'm very sorry if he's after you, but you can't come in!" Kemp appeared with a face of terror close to the glass, rapping and then shaking frantically at the French window. Then, seeing his efforts were useless, he ran along the veranda, vaulted the end, and went to hammer at the side door. Then he ran round by the side gate to the front of the house, and so into the hill-road. And Mr. Heelas staring from his window--a face of horror--had scarcely witnessed Kemp vanish, ere the asparagus was being trampled this way and that by feet unseen. At that Mr. Heelas fled precipitately upstairs, and the rest of the chase is beyond his purview. But as he passed the staircase window, he heard the side gate slam. Emerging into the hill-road, Kemp naturally took the downward direction, and so it was he came to run in his own person the very race he had watched with such a critical eye from the belvedere study only four days ago. He ran it well for a man out of training; and though his face was white and wet, his wits were cool to the last. He ran with wide strides, and wherever a patch of rough ground intervened, wherever there came a patch of raw flints, or a bit of broken glass shone dazzling, he crossed it and left the bare invisible feet that followed to take what line they would. For the first time in his life Kemp discovered that the hill- road was indescribably vast and desolate, and that the beginnings of the town far below at the hill foot were strangely remote. Never had there been a slower or more painful method of progression than running. All the gaunt villas, sleeping in the afternoon sun, looked locked and barred; no doubt they were locked and barred--by his own orders. But at any rate they might have kept a lookout for an eventuality like this! The town was rising up now, the sea had dropped out of sight behind it, and people down below were stirring. A tram was just arriving at the hill foot. Beyond that was the police station. Was that footsteps he heard behind him? Spurt. The people below were staring at him, one or two were running, and his breath was beginning to saw in his throat. The tram was quite near now, and the Jolly Cricketers was noisily barring its doors. Beyond the tram were posts and heaps of gravel--the drainage works. He had a transitory idea of jumping into the tram and slamming the doors, and then he resolved to go to the police station. In another moment he had passed the door of the Jolly Cricketers, and was in the blistering fag end of the street, with human beings about him. The tram


“I should probably stay behind.” Finn just looked at me in this way I couldn’t interpret. “I want you there.” Then he straightened his spine, collected himself. “If you want to be there, that is.” After dodging some paparazzi hoping to catch a glimpse of post-con celebrities, we settle into a booth with Hallie, Ethan Underwood, Bree Espinoza, Juliana Guo, and Cooper Jones. I’m a little starstruck after watching The Nocturnals in most of my spare time over the past couple months. Finn introduces me as someone on his team, and no one asks any other questions about it. “It’s been ages since we did something like this,” Cooper says, reaching for a slice of bread. At forty, he’s the oldest of the group, mostly retired from acting to focus on the farm he runs with his wife in Northern California. A much quieter life. “Because Ethan’s usually too busy jumping out of an airplane just so he can say he does his own stunts.” Juliana gives him a tight smile that makes me think pretending she was in love with him for four seasons required some top-notch acting. She’s a little sharp-tongued, not unlike Alice, and dressed in corduroy overalls and a floral sweatshirt. Overalls have never looked cooler. “Where were you last month? I can’t keep track.” “Fiji,” Ethan says. “But that was just for vacation. I start shooting the Indiana Jones reboot in Majorca after the reunion.” “Rough life,” Finn says. Ethan raises his glass of bourbon, flashes his glimmering white teeth. “That’s why they shell out the big bucks.” I have to fight rolling my eyes. Next to me, Finn is inspecting his water glass, and when the server swings by with another tray of appetizers, he quietly, politely asks for a new one. And I don’t miss the way Ethan watches the whole interaction. “What do you hate more?” Bree’s asking. “ ‘This is more of a comment than a question,’ or ‘I have a two-part question’?” Cooper runs a hand across his salt-and-pepper beard. “I don’t think I do enough of these to get too bothered by any of it.” “More of a comment, definitely.” Juliana takes a sip of wine and blots her red lipstick with a napkin. “That one, they always want to bring up some super specific detail, just to make it seem like they know the show better than anyone else.” Ethan shakes his head. “No, no, no. The two-parters are the worst.” “I don’t mind them,” Finn puts in. “Well of course you don’t,” Ethan says. “You practically live at these things. When was the last time you were on a channel that isn’t exclusively watched by grandparents?” With the exception of Hallie, the rest of them laugh, and even in the dim light, I watch Finn’s cheeks turn pink. The conversation moves on to everyone’s current projects. “I’m working on an indie film right now,” Hallie says from across the table. “I’ve been dying to do something with A24, and it’s been an absolute dream.” “What’s it about?” I ask.


to her wishes and her convenience. He strove to shelter her, as a fair exotic is sheltered by the gardener, from every rougher wind and to surround her with all that could tend to excite pleasurable emotion in her soft and benevolent mind. Her health, and even the tranquillity of her hitherto constant spirit, had been shaken by what she had gone through. During the two years that had elapsed previous to their marriage my father had gradually relinquished all his public functions; and immediately after their union they sought the pleasant climate of Italy, and the change of scene and interest attendant on a tour through that land of wonders, as a restorative for her weakened frame. From Italy they visited Germany and France. I, their eldest child, was born at Naples, and as an infant accompanied them in their rambles. I remained for several years their only child. Much as they were attached to each other, they seemed to draw inexhaustible stores of affection from a very mine of love to bestow them upon me. My mother's tender caresses and my father's smile of benevolent pleasure while regarding me are my first recollections. I was their plaything and their idol, and something better--their child, the innocent and helpless creature bestowed on them by heaven, whom to bring up to good, and whose future lot it was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery, according as they fulfilled their duties towards me. With this deep consciousness of what they owed towards the being to which they had given life, added to the active spirit of tenderness that animated both, it may be imagined that while during every hour of my infant life I received a lesson of patience, of charity, and of self-control, I was so guided by a silken cord that all seemed but one train of enjoyment to me. For a long time I was their only care. My mother had much desired to have a daughter, but I continued their single offspring. When I was about five years old, while making an excursion beyond the frontiers of Italy, they passed a week on the shores of the Lake of Como. Their benevolent disposition often made them enter the cottages of the poor. This, to my mother, was more than a duty; it was a necessity, a passion--remembering what she had suffered, and how she had been relieved--for her to act in her turn the guardian angel to the afflicted. During one of their walks a poor cot in the foldings of a vale attracted their notice as being singularly disconsolate, while the number of half-clothed children gathered about it spoke of penury in its worst shape. One day, when my father had gone by himself to Milan, my mother, accompanied by me, visited this abode. She found a peasant and his wife, hard working, bent down by care and labour, distributing a scanty meal to five hungry babes. Among these there was one which attracted my mother far above all the rest. She appeared of a


