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
“Here is my desk!” Lizzie trills, hopping over to another white item with intricate legs. “My workspace, I mean. I have some mock-ups for my newest art project, if you want to see?”
Harry, silent, hovers near the door.
Lizzie seems disappointed. “I have this whole concept. It’s about copying. But whatever, I get it, time is money and so forth. Want to smoke?” She is smiling hard in Harry’s general direction.
Harry does not know what to do. He feels worse about himself than he has in a long time, and this is genuinely saying something. He can perceive something, an idea, a plan that has formed in Lizzie’s mind, and now he can’t seem to keep it out of his own mind. Lizzie thinks that she caught Harry peeping at her mom. She thinks that she has seen something about Harry, who he is. Lizzie thinks that he, Harry, wants something. That he has an agenda, is concerned with her mom’s extracurricular activities. Lizzie—Lizzie wants to let Harry know—has an agenda, too.
Harry would like to say something now about how really it was “Troy” who’d been eavesdropping on Lizzie’s mom, not spying, but the way Lizzie is looking at him makes it impossible for Harry to conceive of his ever having been anybody but Harry. Maybe it actually was Harry who was eavesdropping on Lizzie’s mom, Marta Hillary, and maybe he did do more than eavesdrop. But suddenly Lizzie is standing only about a foot away from him, and Harry doesn’t know how she got so close.
“Hi, Harry,” says Lizzie in a weird, deep voice.
Harry almost manages to say hi in reply.
“I’m really glad you’re here.” Lizzie continues with the intent gazing. “I have a joke for you.”
“OK.”
“Why should the Pilgrims have killed cats instead of turkeys?”
“I don’t know.”
Lizzie smiles. “Because then every Thanksgiving we could eat pussy!”
Harry begins analyzing the carpet.
“It’s a joke! It’s kind of feminist, or whatever?”
The carpet in here is the color of ham.
“Harry, I just meant to, like, break the ice? See, thing is, I kind of really need, like, some feedback. Maybe you can help me.”
Lizzie smells like summer.
Lizzie says, “Anyway.” She takes a deep breath. “I also need to ask you something about your friend Loudermilk.”
Harry does not say anything. He looks up at Lizzie, whose eyes are closed. Her lashes twitch. “I might be in love, Harry.” Lizzie’s eyes are still closed. “How does that sound?”
Harry takes advantage of Lizzie’s self-inflicted blindness to back quietly from the room and hustle down the hall. Harry descends the soft stairs. In the hall below he encounters Marta Hillary.
“Oh!” is what Marta, like an echo, exclaims. She is standing just outside the door to her own kitchen. She wears black pants and a loose black blouse, pearls.