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
Alice glanced across the crotch of the jeans to the hem of a striped polo in shades of peach, squash, and carmine. There were ropy arms attached to this affair and a handsome grinning head.
“Sorry if I startled you,” the head pronounced. “I don’t normally talk to strangers.”
“Oh,” said Alice, squinting.
A black fly zoomed.
The male body laughed for no apparent reason. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Alice,” Alice immediately replied. She felt better, if dizzy. What a relief; he was just trying to pick her up.
“Ha,” said the body. He wanted to know what she was doing. He said that they should go somewhere if she felt like it.
It had only been a very minor incident. And now there was only a very minor incident, again. But this was to be expected. They were crossing the street, and in the wind produced by a taxi flashing across an intersection, there came a kind of crinkling, a puffiness in the depths of Alice’s left ear, and there it was once more, It said, “Fun.” Just that. Fun.
They drank wheat beers, and he was not weird.
“I just really liked your outfit,” he said. “I could tell it said something about you. Like how you carried yourself.”
He said, “Don’t think I’m weird.”
She was like, “Oh my god of course not!”
His name was Alan, and they talked for an hour about having nearly identical A names. It was a subject since it affected one’s sense of self. One frequently came first, because of the letter. If your name was Alan or, say, Alice.
Alice adopted Alan’s tone. He was casual but seemed to have standards. He was from the city, duh.
Alice glanced around the room. They were below street level, and there was a sweet and aged light dribbling in through the windows.
Alan was at Stern.
He was interested in sustainability.
He was examining her and wanting to know something or other about her “roots.”
Alice said, “Like where I’m from?”
“Sure.” Alan crossed his arms over his chest. “Since you know I’m from here.”
“Oh, yeah,” Alice said.
“So? Yeah?” Alan grinned. He revealed very straight, but also very narrow and weak-looking, teeth.
Alice got up and told Alan that she needed to use the bathroom.
In the “bathroom,” which was in fact an alcove with a sink and toilet stashed behind a pair of cabinet doors that attached to each other with Velcro, Alice began washing her hands.
She gazed into a spotted mirror that hung from a wire.
Because there had already been two minor incidents.
This was why they were, in hindsight, so very clear. They were minor, as yet. Just practical nothings. If she ever remembered this, this would be the day on which it would have started again, if it did, which it might not.
The voice was distinct.