voice held far less disappointment than it did curiosity. Simon couldn’t help but look back at her and see her expression. She looked up at Penworth and its ivy-covered walls with a melancholy expression, but it was as if she felt sadness for someone other than herself. Perhaps she hadn’t internalized that this house would soon be hers. She’d never answered the question about her marriage date. And Simon was too much a coward to repeat it. “William Calloway is so rarely at home that he cares little for his estate,” Forester explained, offering his arm to Lucy as the maid trailed behind them on the short walk to the front door. “He pays a steward to look after his lands and maintain his income, but that is about all this house is good for.” “Until now,” Simon offered, feeling rather useless as he followed Rebecca. Forester glanced back but didn’t acknowledge the addition. Nor did Lucy. “It doesn’t look like anyone is here, does it?” she said, peering through the nearest window. Forester shrugged. “Like you confirmed, William planned for only a few days here in Oxfordshire, and the Park is far more comfortable for such a short visit.” Thinking back on the conversation in the carriage, Simon tried to remember what Lucy had said about William’s plans. Had she said anything? The look in Forester’s eyes as he turned back to Simon didn’t ease his uncertainty, and Simon feared he was the butt of some joke he hadn’t heard. It wouldn’t be the first time. “Simon,” Forester said, “I suppose you’d better open up the house if we are to let the lovely Lucy see her future here. Then again, perhaps we—” His words stopped when the door opened, revealing William’s laughably young butler, Mason, in the entryway. “Lord Calloway!” Mason said, clearly surprised by the sight of visitors. “Mr. Forester.” But then his eyes landed on Lucy, and recognition set in. “And the future Mrs. Calloway!” He bowed low before opening the door wider to let them all inside. Whatever confusion Simon was feeling, he wasn’t the only one. For once, Forester was speechless, and even Lucy looked ready to run for half a second before she plastered on a smile and stepped into the house. Even the maid frowned at the reception, and she seemed to have far more answers than Lucy did. “Forgive our unpreparedness, miss,” Mason said once everyone was inside. “We didn’t expect you for a couple of days yet. Mrs. Hughsley!” The old housekeeper had been coming up the entry hall, but at the sight of guests she shuffled her feet faster until she arrived at the little gathering. “Lord Calloway,” she said, though slightly out of breath, and she sank into a curtsy as low as her geriatric legs would allow. Mrs. Hughsley was practically as old as the house itself. “And Mr. Forester, I didn’t expect to see you away from Town.” Forester flashed the woman a smile. “And miss coming to see you? My dear Mrs. Hughsley, you are always my


pointed his nose upward, and howled. It was a mournful howl, and as Buck held steadily on his way he heard it grow faint and fainter until it was lost in the distance. John Thornton was eating dinner when Buck dashed into camp and sprang upon him in a frenzy of affection, overturning him, scrambling upon him, licking his face, biting his hand--"playing the general tom-fool," as John Thornton characterized it, the while he shook Buck back and forth and cursed him lovingly. For two days and nights Buck never left camp, never let Thornton out of his sight. He followed him about at his work, watched him while he ate, saw him into his blankets at night and out of them in the morning. But after two days the call in the forest began to sound more imperiously than ever. Buck's restlessness came back on him, and he was haunted by recollections of the wild brother, and of the smiling land beyond the divide and the run side by side through the wide forest stretches. Once again he took to wandering in the woods, but the wild brother came no more; and though he listened through long vigils, the mournful howl was never raised. He began to sleep out at night, staying away from camp for days at a time; and once he crossed the divide at the head of the creek and went down into the land of timber and streams. There he wandered for a week, seeking vainly for fresh sign of the wild brother, killing his meat as he travelled and travelling with the long, easy lope that seems never to tire. He fished for salmon in a broad stream that emptied somewhere into the sea, and by this stream he killed a large black bear, blinded by the mosquitoes while likewise fishing, and raging through the forest helpless and terrible. Even so, it was a hard fight, and it aroused the last latent remnants of Buck's ferocity. And two days later, when he returned to his kill and found a dozen wolverenes quarrelling over the spoil, he scattered them like chaff; and those that fled left two behind who would quarrel no more. The blood-longing became stronger than ever before. He was a killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survived. Because of all this he became possessed of a great pride in himself, which communicated itself like a contagion to his physical being. It advertised itself in all his movements, was apparent in the play of every muscle, spoke plainly as speech in the way he carried himself, and made his glorious furry coat if anything more glorious. But for the stray brown on his muzzle and above his eyes, and for the splash of white hair that ran midmost down his chest, he might well have been mistaken for a gigantic wolf, larger than the largest of the breed. From his


finger on it. It was the feeling I still got when I walked into a suburban shopping mall, despite it being decades since groups of teenagers roved the food courts looking for people to ridicule. I was scared like a dog is scared of the spot where a walnut once fell on his head. Irrationally, viscerally, in a way tied more to memory than possibility. I put on the newest clothes I’d brought: crisp dark jeans, a red sweater, and a gold bangle an online stylist had picked for me that fall. The fall of senior year at Granby, I’d been thrilled to inherit a long, crinkly J.Crew skirt from one of Fran’s sisters. The J.Crew label inside was as good, in my mind, as Armani. I wore it with Birkenstocks and a white T-shirt and hemp jewelry. I had already lost some weight—I’d lose far too much that year—and my hair was newly longer, and I felt, for the first time, that I was passing as somewhat attractive. I’d even toned down the eyeliner, barely. I was crossing the quad when a sophomore, crossing the other way, said to me, her voice squeaky as if talking to a child, “Oh my God, I remember those skirts! Those are from, like, eighth grade!” The skirt was indeed probably two years old. It was one of the newest things I’d ever worn. Apparently it was safer to wear things from Sears and thrift stores—things the kids at Granby had never seen, couldn’t date to some past catalogue, some discount sale. Petra, the journalism teacher, met me outside the guesthouse and presented me with a Granby tote containing a Granby fleece and a water bottle and a copy of the Sentinel. She was strikingly tall with a soft German accent and chicly short hair, a curtain of blond over her left eye. She asked if I’d slept well, if I needed a coffee. I skimmed the paper as we walked: dorm renovations, sandwich delivery options reviewed, an ongoing lawsuit from a former art teacher. We stepped off the slushy road and onto the frozen planks of South Bridge and I tucked the paper away, ducked my head against the wind so the freezing air hit my hat and not my face. The last of my hangover evaporated in the cold. Someone called out behind us and we waited for her to catch up. Good Lord: It was Priscilla Mancio, who was still teaching French. “Bodie Kane,” she said. “Unbelievable. I never would’ve recognized her,” she told Petra, “if they hadn’t run her picture in the magazine.” She was walking her bulldog, a delicious beast she introduced as Brigitte, and whom I squatted to scratch. Petra said, “You’ve changed since eighteen.” I find it hard to tell if people with German accents are asking questions. “Sure,” Madame Mancio said, “but—well, most alums, they either look the same, or worse. You know, it’s the boys. They go sloppy in the middle. But you look so much prettier, Bodie! Was your hair always that color?” I said,


