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
“Hello, who is this, please?” Richard keeps his distance. Quiet now, it is Eloise.
“It’s Eloise. Is Jen there?”
“No, Eloise. She’s at school.”
“Oh. Is Amy there?”
“No, she’s not.”
“Can I leave a message?”
“Do you expect them to be coming here soon?”
“I didn’t know.”
“What?”
“Well, actually I thought they might.”
“No, they’re not here.” Richard is trying to decide if something is wrong with Eloise. “I think that the best thing to do would be to call them at school.” A triumphant hunter-green plaid flashes before his eyes. The pattern of the upholstery on his chair.
“I need to talk.”
“Oh. I’m not sure I understand.”
“That’s a long-distance phone call. I’m calling from work now.”
“Oh. And where is that, Eloise?”
“At the basin.”
Richard has the extra flesh that covers his right haunch in one hand. When he is idle, he will sometimes attempt to manually measure whether or not he has gained weight in the past few days. His wife is washing a dish. She has her face down over the sink. He can see the dark star along her scalp where her dyed hair parts. It might be that she is pretending not to listen to him, smiling, with the water on hard. But she is probably just not listening. She has always had the idea that because he loves comfort he can do no wrong.
“Well, gee, Eloise, I don’t suppose I can interest you in making this phone call from our house?”
“Well, you might.”
“Because, you see, we also have to communicate with our children sometime. Is it Jen you’re interested in speaking to? That would be good, because it’s been a few days since we’ve talked to her.”
“Yeah, well, it really doesn’t matter that much.”
“Yeah, well, OK then.” He can’t quite place what’s in her voice.
“When are you going to call her?”
“Whenever you want. I don’t think she leaves her dorm room except late, late at night.”
Eloise does not react. There is no further acknowledgment of either Amy or Jen. “So I don’t know if you’re really busy or what, but if you wouldn’t mind driving over here, I’d really appreciate it. Something happened to my car two weeks ago, and now I’m basically stranded except for when my brother can spare his. It would be a big, um, really help, Dr. Lehren.”
She’s not working very hard at persuading him, but Richard would like to go for a drive, so he pretends that he is somebody’s father. “Sure then, Eloise. Where shall I pick you up?”
“I can stand in the lower lot.”
“Sounds good to me. See you in twenty minutes?”
“Yeah, you should know I also changed my hair. It’s short and I darkened it.”
“Well, then I’ll know which one you are.”