Chapters (60)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Personae
- I: Early Days
- One. Control
- Two. Doubt
- Three. Fate
- Four. Same
- Five. Fine Arts
- Six. In Loco Parentis
- Seven. Settling
- Eight. Neighbors
- Nine. Prospects
- Ten. The Lucky
- Eleven. Instruction
- Twelve. Same
- Thirteen. This Is a Pipe
- Fourteen. This Is Not a Pipe
- Fifteen. The Reason
- Sixteen. That Person
- Seventeen. Predictably
- II: Writing Teacher
- Eighteen. Early Poems
- Nineteen. Motivation
- Twenty. Allegory
- Twenty-One. Grief
- Twenty-Two. A Portrait
- Twenty-Three. Veils
- Twenty-Four. Soft Power
- Twenty-Five. Lists
- Twenty-Six. A Break
- Twenty-Seven. Elsewhere
- Twenty-Eight. Custom
- Twenty-Nine. Parity
- Thirty. Fortune
- III: Volta
- Thirty-One. Images
- Thirty-Two. A Very Interesting Young Man
- Thirty-Three. Letters
- Thirty-Four. We Prefer to See Ourselves Living
- Thirty-Five. Love
- Thirty-Six. The Iceberg
- IV: Your Best Reader
- Thirty-Seven. A Novelist
- Thirty-Eight. In Advance of the Broken Arm
- Thirty-Nine. Their Penultimate Encounter
- Forty. Détente
- Forty-One. Worlds
- Forty-Two. Recognition
- Forty-Three. Persistence
- Forty-Four. And Then
- Forty-Five. Mingling
- Forty-Six. You
- Forty-Seven. Persona
- Forty-Eight. Est et Non
- Forty-Nine. The Author
- Epilogue
- Afterword: The Libertine
- Acknowledgments
- About the Authors
She waited. She wanted to remember the phrase she had just moments earlier composed: Marcy, I’m so sorry to bother you. I just wanted to let you know how much I am enjoying this position.
It reminded her of what she’d told the fireman, when he’d asked her not to leave her toothbrush in his sink-top glass, when he’d lovingly restored it to the front pocket of her backpack.
But now the panel was actually genuinely moving, and it was going to be necessary to speak.
Today’s sweater was chartreuse. Marcy peered out, stifling a yawn. “Yes?”
“Marcy, I’m so—” Alice began to say, but now she could no longer remember her prepared statement. Somewhere on the street below somebody was leaning on their horn, and this was when it happened.
There was a hiss. Actually, it was a hiss followed by a sort of gurgling, whispery echo, as of wet sand sucked down a drain. It was very close to Alice’s left ear. Alice heard someone mutter, “She doesn’t care.”
At first, because it had been so long, you know, since, Alice concluded that it was Marcy who had done the speaking. It took a few seconds to parse Marcy’s intent. Alice decided to ask, “Who doesn’t?” She said this softly. She did not wish to appear out of line.
Marcy blinked. “Sorry?”
There came a slithering rustle. “Tell hr nothing’s wrong, you have cramps.”
Marcy’s lips were not moving.
“Uh,” Alice was saying.
“Tell.”
“S-sorry, Marcy,” Alice stuttered. “I—uh—wasn’t feeling very well, and I just wondered—um.” She could go no further.
“Oh, wow,” said Marcy. “You should take the day? I think it’s fine. See you Monday.” And Marcy shut the partition.
Maybe it was luck, a piece of fortune, but the thing was really did she want to return to the apartment? A downstairs neighbor was home with a troublesome pregnancy and spent many hours with the phone on speaker, updating a female relation.
Alice selected Union Square Park. It was not the cleanest but was free. She set her bag on her knees and withdrew New York magazine.
In the section on parties, actors and R&B singers made a few patriotic assertions. Alice stared at the silk-wrapped breasts of one reality star.
No need to think about it yet.
Alice turned the page.
It was an ad for GUESS jeans. A caption read: “FALL 2002, Death Valley, CA, Golden.” In the ad, a couple propped each other up atop a pile of boulders in distressed denim. They had presumably been photographed just moments before they were to die of thirst after their motorcycle crash.
“They look happy.”
Alice froze. The voice was to her right.
To her relief it was an actual person. Alice’s eyes fell on a long thigh in over-dyed jeans.
“It’s funny how that’s supposed to interest someone.”