“Maybe,” she said, thinking of her half sister, the imp. She loved that kid. Kristi forced a smile into her voice even though she didn’t feel it. A headache was beginning to form behind her eyes and she leaned against her desk in her office, her gaze sliding to the stack of legal pads where she’d taken notes on her next book about the 21 Killer. “Give Ginny a hug from me. But don’t count on tomorrow. Maybe next week. I’ve got a ton of stuff to do around here.” “But you have to eat and Olivia makes a mean jambalaya.” “No arguments there.” But even the mention of one of her favorite dishes didn’t interest her. She had no appetite. “I’ll text you. Promise.” Staring through the window into the night creeping through the city, she ended the call feeling empty and lonely and wondered if she should have accepted her father’s invitation to dinner. Just for something to do. To get out of the house. She would have except she didn’t want to fall into the trap of running back to “Daddy” every time her life turned upside down. She was a grown woman. A pregnant grown woman, she reminded herself. She snapped off the lights in the office and walked downstairs to the bedroom. Pausing at the door, she felt another cold gust of loneliness and disbelief rush through her as she stared in the semidarkness to the bed, mussed as she hadn’t bothered making it, the duvet half sliding to the floor. Oh. God. She braced herself against the door frame, then refusing to break down again, stiffened her spine and walked into the room. Jay was gone. She had to face it. Get on with her life. She snapped on a bedside lamp and set her jaw against a fresh spate of tears. “No more,” she said aloud, even though her voice trembled. Reluctantly she opened his closet and stared at the neat row of sports coats and shirts hanging just as he’d left them, the jeans folded on the top shelf, his shoes placed tidily beneath his dress shirts. Her own closet was a mess in comparison. Dresses and blouses hung haphazardly, hats and purses strung out over the shelves, her shoes and boots lying wherever she happened to kick them off. She slipped one of Jay’s shirts from its hanger, a light blue chambray he’d worn just two days before he died, and held the soft fabric to her face, lost for a second in the smell of him, his aftershave still clinging to the collar. “Come on, Kris, pull yourself together.” His voice was so clear, so close, she half expected to feel his fingers on her shoulder, the warmth of his breath against her nape. Instead she felt nothing. She stepped out of her own sweater and donned his shirt, rolling up the sleeves, returning to the living room to watch TV. Her thoughts strayed, as they always did these days, and by eleven she couldn’t stand staring listlessly at the boob tube


way from the tiny spaceport on Easter Island (the name was an entirely meaningless coincidence - in Galacticspeke, easter means small flat and light brown) to the Heart of Gold island, which by another meaningless coincidence was called France. One of the side effects of work on the Heart of Gold was a whole string of pretty meaningless coincidences. But it was not in any way a coincidence that today, the day of culmination of the project, the great day of unveiling, the day that the Heart of Gold was finally to be introduced to a marvelling Galaxy, was also a great day of culmination for Zaphod Beeblebrox. It was for the sake of this day that he had first decided to run for the Presidency, a decision which had sent waves of astonishment throughout the Imperial Galaxy - Zaphod Beeblebrox? President? Not the Zaphod Beeblebrox? Not the President? Many had seen it as a clinching proof that the whole of known creation had finally gone bananas. Zaphod grinned and gave the boat an extra kick of speed. Zaphod Beeblebrox, adventurer, ex-hippy, good timer, (crook? quite possibly), manic self-publicist, terribly bad at personal relationships, often thought to be completely out to lunch. President? No one had gone bananas, not in that way at least. Only six people in the entire Galaxy understood the principle on which the Galaxy was governed, and they knew that once Zaphod Beeblebrox had announced his intention to run as President it was more or less a fait accompli: he was the ideal Presidency fodder*. What they completely failed to understand was why Zaphod was doing it. He banked sharply, shooting a wild wall of water at the sun. Today was the day; today was the day when they would realize what Zaphod had been up to. Today was what Zaphod Beeblebrox's Presidency was all about. Today was also his two hundredth birthday, but that was just another meaningless coincidence. As he skipped his boat across the seas of Damogran he smiled quietly to himself about what a wonderful exciting day it was going to be. He relaxed and spread his two arms lazily across the seat back. He steered with an extra arm he'd recently fitted just beneath his right one to help improve his ski-boxing. "Hey," he cooed to himself, "you're a real cool boy you." But his nerves sang a song shriller than a dog whistle. The island of France was about twenty miles long, five miles across the middle, sandy and crescent shaped. In fact it seemed to exist not so much as an island in its own right as simply a means of defining the sweep and curve of a huge bay. This impression was heightened by the fact that the inner coastline of the crescent consisted almost entirely of steep cliffs. From the top of the cliff the land sloped slowly down five miles to the opposite shore. On top of the cliffs stood a reception committee. It consisted in large part of the engineers and researchers who had built the Heart


. .” Wyn sips from his steaming mug. “But she knows how to bring a person to their knees when she wants to.” I angle myself abruptly back toward Sabrina. “So, what is there still to do for the wedding?” Sabrina waves a hand. “Nothing. Like I said, it’s just the six of us and an ordained unitarian universalist minister I found online. I wasn’t even planning on having flowers until Cleo and Kimmy stepped in.” “We don’t mind helping,” Cleo says. “You’ll get to when we have the big wedding for family next year,” Sabrina says, squirting maple syrup into her mug. “This week, I just want to be in my favorite place with my favorite people. I want every second to count, and I don’t want to miss anything.” At the clap of thunder and flash of lightning outside, she gestures toward the window. “I mean, what is this? We were supposed to go sailing today.” I check my phone’s weather app. “It’ll be sunny and hot tomorrow. We could sail then?” “Just because the house is selling,” Cleo says, “doesn’t mean this has to be the last time the six of us come here.” I try to smile encouragingly at Sabrina, but guilt spirals through me. I want so badly for this week to be perfect, to be good enough to compensate for the fact that it will be the last. Not just in this house but as a sixsome. Truce or not, I can’t be Wyn Connor’s friend. Sabrina’s gone quiet and sullen, and I know she’s already thinking about next week too. I clear my throat. “I have an idea.” “Matching tattoos,” Parth says. “So close,” I say. “It’s this thing I used to do as a kid because I hated my birthday.” Sabrina, a woman deeply devoted to the concept of a birthday month, audibly gasps. “It was hard to manage my expectations,” I explain. “And it seemed like something always went wrong.” A pipe burst and my parents had to put repairs on a credit card. Or Eloise was failing a class and needed a tutor. Or Dad’s second job called him in for a shift the night we were supposed to go out. No matter how much I told myself I didn’t need any big celebration, I always felt disappointed when things fell through, and then guilty because I knew how hard my parents were working to keep things going. “A couple days before I turned ten, I had this idea,” I say. “If I chose one thing I really wanted—and knew I could actually get—on my birthday, then no matter what else happened or didn’t, it’d be a good day. So I told my parents I wanted this Oreo cheesecake, and they got it for me, and my birthday was great.” This earns me crickets from the audience. “That,” Sabrina says, “is so incredibly sad.” “It’s nice!” I say. “It’s practical. I had a great birthday.” “Honey, it’s tragic,” Sabrina says, right as Parth says, “I’m emotionally scarred.” “I think you’re missing the


