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
Lizzie still sometimes, though, when she is in her room, can’t help thinking about Thanksgiving when Harry was up there with her and she tried to make him tell her about Loudermilk. Harry, Lizzie reflects, would have been perfect to be her Leonardo DiCaprio, but obviously she is not lucky enough to be into that. Lizzie is cursed with liking guys like Loudermilk, the Billy Zanes of this world. She’s cursed with stalking them at the mall and downtown, then calling them up constantly until they agree to see her. And then she’s cursed with needing to bend them to her will, which in Loudermilk’s case has included a lot of agonized grunts and blue balls in semi-public places. Anyway, Harry is kind of a weirdo, even if he is a Leonardo, what with him being in such proximity to her bedroom in the first place and obviously right in the middle of perpetrating some kind of freaky voyeur thing on her mom. It felt, speaking of voyeurs, very French, very New Wave, for a second there, and perhaps Lizzie had been somehow reacting to that. Lizzie sighs. Now her mother is getting exercised about something or other and the smoke is coming out heavy and she’s starting to cough. Actually, it looks for a second like she’s choking, but then she’s waving a hand in front of her face or even laughing, and she hangs up and flicks away the cigarette and goes indoors, and it turns out CPR is not necessary, for which thank the freaking Lord.
Anyway, it’s Saturday, the worst day of the week. Not to mention that today happens to be the worst day of the second week of February and also the worst day of the entire year.
Lizzie is supposed to call some people she knows to do something, but honestly she doesn’t feel that much like it. She thinks about working some more on her art project, still shoved to the back of her desk drawer and now additionally sequestered inside an old Christmas card, a churchyard drowning in iridescent snow.
Lizzie puts the binoculars down. She’s done with her Pirate’s Booty, which will be doubling as a low-calorie dinner. She goes into her bathroom to wash her hands and spends a little time primping in front of the mirror. Lizzie reflects on the fact that she’s way too good for this stupid town. Even her mother knows it, which is why she feels so guilty all the time about them having to live here.
Maybe they will go to Switzerland. Lizzie can meet some new men there.
Lizzie is making a photogenic face at herself in the mirror.
She stops making the face.