I nodded and imagined that there were a ton of these sorts of symbols and nuances she had missed, and I almost felt the need to explain them all to her, about how I perceived the book to work on different levels, but the thought of trying to clarify in five minutes what it had taken me a year to figure out was too daunting, even if I did think it might sway her opinion. So I didn’t say anything and tried discounting Carolyn’s view by reminding myself that I had never seen the girl read a book before. Hell, maybe mine was her first. What did I expect? It’s a masculine book, and while the vast majority of the world’s readership is women, it was never written with women in mind. It wasn’t written with anyone in mind. Just a story I felt was true to the world I knew.

“I really wish I knew where Gene was,” I said. Every day, I went up and knocked at his door; every day, my knocks went unanswered. He’d been gone for a month and a half. Who knew if he was ever coming back?

Carolyn sat at the foot of the bed and I stared at the back of her head. The more I thought about it the sadder I became that she didn’t like the book. She had been my ideal reader and I had written almost every page of it with her in mind, writing certain lines with the ulterior motive of making her smile while hoping she might fall further in love with me. She was who I had wanted to most impress, and I think that had she’d known how important it was to me, or known just how badly I needed some semblance of positive reinforcement, or any encouragement at all to keep this dream of mine alive, regardless of the source, then she might’ve lied and said she loved it. But she didn’t, and instead I lay there feeling insignificant.

“Did I ever tell you I was a state champion in wrestling?”

“Yes, several times.”

“I also took third in the nation. I was an All-American.”

“I know you were.”

“I should have won it all.”

“Yeah?” she said, sensing that I had a profound need to tell her this, and by obliging me, she reminded me of one of my mother’s old tricks: During the times my father was in one of his moods, she’d ask him to open ajar, claiming that its lid was screwed on too tightly for her to manage herself. Once I even witnessed her tightening it further before handing it over to him, and afterward, my father always seemed a little better, and thus I’d learned that the easiest way for a woman to restore a man’s virility is by asking him to open ajar.