go and see cousin Regina--COUSIN! Now, my dear, I looked out of the window, and saw it wasn't raining a drop; but I understood her, and I let her have the carriage. . . . After all, Regina's a brave woman, and so is she; and I've always liked courage above everything." Archer bent down and pressed his lips on the little hand that still lay on his. "Eh--eh--eh! Whose hand did you think you were kissing, young man--your wife's, I hope?" the old lady snapped out with her mocking cackle; and as he rose to go she called out after him: "Give her her Granny's love; but you'd better not say anything about our talk." XXXI. Archer had been stunned by old Catherine's news. It was only natural that Madame Olenska should have hastened from Washington in response to her grandmother's summons; but that she should have decided to remain under her roof--especially now that Mrs. Mingott had almost regained her health--was less easy to explain. Archer was sure that Madame Olenska's decision had not been influenced by the change in her financial situation. He knew the exact figure of the small income which her husband had allowed her at their separation. Without the addition of her grandmother's allowance it was hardly enough to live on, in any sense known to the Mingott vocabulary; and now that Medora Manson, who shared her life, had been ruined, such a pittance would barely keep the two women clothed and fed. Yet Archer was convinced that Madame Olenska had not accepted her grandmother's offer from interested motives. She had the heedless generosity and the spasmodic extravagance of persons used to large fortunes, and indifferent to money; but she could go without many things which her relations considered indispensable, and Mrs. Lovell Mingott and Mrs. Welland had often been heard to deplore that any one who had enjoyed the cosmopolitan luxuries of Count Olenski's establishments should care so little about "how things were done." Moreover, as Archer knew, several months had passed since her allowance had been cut off; yet in the interval she had made no effort to regain her grand- mother's favour. Therefore if she had changed her course it must be for a different reason. He did not have far to seek for that reason. On the way from the ferry she had told him that he and she must remain apart; but she had said it with her head on his breast. He knew that there was no calculated coquetry in her words; she was fighting her fate as he had fought his, and clinging desperately to her resolve that they should not break faith with the people who trusted them. But during the ten days which had elapsed since her return to New York she had perhaps guessed from his silence, and from the fact of his making no attempt to see her, that he was meditating a decisive step, a step from which there was no turning back. At the thought, a sudden fear of her own weakness might


from the floor. She rapped down the mustard pot on the table, and then she noticed the overcoat and hat had been taken off and put over a chair in front of the fire. A pair of wet boots threatened rust to her steel fender. She went to these things resolutely. "I suppose I may have them to dry now," she said in a voice that brooked no denial. "Leave the hat," said her visitor in a muffled voice, and turning she saw he had raised his head and was sitting looking at her. For a moment she stood gaping at him, too surprised to speak. He held a white cloth--it was a serviette he had brought with him--over the lower part of his face, so that his mouth and jaws were completely hidden, and that was the reason of his muffled voice. But it was not that which startled Mrs. Hall. It was the fact that all his forehead above his blue glasses was covered by a white bandage, and that another covered his ears, leaving not a scrap of his face exposed excepting only his pink, peaked nose. It was bright pink, and shiny just as it had been at first. He wore a dark-brown velvet jacket with a high black linen lined collar turned up about his neck. The thick black hair, escaping as it could below and between the cross bandages, projected in curious tails and horns, giving him the strangest appearance conceivable. This muffled and bandaged head was so unlike what she had anticipated, that for a moment she was rigid. He did not remove the serviette, but remained holding it, as she saw now, with a brown gloved hand, and regarding her with his inscrutable blue glasses. "Leave the hat," he said, speaking very distinctly through the white cloth. Her nerves began to recover from the shock they had received. She placed the hat on the chair again by the fire. "I didn't know, sir," she began, "that--" and she stopped embarrassed. "Thank you," he said drily, glancing from her to the door and then at her again. "I'll have them nicely dried, sir, at once," she said, and carried his clothes out of the room. She glanced at his white-swathed head and blue goggles again as she was going out of the door; but his napkin was still in front of his face. She shivered a little as she closed the door behind her, and her face was eloquent of her surprise and perplexity. "I never," she whispered. "There!" She went quite softly to the kitchen, and was too preoccupied to ask Millie what she was messing about with now, when she got there. The visitor sat and listened to her retreating feet. He glanced inquiringly at the window before he removed his serviette and resumed his meal. He took a mouthful, glanced suspiciously at the window, took another mouthful, then rose and, taking the serviette in his hand, walked across the room and pulled the blind down to the top of the white muslin


didn't really like it very much. It gave him rather a sad sort of feeling. He was glad to go to the top of the water again, and take deep breaths of air, and feel the warm sunshine on his shoulders. He climbed into the boat, "Most exciting," he said. "Golly, wouldn't I just love to see that wreck properly- you know- go down under the deck into the cabins and look around. And oh, suppose we could really find the boxes of gold!" "That's impossible," said George. "I told you proper divers have already gone down and found nothing. What's the time? I say, we'll be late if we don't hurry back now!" They did hurry back, and managed to be only about five minutes late for tea. Afterwards they went for a walk over the moors, with Timothy at their heels, and by the time that bedtime came they were all so sleepy that they could hardly keep their eyes open. "Well, good-night, George," said Anne, snuggling down into her bed. "We've had a lovely day- thanks to you!" "And I've had a lovely day, too," said George, rather gruffly. "Thanks to you. I'm glad you all came. We're going to have fun. And won't you love my castle and my little island!" "Ooh, yes," said Anne, and fell asleep to dream of wrecks and castles and islands by the hundred. Oh, when would George take them to her little island? Chapter Five A VISIT TO THE ISLAND Contents- Prev/Next The children's aunt arranged a picnic for them the next day, and they all went off to a little cove not far off where they could bathe and paddle to their hearts' content. They had a wonderful day, but secretly Julian, Dick and Anne wished they could have visited George's island. They would rather have done that than anything! George didn't want to go for the picnic, not because she disliked picnics, but because she couldn't take her dog. Her mother went with the children, and George had to pass a whole day without her beloved Timothy. "Bad luck!" said Julian, who guessed what she was brooding about. "I can't think why you don't tell your mother about old Tim. I'm sure she wouldn't mind you letting someone else keep him for you. I know my mother wouldn't mind." "I'm not going to tell anybody but you," said George. "I get into awful trouble at home always. I dare say it's my fault, but I get a bit tired of it. You see, Daddy doesn't make much money with the learned books he writes, and he's always wanting to give mother and me things he can't afford. So that makes him bad-tempered. He wants to send me away to a good school but he hasn't got the money. I'm glad. I don't want to go away to school. I like being here. I couldn't bear to part with Timothy." "You'd like boarding school," said Anne. "We all go. It's fun." "No, it isn't," said George obstinately. "It must be awful


