Read Online Intimations by Alexandra Kleeman - Free Book Online Page B

days, even though he had said that he would check up on her once she got back to the city.
    â€œI am re-creating a website,” said Martin, sitting up and blinking at her with his round, factual eyes. “It is an artist’s website, a photographer. I create the infrastructure,” he said, drawing something like a box in the air with thin fingers.
    â€œI am from Germany,” he said.
    â€œOh,” said Karen. “That’s interesting.”
    â€œI am here for work,” said Martin. “I am staying in the neighborhood, with a friend. We work together on this project. We had a great deal to do.”
    â€œI’m writing an article,” said Karen. “Beginning an article,” she explained. She felt self-conscious. She could no longer talk about her troubles with the article without revealing herself to be a disaster. “It’s on a farmer, a dairy farmer. Who is supposed to be a genius at cows.”
    â€œYou must have to go far to find a cow in this part of the country,” he said, “unless I am misunderstanding.”
    He had a very gentle voice. He didn’t seem to know much about agriculture. He asked about the size of the farm, the distance from the city, and about the cows—were they gentle? They were very gentle. They were tender with their young. But they weren’t really interested in anyone. It made them easier to slaughter: up until the very moment of the act you could imagine they might not notice. Karen twisted open the bottle of water and took a small, polite sip. She was becoming interested in herself again after several weeks of wishing she could be anybody else. Did she like milk very much? Yes, she did, this is how she found the story, she drank the wonderful milk that cost $13 a bottle and then began to investigate where it came from and how it could be so good. It was three o’clock in the afternoon and the grayish winter light looked flat through the plate glass windows. She had a sense of her face as flexible, soft. This was the longest that Karen had talked to a person since Vanessa’s birthday party last week where Vanessa had compromised herself with whiskey sodas and made Karen promise never to get back together with Tim, ever, because he was a sneak and a pervert, practically a stalker and she could do so much better, she was better off. Vanessa and Tim had been friends since college, but after the breakup Vanessa said she was choosing Karen. “I’m not saying Tim’s a terrible person,” she said, “he’s a mediocre person. But he’s one of those people who won’t let up. He thinks he can wear you down, and he can.”
    When Martin asked her if she’d like to go next door and have a pizza, she didn’t think about whether it would be awkward. She thought about how normal it was to talk to someone, to drink coffee, to thrust your face into full viewof other faces, to let the daylight grime up your skin. “I think I can take a break,” Karen said abstractly, like one being shaken out of deep concentration, “but I’ll need to come back afterwards, I have a deadline coming.” They put their things into bags and stood up. He tried to carry her bag, but he kept dropping it.
    A middle-aged man and woman were sitting at the tables closest to the exit. They sat separately, but had identical laptops. “You know what,” Karen heard the man say as she passed by. “I haven’t dreamt in a very long time.”
    In the pizza restaurant, Martin looked five years older. A waiter brought them ice water in green-tinted glasses of pebbled plastic, and straws. Karen watched as Martin tore the tips from the paper casings of the straws and gently pulled them off. He split the remainder of the wrapper down its seam precisely, like he was undressing a doll. She wondered whether this had to do with being German. Karen didn’t use the straw he had prepared for her. She