Pretty much. While he and Vanessa were together, she had.
All of which further pointed to the necessity of getting Vanessa back. Vanessa had accepted him totally. If she wouldnât take him now, who ever would? He needed to prove to Vanessa that he had been worth sticking with this whole time.
SHE WASN â T in love with him at the beginning. It had been a safe feeling when she wasnât in love with him. The safe feeling disappeared when he began to be necessary to her. What had happened to change him from a safe, unloved person into the dangerous, pain-inducing one she was in love with? As far as she could trace it, it happened one afternoon.
It was the afternoon she heard Dave Jacobs had died.
Dave was someone she knew from around town, a photographer who was always returning from some war-torn country or about to leave for another. He had a wide circle of friends, and was the sort of completely irresponsible guy whoâs expected for dinner but doesnât show because heâs probably run off with someoneâs wife after which heâll make best friends with the husband, one of those guys irresistible to women despite a total disregard for personal hygiene. Years ago Kay had spent a long night dancing with him and whenever she saw him afterward had the feeling sheâd been to bed with him, which she hadnât, but Dave Jacobs left her with that feeling.
Jane Warburg had been the one to tell her. Jane was one of those people who seem to know everyone, yet are oddly lacking in personality. Kay was irritated to answer the phone and hear Jane Warburgâs droning voice. âAm I bothering you?â It was a typical Jane Warburg opening. Yes, she wanted to say, but instead acted as if she was busy. âDid you hear about Dave Jacobs?â No, said Kay, irritated Jane Warburg had gossip about someone for whom she had proprietary feelings. âHeâs been killed,â said Jane.
Kay felt the air retreat around her. She had a strange, wooden awareness of her hand holding the receiver. Dave Jacobs had been in Costa Rica, there was a bus accident, the bus slid off a mountain road, everyone was killed. Apparently some chickens survived, Jane said. It was odd the things people said around death.
When Kay got off the phone her heart was pounding in an irregular way. The apartment seemed relit, or tilted. At the corner of the table the tablecloth dropped with a weirdly angelic fold.
All the colliding thoughts sheâd had moments before of whom she had to call and what bills she had to pay immediately lost their importance and she saw how transparent theyâd been all along and how death was far more pertinent. She saw how within its pertinence there was also absurdity, the absurdity that this man who talked to dogs on the street and who grabbed girls solemnly by the hand to lead them away was no longer anywhere on the planet. He was simply gone. She felt a sob rising in her.
Then the phone rang. It was Benjamin. He was in the neighborhood.
It was during a
not supposed to be calling her
phase. During this ban she was trying not to expect anything. Only very tinily secretly did she. He was engaged, this guy. So things had been intense in Mexico. It was easy for things to be intense in Mexico. They were making a movie, they were in the bubble.
It was easy to feel joined with someone you didnât know very well if you were near him every day, working through the night in a jungle in a small area lit by lights, if you drove for miles on bad roads so there were hours for talk inside an enclosed space. And it was not hard to be in thrall with someone youâd just started sleeping with because when that went well, the thrall pretty much automatically increased, for a while at least. And with that joined feeling it would be easy to blithely accept that your time together was limited and that when you returned to your lives, you would return apart, and that it was possible to take what
All of which further pointed to the necessity of getting Vanessa back. Vanessa had accepted him totally. If she wouldnât take him now, who ever would? He needed to prove to Vanessa that he had been worth sticking with this whole time.
SHE WASN â T in love with him at the beginning. It had been a safe feeling when she wasnât in love with him. The safe feeling disappeared when he began to be necessary to her. What had happened to change him from a safe, unloved person into the dangerous, pain-inducing one she was in love with? As far as she could trace it, it happened one afternoon.
It was the afternoon she heard Dave Jacobs had died.
Dave was someone she knew from around town, a photographer who was always returning from some war-torn country or about to leave for another. He had a wide circle of friends, and was the sort of completely irresponsible guy whoâs expected for dinner but doesnât show because heâs probably run off with someoneâs wife after which heâll make best friends with the husband, one of those guys irresistible to women despite a total disregard for personal hygiene. Years ago Kay had spent a long night dancing with him and whenever she saw him afterward had the feeling sheâd been to bed with him, which she hadnât, but Dave Jacobs left her with that feeling.
Jane Warburg had been the one to tell her. Jane was one of those people who seem to know everyone, yet are oddly lacking in personality. Kay was irritated to answer the phone and hear Jane Warburgâs droning voice. âAm I bothering you?â It was a typical Jane Warburg opening. Yes, she wanted to say, but instead acted as if she was busy. âDid you hear about Dave Jacobs?â No, said Kay, irritated Jane Warburg had gossip about someone for whom she had proprietary feelings. âHeâs been killed,â said Jane.
Kay felt the air retreat around her. She had a strange, wooden awareness of her hand holding the receiver. Dave Jacobs had been in Costa Rica, there was a bus accident, the bus slid off a mountain road, everyone was killed. Apparently some chickens survived, Jane said. It was odd the things people said around death.
When Kay got off the phone her heart was pounding in an irregular way. The apartment seemed relit, or tilted. At the corner of the table the tablecloth dropped with a weirdly angelic fold.
All the colliding thoughts sheâd had moments before of whom she had to call and what bills she had to pay immediately lost their importance and she saw how transparent theyâd been all along and how death was far more pertinent. She saw how within its pertinence there was also absurdity, the absurdity that this man who talked to dogs on the street and who grabbed girls solemnly by the hand to lead them away was no longer anywhere on the planet. He was simply gone. She felt a sob rising in her.
Then the phone rang. It was Benjamin. He was in the neighborhood.
It was during a
not supposed to be calling her
phase. During this ban she was trying not to expect anything. Only very tinily secretly did she. He was engaged, this guy. So things had been intense in Mexico. It was easy for things to be intense in Mexico. They were making a movie, they were in the bubble.
It was easy to feel joined with someone you didnât know very well if you were near him every day, working through the night in a jungle in a small area lit by lights, if you drove for miles on bad roads so there were hours for talk inside an enclosed space. And it was not hard to be in thrall with someone youâd just started sleeping with because when that went well, the thrall pretty much automatically increased, for a while at least. And with that joined feeling it would be easy to blithely accept that your time together was limited and that when you returned to your lives, you would return apart, and that it was possible to take what
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