and say that a kid will look you dead in your fucking face in a room that you work a soul-deadening job you fucking hate to keep warm, wearing the third pair of sneakers you bought so far this year, and tell you that you couldn’t possibly understand how hard their life is. “Oh, okay, sure, we had to do our grocery shopping on the bus, but please, by all means, tell me and my fucked-up childhood poverty teeth how hard it is to be shuttled to the orthodontist.” At least that’s what I think, but I don’t say that, because you know what? They don’t care and it’s fine. That trauma is meant to ruin the rest of my life, not some innocent’s, so why waste my breath recounting the torment of trying to do division longhand or getting caught talking shit on a muted three-way call when I could just go talk to some food about it?????? Watch horror movies. This is a thing I discovered by accident. One afternoon when I was sitting in the sunroom (in broad daylight, because I get too scared!) watching Orphan, a kid walked by and said, “Wow, you’re into horror? Cool,” as they passed through on their way to open six different cans of LaCroix and take one sip from each before leaving each of them precariously placed next to different expensive things that shouldn’t get water spilled on them. Yes I covered my eyes through most of it, but who cares! I got the approval of a child!! Buy them dumb shit their mom won’t? It doesn’t even have to be anything good or expensive, just know that if Mommy said no and Aunt Sammy says yes, then that kid is not only gonna think you’re fucking cool, they’re gonna think you’re cooler than their dumb mom, and you can use that leverage in your friendship should you need to shut Mommy’s ass up real quick. Example (but don’t do this): “I know you think you know everything, but your kid likes me more than you, so who wins now?!” Also, it helps to satisfy the urge to buy shit (the click-click-clicking heals me, I swear) without having more stuff piling up in your crib, waiting for you to find a place for it. I get a crumb of serotonin from adding something I don’t need to a virtual shopping cart, my friends’ kids get a frivolous thing their cruel parents would never waste money on, and then the kids think I’m thoughtful and awesome without any substantial proof! Act like you’re doing incredibly interesting stuff on your phone. This is what I do on my phone: (1) Look at Instagram. Seven hundred times a goddamn day, I just mindlessly scroll past a lot of faces I don’t even actually know, watching their stories and admiring their restaurant choices and wondering how they have so many interesting-looking friends. (2) Check my credit score. Life was infinitely better before you could just…check your life’s worth any old time you felt like it. When


by, windshield wipers squeaking. “Too much everything. Did you see that kid pull off his diaper and pee against a tree? And everybody talking at the same time. I don’t think I had one actual conversation.” “If you figure out how to have enough love without too much love, let me know,” Maud said. They crossed to the other side. Maud hadn’t meant to say something so serious. The chaos at the farm reminded her of family gatherings in Burlingame, with her elderly aunts clucking over the latest Hollywood scandal, her father and uncles roaring with laughter as a football game blared on the TV, nieces and nephews racing each other between the rooms, tripping on the carpet, skinning their knees, and crying, her mother barking orders at Maud and her sister from the kitchen. An only child, Gabriel had no idea. Peter, when he first met Maud’s family, had been shell-shocked, though in time, somehow, he’d adjusted. Even when they were divorced, Maud thought, as she and Gabriel passed through the gates, Peter would be in her life. She belonged to an equation in which Gabriel had no part. And how could he ever? They’d been playing house these weeks, and that was coming to an end. “I didn’t really want to go over there tonight,” Gabriel said. “I wanted us to have a last dinner together in our usual spot.” Maud swallowed her fear. “I’ll miss spending time with you,” she said. “Your husband will probably prefer it, though,” Gabriel said. “It doesn’t bug him that we’re always together? He knows, right?” They were passing the orchard, its cherry leaves buffed by the rain. Neither of them had opened the umbrellas, and Gabriel’s face glistened. Maud knew what he was really asking. “Peter and I are separated,” she said. “Separated like you were in England?” “No. Really separated. He thinks it’s temporary. I know it isn’t.” Gabriel stopped. “So, what does that mean?” He was an arm’s length away and he was looking at her softly, and it was up to her to decide what would happen next. For a moment, Maud thought she could do it. She’d take his hand and go with him to the farmhouse. She’d pull up that T-shirt, unbuckle that belt, open her mouth to his mouth, be with him as she hadn’t been with anyone for ages. But the most this could be was a fling, and if it went poorly, she’d still be here all summer living close to him, working on the same grounds. And right now her children were boarding a plane and heading her way. “It means my life is about to become very messy,” she said. “But isn’t yet,” Gabriel said. “It is in here.” Maud tapped her head. “And everything changes tomorrow.” She saw him readjust, take a step back. “We can meet up late,” he said. “Right? To talk. Your girls sleep, don’t they?” “They sleep,” she said. “Sort of. But you might not like me as a mother.” “How are you as a mother?” “Boring. Distracted.


sister, stood in too much awe of him to speak with the familiarity which Bingley's good humour encouraged, yet, whenever she _did_ speak, she must be vulgar. Nor was her respect for him, though it made her more quiet, at all likely to make her more elegant. Elizabeth did all she could to shield him from the frequent notice of either, and was ever anxious to keep him to herself, and to those of her family with whom he might converse without mortification; and though the uncomfortable feelings arising from all this took from the season of courtship much of its pleasure, it added to the hope of the future; and she looked forward with delight to the time when they should be removed from society so little pleasing to either, to all the comfort and elegance of their family party at Pemberley. __ CHAPTER XIX (61) HAPPY for all her maternal feelings was the day on which Mrs. Bennet got rid of her two most deserving daughters. With what delighted pride she afterwards visited Mrs. Bingley, and talked of Mrs. Darcy, may be guessed. I wish I could say, for the sake of her family, that the accomplishment of her earnest desire in the establishment of so many of her children produced so happy an effect as to make her a sensible, amiable, well-informed woman for the rest of her life; though perhaps it was lucky for her husband, who might not have relished domestic felicity in so unusual a form, that she still was occasionally nervous and invariably silly. Mr. Bennet missed his second daughter exceedingly; his affection for her drew him oftener from home than any thing else could do. He delighted in going to Pemberley, especially when he was least expected. Mr. Bingley and Jane remained at Netherfield only a twelvemonth. So near a vicinity to her mother and Meryton relations was not desirable even to _his_ easy temper, or _her_ affectionate heart. The darling wish of his sisters was then gratified; he bought an estate in a neighbouring county to Derbyshire, and Jane and Elizabeth, in addition to every other source of happiness, were within thirty miles of each other. Kitty, to her very material advantage, spent the chief of her time with her two elder sisters. In society so superior to what she had generally known, her improvement was great. She was not of so ungovernable a temper as Lydia; and, removed from the influence of Lydia's example, she became, by proper attention and management, less irritable, less ignorant, and less insipid. From the farther disadvantage of Lydia's society she was of course carefully kept, and though Mrs. Wickham frequently invited her to come and stay with her, with the promise of balls and young men, her father would never consent to her going. Mary was the only daughter who remained at home; and she was necessarily drawn from the pursuit of accomplishments by Mrs. Bennet's being quite unable to sit alone. Mary was obliged to mix more with the world, but she could still moralize


