seemed, already sense.
“I’m here for Lynn,” she said.
“You must be Nora. I’m Philip.”
Lynn’s husband. Not for long.
Lynn, walking fast, click-click on little heels into the front hall, was fully dressed in forest-green linen trousers, matchingblouse, golden bracelets. “Philip!” she cried. “Good God,” and turning to Nora she said, “Honestly, I just never know what he’s going to do next,” and there was a pride in her tone, a self-satisfaction that rendered Nora unsympathetic.
Nora and Lynn went off for their lunch; nothing monumentally life-altering happened as immediately as that. But something did happen and obviously they then failed to pursue their old loose, unnecessary acquaintanceship. They were all young. Domestic shufflings, while awkward, weren’t necessarily excruciating. Everyone involved still had plenty of future, no need to resent whole wasted decades. Naturally a certain array of emotions required display, there was the usual script to follow of injuries suffered, delight achieved. Lynn’s role, for instance, was to be bitter. “Betrayed,” she cried dramatically, and repeatedly, to many, many people, “by my husband
and
my friend.” As if Nora had been her only friend, as Philip was her only husband. As if Nora had really been her friend at all.
Philip said it was Nora’s assessing regard on the doorstep that first intrigued and appealed to him. “No flinching or blushing.” Later he was drawn by “your brightness, and that drive and desire you have. Also your tits.” As for answering the door naked, he said, “Well, you know what we’d been doing. Probably because I was trying to make Lynn run late. Or wanted her to stay home—one of those power-plays you won’t fall for. And maybe to embarrass her. And to test her old pal. And then there’s the fact I can just be kind of a pig.” His smile was winsome, designed to contradict his own words; or, if Nora failed to grasp that much, intended to humbly seek praise for his frankness.
The mark, one of the marks, of the stray: the conscious adorability, the obsequious, vulnerable, soft-belly exposure.Beth was a stray; Sophie too, in her way. Was Philip as well? Surely not.
He was large and beautiful and bold. Nora was small and optimistic and brutal. He said that when he married Lynn almost two years before he opened that door, “It didn’t quite feel right, but I didn’t know why. Now I do.’ And what can, or should, stand in the face of right feeling? Certainly not wrong feeling. So, goodbye Philip-and-Lynn.
Now, goodbye Philip.
Quite the abandoner he has been.
Is this swift transformation to rage normal when somebody dies? Because Nora is suddenly furious.
It has been her conviction that once over her own admittedly fierce hump of rage and betrayal, Lynn’s life went just fine. She remarried, an evidently compatible and clever man who does something financial. He has been more agreeable than Philip on the subject of children—it was contentious, Philip said, that he was firmly opposed while Lynn was so keen she spoke of babies as if they were already formed up inside her, hammering to get out. The sort of thing, it seemed to Nora, that should be discussed before marrying, although hardly her place to say so. Now Lynn has two triumphantly out-of-the-womb, into-the-world children who must be getting into their teens. She also not only has several degrees but teaches something or other to do with languages at university.
Sensibly, Nora asked Philip before they married, “Do you think it’s mutant that I seriously do not care to have kids? Can you foresee changing your mind? Because I can’t see changing mine.”
“No,” he said, “and no. Thank God,” and got himself a vasectomy. In so many matters, large and small, they were—well,
soulmates
would be excessive, and Nora opposes excessin most of its forms, but at least they were in general and on large issues highly compatible.
That particular
“I’m here for Lynn,” she said.
“You must be Nora. I’m Philip.”
Lynn’s husband. Not for long.
Lynn, walking fast, click-click on little heels into the front hall, was fully dressed in forest-green linen trousers, matchingblouse, golden bracelets. “Philip!” she cried. “Good God,” and turning to Nora she said, “Honestly, I just never know what he’s going to do next,” and there was a pride in her tone, a self-satisfaction that rendered Nora unsympathetic.
Nora and Lynn went off for their lunch; nothing monumentally life-altering happened as immediately as that. But something did happen and obviously they then failed to pursue their old loose, unnecessary acquaintanceship. They were all young. Domestic shufflings, while awkward, weren’t necessarily excruciating. Everyone involved still had plenty of future, no need to resent whole wasted decades. Naturally a certain array of emotions required display, there was the usual script to follow of injuries suffered, delight achieved. Lynn’s role, for instance, was to be bitter. “Betrayed,” she cried dramatically, and repeatedly, to many, many people, “by my husband
and
my friend.” As if Nora had been her only friend, as Philip was her only husband. As if Nora had really been her friend at all.
Philip said it was Nora’s assessing regard on the doorstep that first intrigued and appealed to him. “No flinching or blushing.” Later he was drawn by “your brightness, and that drive and desire you have. Also your tits.” As for answering the door naked, he said, “Well, you know what we’d been doing. Probably because I was trying to make Lynn run late. Or wanted her to stay home—one of those power-plays you won’t fall for. And maybe to embarrass her. And to test her old pal. And then there’s the fact I can just be kind of a pig.” His smile was winsome, designed to contradict his own words; or, if Nora failed to grasp that much, intended to humbly seek praise for his frankness.
The mark, one of the marks, of the stray: the conscious adorability, the obsequious, vulnerable, soft-belly exposure.Beth was a stray; Sophie too, in her way. Was Philip as well? Surely not.
He was large and beautiful and bold. Nora was small and optimistic and brutal. He said that when he married Lynn almost two years before he opened that door, “It didn’t quite feel right, but I didn’t know why. Now I do.’ And what can, or should, stand in the face of right feeling? Certainly not wrong feeling. So, goodbye Philip-and-Lynn.
Now, goodbye Philip.
Quite the abandoner he has been.
Is this swift transformation to rage normal when somebody dies? Because Nora is suddenly furious.
It has been her conviction that once over her own admittedly fierce hump of rage and betrayal, Lynn’s life went just fine. She remarried, an evidently compatible and clever man who does something financial. He has been more agreeable than Philip on the subject of children—it was contentious, Philip said, that he was firmly opposed while Lynn was so keen she spoke of babies as if they were already formed up inside her, hammering to get out. The sort of thing, it seemed to Nora, that should be discussed before marrying, although hardly her place to say so. Now Lynn has two triumphantly out-of-the-womb, into-the-world children who must be getting into their teens. She also not only has several degrees but teaches something or other to do with languages at university.
Sensibly, Nora asked Philip before they married, “Do you think it’s mutant that I seriously do not care to have kids? Can you foresee changing your mind? Because I can’t see changing mine.”
“No,” he said, “and no. Thank God,” and got himself a vasectomy. In so many matters, large and small, they were—well,
soulmates
would be excessive, and Nora opposes excessin most of its forms, but at least they were in general and on large issues highly compatible.
That particular
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