Read Online Middle Age by Joyce Carol Oates - Free Book Online Page B

owned one of the eighteenth-century brownstones, prime real estate at the heart of the “historic” village. Roger was known to be a reputable Salthill lawyer, capable, trustworthy, conservative.
    Marina had never stepped inside one of the Shaker Square brownstones, which mostly housed lawyers; expensive lawyers; when she couldn’t avoid hiring a lawyer, she chose one with an office in an outlying district, or in a mall. As Marina approached, Roger frowned in greeting, glancing up and down the street as if in worry they might be observed, and urging her inside. “Please. Come in.” As soon as Marina did, Roger shut the door and locked it.
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    The suite of offices was deserted, of course. Marina felt uneasy, alone here with Roger. And how unlike himself he looked: he’d shaved carelessly, leaving stubble, and a thinly bleeding scratch on his jaw; his dark hair that was usually impeccably styled and combed was disheveled, as if he’d been running his fingers through it. And his eyes were shadowed, more recessed than Marina recalled. “Terrible news,” Roger murmured.
    “Unbelievable.” Yet he spoke curtly as if not wanting to waste breath. Or emotion. Where usually this man exuded an astringent-masculine scent of cologne, he smelled now frankly of his body. And he wore sports clothes, rumpled clothes. He, too, has had a bad night, Marina thought; feeling, for a moment, for this calculating man, a stab of tenderness.
    “Adam, of all people. Who’d been so—” But Roger was only just talking, in that obligatory social way of people with something else, something far more crucial, on their minds, and scarcely knew what he said.
    “—filled with life. Of all of us. Terrible news!” He was leading Marina briskly, with no ceremony, through the lavish suite, to his own large office at the rear; though it was a sunny midsummer morning, the plate glass windows’ thin-slatted blinds were tightly shut. On Roger’s desk, amid piles of documents, a plastic cup, very likely hot coffee; an ashtray and cigarette butts. Out of deference to Marina, who’d drawn back from his cigarette, Roger stubbed it out in the ashtray. He sniffed, made a snorting sound as if clearing his sinuses; shifted his shoulders inside his sports shirt; and asked Marina please to take a seat. Marina wondered what was so crucial, why she’d been called. Her eye moved restlessly about the office, which was furnished in expensive teak, black leather, chrome. There was a decorative paneling of glass brick setting off what Marina supposed was a private lavatory at the rear of the office; and this paneling reminded her of the Jones Point Medical Center morgue and what she’d seen there . . .
    Marina murmured, “Yes. Terrible.”
    Roger Cavanagh’s stylishly decorated office was a showcase to be admired, but damned if Marina would say the expected thing, the Salthill-social thing, nor would she embarrass Roger with an outburst of sorrow, grief, tears. She saw, on a teakwood cabinet, a sculpted brass figure about the size of a violin, with a smooth raised oval surface that suggested a human face in which dim protoplasmic features were only just crystallizing.
    This was an old work of Adam Berendt’s from a series Marina thought beautiful though Adam had long since repudiated it, and had no pieces from that era in his studio or house. Too arty and self-conscious—too Middle Age: A Romance
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    Brancusi , Adam had dismissed the brass pieces. Roger said, “He gave me that. He wouldn’t let me pay him for it even in trade.” There was an air of shame and frustration in this admission, though Marina didn’t know why.
    Roger was leafing through documents on his desk, breathing harshly. Marina pretended to be interested in, and then became genuinely interested in, several framed photographs displayed on Roger’s big glass-topped desk. As if Roger Cavanagh meant to say, You see? I’m a normal man . This