Hap lowered his hands, turning his face toward the sky. “L-look.” Vic lifted his head. He wasn’t sure what he was seeing at first. A smudge on the horizon above the expansive forest, black against a gunmetal sky. He thought it an errant cloud until it moved oddly, expanding and contracting. The hum around them increased as the smudge grew and took shape. Vic felt the vibrations it caused down to his bones. His hands shook. When he saw it for what it was, he still couldn’t believe his eyes. It didn’t seem possible. He’d read about them in books, had seen a picture of their massive size. In one of Dad’s books—Creatures of the Sea—there’d been a drawing of one with the outline of a man next to it, shown for scale. The beast dwarfed the man, a great monstrosity that Vic couldn’t believe actually existed. He’d never seen the ocean, though he could imagine how vast it had to be if it held creatures such as this. He couldn’t remember what it was called; Nurse Ratched did not have that problem. “A whale,” she said. “It is a whale.” But it wasn’t rising from the depths of any sea. It was flying toward them. The whale moved up and down as if swimming through the air. The top of it was black, the underbelly white with thick lines that ran along the length. It didn’t have eyes. Instead, across the middle of its head was a row of glass that wrapped around the front to either side. The flippers were thick and massive as they rose and fell. The horizontal tail moved up and down, propelling the beast forward. Its great mouth was closed. “What is that?” Rambo cried as the sound grew louder. “Is that a fish? How is a fish flying?” Vic couldn’t answer. He was struck dumb. Now that it was closer, Vic could see the lines underneath weren’t part of the flesh of the creature. They were panels. It wasn’t alive at all. It was a machine. A massive machine that dwarfed even the Old Ones. Across the side, above the flipper, were three white words in the black of the metal skin. THE TERRIBLE DOGFISH The flying machine stopped above the Scrap Yards, hovering in place. Air began to whip ferociously as it lowered toward the earth, scrap heaps collapsing in showers of dust and sparks. With a magnificent groan, the whale’s mouth dropped open, the lower jaw folding down and back. The throat of the whale was metal and lined with what looked like railed walkways. Vic squinted against the dust blowing, sure he could see movement inside the whale’s mouth on the platforms, though it was too far away for him to make out what exactly it was. As he looked on, black cables dropped from the whale’s mouth. At the tip of each cable was a flat, circular disc, large enough to carry people or machines. They lowered toward the ground where the three figures stood. In silence, they watched as the


With a gasp, I bolted upright. A shout rose and died in my throat. Pressing a hand to my racing heart, I struggled to calm myself as my eyes adjusted to the dimness of my new setting. The room of relics had vanished. This room was smaller, containing only a mirror, a rocking chair, and the cot beneath me. No war cabinets or weapons. Thick, mossy vines weaved over the dirt floor, explaining the scent of damp decay. The walls had been erected directly around the floor of the woods. I sniffed, searching for a note of manure or rotten eggs to determine my distance from Hirun, and instantly regretted it. An overwhelmingly foul odor gagged me. If this was death, my soul hadn’t wound up anywhere good. On the off chance I was still among the living, I pressed my hand over my nose, sipping the air in tiny, careful pulls. From the size of the vines winding over the ground, this room had been built a long time ago. Perhaps he enjoyed killing me so much that he moved me somewhere new to do it again. I reached to scratch my shoulder and flinched. My wrists. The Commander had snapped the right one and crushed the other, and I distinctly recalled my cuffs grinding the bones of both to dust. Bewildered, I rotated them. Nothing—no pain. Baira’s blessed hair, had I finally gone mad? My torn clothes had been replaced by a simple linen gown. The thought of one of the Nizahl guardsmen stripping my clothes while I slept made me grit my teeth. I cast an assessing glance over the room once more, searching for anything I could use as a weapon. Because your last endeavor to kill the Heir was so exceedingly successful, Hanim bit out. Who said anything about trying to kill him again? My intentions began and ended with getting out of this room. I turned on the cot, setting my feet on the ground. They settled over a bulbous, springy surface. I frowned. Odd, why would the vines be— I looked down and screamed. My legs violently recoiled, knocking my knees against my chin. Stretched on the ground beside my bed was the soldier I killed. A bone of his snapped neck protruded from the waxen glaze of his skin. Insects skittered in the open gash under his belly. My stomach turned as his lips pulsed, parting briefly as a roach escaped onto his cheek. I had seen many corpses, but never quite this far into death. Yuck. He must have been a nightmare for the guards to carry. I stretched my leg to hop over him when something much more unsettling caught my eye. On the soldier’s chest lay a wrapped sesame-seed candy. The door opened. Jeru and Vaun entered, moving to opposite sides of the frame. They stood at attention. Arin strode past them. With his hair swept tidily from his face and his vest meticulously laced beneath his coat, it was hard to imagine someone with such self-possession had nearly strangled me


