Read Online The Art Student's War by Brad Leithauser - Free Book Online
Authors: Brad Leithauser
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witnessed the descent, and though it lasted but a second—the interval between the slip and the sickening, shattering thud—still Bea had had time within it to realize that the coming destruction was ineluctable: once Glenn lost his footing, nothing could be done. The earth was unforgiving. There was no going back …
Now, too, she was confronting something as irreversible as gravity: hearing those low deadly words of Mamma’s while standing tiptoe on the landing, Bea had felt similarly unable to undo what cried to be undone. After such a ravaging declaration, how could their neat little home ever be quite the same? Shivering in her pajamas, Bea had heard other things as well—horrible things—but nothing could ever match that most shocking and sad of accusations: Deep in your soul, Vico, it’s Grace you’ve always loved!
Bea knew she shouldn’t be lingering over coffee in a place called Herk’s Snack Shack with a boy named Ronny Olsson; by now, she ought to have boarded a streetcar. Yet she didn’t wish to. Although a measure of civility had been restored at home, in other ways life had only degenerated. After words like those, how could things get any better? The desperation and fury could only go underground …
So if she heard herself egging Ronny on to deliver still more sweeping and severe judgments, and laughing more recklessly than usual, surely she was to be forgiven. And the truth was, Ronny Olsson hardly needed encouragement. He was something of a performer—actually, an extraordinary performer.
It was a sign of how things stood at home that Papa for the last two Saturdays had put off the Poppletons with excuses. Neither Uncle Dennis nor Aunt Grace had been glimpsed since the outing to Lady Lake. When would normal family life return?
Bea didn’t want to go home—she didn’t want to think any more about the declaration overheard on the landing. She wanted another cup of coffee. She wanted to listen to Ronny Olsson talk and—almost an equal thrill—she wanted to watch him talk. My goodness, he was handsome!
A crazy notion occurred to her—so outlandish, she momentarily lost the drift of his conversation … But if she were somehow to marry this Ronny Olsson (about whom, admittedly, she knew next to nothing), she could move out of her bedroom on Inquiry Street. And begin a new life.
So when Ronny said to her, “You’ll go with me Saturday to the DIA, won’t you?”—meaning the Detroit Institute of Arts—and she replied, “That s-s-sounds just lovely,” it wasn’t hesitation bringing a rare stammer to her lips. It was sheer bounding eagerness.
After dinner, miraculously, the telephone really freed up. Papa retreated into the living room, to listen to the radio. Edith cajoled Stevie upstairs for a game of rummy, though Stevie typically refused to play card games with Edith, who almost invariably won. And Mamma, who hovered endlessly round the kitchen, decided to take a bath. It seemed a perfect time to call Maggie. Bea longed to discuss handsome, dapper Ronny Olsson.
But if it was hard for Bea to find a private phone in the evenings, it was harder still for Maggie, whose mother-in-law, Mrs. Hamm, seldom left the house, or strayed far when Maggie was on the phone. Still, Bea decided to give it a try.
“And he’s muy splendido?” Maggie asked, once the conversation really got rolling. The word was pronounced splen-dee-doe . Maggie’s bright chatter had always been spiced with funny and preposterous slang, often of her own devising. But her talk had grown even more distinctive and peculiar since her move to the Hamms’. These days, she often spoke in a kind of code.
“Very. Très splendido.”
“And a sharp dresser?” Clothes were a passion the two girls shared—though Bea sometimes wished her friend’s taste weren’t quite so flamboyant.
“The tie he wore the other day?” Bea said. “Blue and gold silk? It would have made the most beautiful scarf you can imagine. And
Now, too, she was confronting something as irreversible as gravity: hearing those low deadly words of Mamma’s while standing tiptoe on the landing, Bea had felt similarly unable to undo what cried to be undone. After such a ravaging declaration, how could their neat little home ever be quite the same? Shivering in her pajamas, Bea had heard other things as well—horrible things—but nothing could ever match that most shocking and sad of accusations: Deep in your soul, Vico, it’s Grace you’ve always loved!
Bea knew she shouldn’t be lingering over coffee in a place called Herk’s Snack Shack with a boy named Ronny Olsson; by now, she ought to have boarded a streetcar. Yet she didn’t wish to. Although a measure of civility had been restored at home, in other ways life had only degenerated. After words like those, how could things get any better? The desperation and fury could only go underground …
So if she heard herself egging Ronny on to deliver still more sweeping and severe judgments, and laughing more recklessly than usual, surely she was to be forgiven. And the truth was, Ronny Olsson hardly needed encouragement. He was something of a performer—actually, an extraordinary performer.
It was a sign of how things stood at home that Papa for the last two Saturdays had put off the Poppletons with excuses. Neither Uncle Dennis nor Aunt Grace had been glimpsed since the outing to Lady Lake. When would normal family life return?
Bea didn’t want to go home—she didn’t want to think any more about the declaration overheard on the landing. She wanted another cup of coffee. She wanted to listen to Ronny Olsson talk and—almost an equal thrill—she wanted to watch him talk. My goodness, he was handsome!
A crazy notion occurred to her—so outlandish, she momentarily lost the drift of his conversation … But if she were somehow to marry this Ronny Olsson (about whom, admittedly, she knew next to nothing), she could move out of her bedroom on Inquiry Street. And begin a new life.
So when Ronny said to her, “You’ll go with me Saturday to the DIA, won’t you?”—meaning the Detroit Institute of Arts—and she replied, “That s-s-sounds just lovely,” it wasn’t hesitation bringing a rare stammer to her lips. It was sheer bounding eagerness.
After dinner, miraculously, the telephone really freed up. Papa retreated into the living room, to listen to the radio. Edith cajoled Stevie upstairs for a game of rummy, though Stevie typically refused to play card games with Edith, who almost invariably won. And Mamma, who hovered endlessly round the kitchen, decided to take a bath. It seemed a perfect time to call Maggie. Bea longed to discuss handsome, dapper Ronny Olsson.
But if it was hard for Bea to find a private phone in the evenings, it was harder still for Maggie, whose mother-in-law, Mrs. Hamm, seldom left the house, or strayed far when Maggie was on the phone. Still, Bea decided to give it a try.
“And he’s muy splendido?” Maggie asked, once the conversation really got rolling. The word was pronounced splen-dee-doe . Maggie’s bright chatter had always been spiced with funny and preposterous slang, often of her own devising. But her talk had grown even more distinctive and peculiar since her move to the Hamms’. These days, she often spoke in a kind of code.
“Very. Très splendido.”
“And a sharp dresser?” Clothes were a passion the two girls shared—though Bea sometimes wished her friend’s taste weren’t quite so flamboyant.
“The tie he wore the other day?” Bea said. “Blue and gold silk? It would have made the most beautiful scarf you can imagine. And
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