remained. “Now, look here, Virginia,” my father said as he continued to stare at the knife. “There’s no need for that.” I kept my own gaze on Ricky. “Tell him! Tell him you love me and that we’re going to run away and find our baby and have a happy family.” “But he doesn’t want that,” my father said. “Do you, son?” “You’re lying.” I turned to Ricky. “Tell me he’s lying!” Ricky’s gaze also skipped about. To the unlit fireplace, to his hands, to the zebra rug under his feet. Anywhere but at me. “It’s true, Ginny,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry.” “See?” My father’s tone was shockingly boastful. He was, I realized, enjoying the worst moment of my life. “I know you’re hurt now, but it’s for the best. You don’t want trash like him dragging you down for the rest of your life.” “But--” It was all I could muster. Shock and heartbreak had silenced me. But I knew I could still speak volumes with the knife in my hand. I tried to rush at both of them, not caring which one I hurt just as long as I inflicted pain on someone. But before I could take a step, I was halted by a gentle grip on the arm that held the knife. My mother. No doubt summoned by my sister. Although I was surprised to see her out of bed and walking around on her own, my mother barely seemed fazed by the sight of me holding a knife. Alert for the first time in weeks, she knew exactly what was transpiring in that billiard room. “Don’t, my darling,” she said, her hands disconcertingly strong as she wrested the knife from my grip. “They’re not worth destroying your young life over.” I let her take the knife from my hand and collapsed against her, weeping. With the knife in one hand and stroking my hair with the other, she addressed my father. “Fifty thousand dollars, Winston? Your price has gone up. If I recall, you only offered twenty-five thousand to make the man I loved go away.” “That didn’t stop him from taking it,” my father said with not an ounce of softness in his voice. “You can judge me for it all you want--and you certainly have--but it was the best thing to happen to you. It allowed you to get married, pretend that Lenora was my child, and keep your precious reputation intact.” His words caused something inside my mother to break. I watched it happen. Her eyes went dark and her body still. Standing silent and motionless, she reminded me of a clock unnervingly stopped at midnight. Yet one small part of her continued to tick. I saw that, too. Something coiled around the gears of her mind, ready to spring. And spring she did. Toward my father. Knife in hand. Not stopping until the blade was deep in his side. My father didn’t scream when the knife plunged into him. I did that for him, letting out a sharp cry that pinged around the


before the terminal and waited. "The time is nearly upon us," said one, and Arthur was surprised to see a word suddenly materialize in thin air just by the man's neck. The word was Loonquawl, and it flashed a couple of times and the disappeared again. Before Arthur was able to assimilate this the other man spoke and the word Phouchg appeared by his neck. "Seventy-five thousand generations ago, our ancestors set this program in motion," the second man said, "and in all that time we will be the first to hear the computer speak." "An awesome prospect, Phouchg," agreed the first man, and Arthur suddenly realized that he was watching a recording with subtitles. "We are the ones who will hear," said Phouchg, "the answer to the great question of Life ...!" "The Universe ...!" said Loonquawl. "And Everything ...!" "Shhh," said Loonquawl with a slight gesture, "I think Deep Thought is preparing to speak!" There was a moment's expectant pause whilst panels slowly came to life on the front of the console. Lights flashed on and off experimentally and settled down into a businesslike pattern. A soft low hum came from the communication channel. "Good morning," said Deep Thought at last. "Er ... Good morning, O Deep Thought," said Loonquawl nervously, "do you have ... er, that is ..." "An answer for you?" interrupted Deep Thought majestically. "Yes. I have." The two men shivered with expectancy. Their waiting had not been in vain. "There really is one?" breathed Phouchg. "There really is one," confirmed Deep Thought. "To Everything? To the great Question of Life, the Universe and Everything?" "Yes." Both of the men had been trained for this moment, their lives had been a preparation for it, they had been selected at birth as those who would witness the answer, but even so they found themselves gasping and squirming like excited children. "And you're ready to give it to us?" urged Loonquawl. "I am." "Now?" "Now," said Deep Thought. They both licked their dry lips. "Though I don't think," added Deep Thought, "that you're going to like it." "Doesn't matter!" said Phouchg. "We must know it! Now!" "Now?" inquired Deep Thought. "Yes! Now ..." "Alright," said the computer and settled into silence again. The two men fidgeted. The tension was unbearable. "You're really not going to like it," observed Deep Thought. "Tell us!" "Alright," said Deep Thought. "The Answer to the Great Question ..." "Yes ...!" "Of Life, the Universe and Everything ..." said Deep Thought. "Yes ...!" "Is ..." said Deep Thought, and paused. "Yes ...!" "Is ..." "Yes ...!!!...?" "Forty-two," said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm. ================================================================= Chapter 28 It was a long time before anyone spoke. Out of the corner of his eye Phouchg could see the sea of tense expectant faces down in the square outside. "We're going to get lynched aren't we?" he whispered. "It was a tough assignment," said Deep Thought mildly. "Forty-two!" yelled Loonquawl. "Is that all you've got to show for seven and a half million years' work?" "I checked


Christina Lauren - The True Love Experiment.txt

of the bed. I stare down at the view of her completely bare legs. I am well and truly fucked if I have to watch her go on dates with other men on television with the perky curve of her ass cheek right in front of me, peeking out the bottom of her tiny shorts. Shifting, I lie beside her, mimicking her posture. “Bet Colby doesn’t survive the week.” “Or Jude.” She lifts her chin when he comes on-screen, walking toward her in the park where they’ll plant trees. “I’m honestly impressed with how good you are at your job.” “How so?” “This date,” she says, nodding to the television. “It looks so intimate, like we’re in this gorgeous park, completely alone. You’ve captured my expressions in a way that makes it seem like I’m swooning over him. And Jude—look at him. What is that filter? I need it in front of my face at all times. He looks so hot and not at all derpy here.” She laughs. “In reality, it was eighty-nine degrees, humid, and crowded.” She points. “Was I looking at him there or you? I swear that entire date I kept looking at you.” “We might have to work on that a little,” I say with a nudge to her shoulder. “I appreciate the boost to my ego, but audiences need to imagine you falling in love with any one of them.” Fizzy rolls her eyes at the TV. “Nobody will believe I’m into someone who unironically used the phrase legitimate vampire literature.” “Any true vampire expert would have understood your Volterra joke.” Fizzy sits up and turns to face me. “I knew you’d get that!” “The movies alone made over three billion dollars worldwide. And Nat dragged our entire uni crew to see New Moon.” Fizzy settles back as the show continues, and I can’t help but wonder what the audience is feeling after watching Jude fizzle out almost as much as Colby. But then Isaac is on-screen. I’d missed most of their date in real time, so I was surprised when I sat in the editing booth and watched it unroll in front of me. Even unedited, the footage of them together is brimming with sexual tension. When Fizzy loses her shoe somewhere along the bike path, it turns hilariously slapstick as they try to retrieve it without getting off the tandem bike, laughing the entire way. In every shot of Isaac listening to her speak, he looks smitten. Fizzy, too, seems to be enjoying herself, and it didn’t take creative editing to do it. She’s fun and funny and looks like she’s genuinely trying to impress him. It hits me like a slap that I’ve never seen Fizzy try to impress anyone before. “You two look good together,” I say. “I like him.” I bristle at the note of fondness in her voice. Of course she likes him, he’s objectively wonderful, interested in her, and available. I should be encouraging it, not wanting to yell, “Cut!” each time he makes her smile. I startle when


gazing at the wall about a metre above the level of Winston's head. He was shoeless; large, dirty toes were sticking out of the holes in his socks. He was also several days away from a shave. A scrubby beard covered his face to the cheekbones, giving him an air of ruffianism that went oddly with his large weak frame and nervous movements. Winston roused hirnself a little from his lethargy. He must speak to Ampleforth, and risk the yell from the telescreen. It was even conceivable that Ampleforth was the bearer of the razor blade. 'Ampleforth,' he said. There was no yell from the telescreen. Ampleforth paused, mildly startled. His eyes focused themselves slowly on Winston. 'Ah, Smith!' he said. 'You too!' 'What are you in for?' 'To tell you the truth--' He sat down awkwardly on the bench opposite Winston. 'There is only one offence, is there not?' he said. 'And have you committed it?' 'Apparently I have.' He put a hand to his forehead and pressed his temples for a moment, as though trying to remember something. 'These things happen,' he began vaguely. 'I have been able to recall one instance--a possible instance. It was an indiscretion, undoubtedly. We were producing a definitive edition of the poems of Kipling. I allowed the word "God" to remain at the end of a line. I could not help it!' he added almost indignantly, raising his face to look at Winston. 'It was impossible to change the line. The rhyme was "rod". Do you realize that there are only twelve rhymes to "rod" in the entire language? For days I had racked my brains. There WAS no other rhyme.' The expression on his face changed. The annoyance passed out of it and for a moment he looked almost pleased. A sort of intellectual warmth, the joy of the pedant who has found out some useless fact, shone through the dirt and scrubby hair. 'Has it ever occurred to you,' he said, 'that the whole history of English poetry has been determined by the fact that the English language lacks rhymes?' file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt (125 of 170) [1/17/03 5:04:52 AM] file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt No, that particular thought had never occurred to Winston. Nor, in the circumstances, did it strike him as very important or interesting. 'Do you know what time of day it is?' he said. Ampleforth looked startled again. 'I had hardly thought about it. They arrested me--it could be two days ago--perhaps three.' His eyes flitted round the walls, as though he half expected to find a window somewhere. 'There is no difference between night and day in this place. I do not see how one can calculate the time.' They talked desultorily for some minutes, then, without apparent reason, a yell from the telescreen bade them be silent. Winston sat quietly, his hands crossed. Ampleforth, too large to sit in comfort on the narrow bench, fidgeted from side to side, clasping his lank hands first round one knee, then round the other. The telescreen barked at him to keep still. Time passed. Twenty minutes,


the law that are exploited by the traffickers. It’s the same loopholes we’ve been talking about for years.” Nielsen listed off the ways the immigration system was broken, but she was cut off again. “Why are we still talking about it? Why haven’t you given Congress the bill, Kirstjen?” “We’ve written text to reform the immigration system, Mr. President. But it’s been stuck in your White House. No one seems to think this is an emergency.” He exploded at the comment. There was chatter in the background, and we realized other people were in the room with Trump. He was clearly in the Oval Office and, thankfully, not yet in the skies headed our direction. “Goddamnit! Stephen, tell them to get that bill done today. Send the fucking bill to Congress today, you understand? It needs to fix the loopholes. And we need to get rid of asylum. Just get rid of it. We are full, and no one should be able to claim asylum.” The background cross-chat around Trump grew louder. The secretary rolled her eyes. Getting “rid” of asylum—which allowed people to seek humanitarian protection in the United States—was not part of the draft bill, nor was what Trump said next. “And it needs to get rid of the fucking immigration judges. There should not be any judges at all. These guys are unionized, when the fuck did that happen?” “Many years ago, sir,” Kirstjen said. “All right, well just do it. Get the bill sent. I just need you to do your job.” “Mr. President, I’m doing everything within my power—everything—to respond to this emergency. I’ve sent requests over and over to the White House for help, and I don’t get anything. You need to order other departments to assist.” “Oh, so now it’s on me? You’re saying it’s on me, Kirstjen, the President of the United States?” “Sir, I have asked your staff for more space to hold migrants, a supplemental appropriation to Congress to build bigger and more humane facilities, legislation to fix the loopholes, a single person to be in charge at the White House—” “Space? Kirstjen I told you to tell DOD to build some goddamn tents!” “Sir, I am not the Defense Department. I cannot order them what to do. You are the commander in chief.” “So now it’s my fault? I have 100—130—140 fucking things I’m supposed to do. I’ve got North Korea. China. You should just do your job!” “What do you want me to do that I am not already doing? Tell me, Mr. President. Tell me what I am legally allowed to do that I’m not doing.” “Keep them out. That’s your job.” “Sir, I just, I just don’t know what you want. You have said it yourself so many times that our hands are tied because of the loopholes and the court decisions. I can’t just keep everyone out. I can’t break the law.” “Why are you telling me all this shit now?” “I have been telling you for months what problems we have. Months. And your staff every


I just . . . I lost the best man I knew, and it was like I stopped knowing how to exist. Like the world didn’t make any sense anymore. And you had this new life, this thing you’d been dreaming of for so long, and all these new friends, and—and I was greedy for your time, and I hated myself for not being happy for you. I hated myself for not being good enough or smart enough or driven enough for you.” “Fuck that.” I try to push back from him. He holds me fast, doesn’t let me go, and it makes me so angry, how he’s holding on now, when it’s too late. “Listen,” he murmurs, “please let me say this.” I lift my gaze to his. I think of the first time I ever saw his face up close, how his features had struck me as contradictory, a rare mix of magnetism and standoffishness: I want you close, but don’t look at me. Now he’s pure quicksand. No stoniness. Wide open. “I was lost,” he says. “As much as I loved my parents—as much as I always knew they loved me—I grew up thinking I was a letdown. I had these two incredible sisters, who came out of fucking left field and were nothing like my parents or anyone else in our town, and as early as I can remember, everyone knew they were going to do something amazing. I mean, when I was twelve and Lou was nine, people were already talking about how she’d win a Pulitzer someday. No one was giving me imaginary awards.” “Wyn.” We’d been down this path too many times. “I’m not saying anyone thought I was stupid,” he says. “But that’s how it felt. Like I was the one who didn’t have anything going for him except that I’m nice.” “Nice?” I can’t help but scoff. Generous, thoughtful, endlessly curious, painfully empathetic, funny, vast. Not nice. Nice was the mask Wyn Connor led with. “I wanted to be special, Harriet,” he says. “And since I wasn’t, I settled for trying to make everyone love me. I know how ridiculous that sounds, but it’s true. I spent my whole life chasing things and people who could make me feel like I mattered.” That stings, somewhere deep beneath my breastbone. I try again, feebly, to draw back. Wyn’s hand moves to the back of my neck, light, careful. “And then I met you, and I didn’t feel so lost or aimless. Because even if there was nothing else for me, it felt like loving you was what I was made for. And it didn’t matter what anyone thought of me. It didn’t matter if I didn’t have any other big plans for myself, as long as I got to love you.” “So that’s it?” I say raggedly. “I took up all the oxygen, and you didn’t tell me until I’d suffocated you. Until you didn’t love me anymore, and there was nothing I could do.” “I will always love you,” he says fiercely. “That’s