Read Online The Body Of Jonah Boyd by David Leavitt - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: David Leavitt
Tags: Fiction
Ads: Link
nothing’ wrong. They’ll fly into LAX Thanksgiving morning, drive over,
stay two nights, and then on Saturday head up north, stopping for a few days at Big Sur on the way. And the best part is,
Anne and I will have plenty of time to play. Finally we can take another crack at the Grand Duo.”
I pretended both surprise and pleasure. It was obvious that Nancy needed a sounding board for her fretfulness and planning
impulses; also an assistant in what was clearly going to be a redecoration project of considerable scope. And so that very
afternoon, along with Daphne—whose outrage at being thrown out of her room Nancy had managed to quell, somewhat, by promising
to let her to pick out the sheets—I was taken to Macy’, first to the furniture department, where Nancy arranged for immediate
delivery of a new Serta Perfect Sleeper, and then to the whites department, where Daphne, after much debate, settled on a
set of “Vera” sheets decorated with bright orange sunsets and blue rainbows in the style of Peter Max. Here the trouble began.
Nancy didn’t like the sheets. She worried that Boyd—a novelist, after all—would mock them in one of his books, follow a description
of their psychedelic gaudiness with some insulting witticism, something like, “I had to wear sunglasses to bed.” For Nancy,
in addition to biographies of crowned heads, was an avid consumer of novels in which adulterous men and women parried rude
remarks over martinis, and though she had not yet read any of Jonah Boyd’ novels, she took it for granted that they would
fit into this category. “Really, honey, couldn’t we get something more subdued?” she asked Daphne, who had inherited her mother’
stubbornness, if not her taste.
“But you said I could choose!” Daphne said. “You promised. After all, these people are only going to sleep on them two nights. But I have
to sleep on them practically the rest of my life!”
In the end, to avoid a public scene, Nancy gave in on the sheets. Bags in tow, we hastened back to Florizona Avenue, where
we found Ernest and Glenn in the study, smoking cigars and listening to Mahler’ Fifth Symphony on the HarmonKardon stereo.
Glenn and Daphne greeted each other with the studied casualness of people who don’t want anyone to guess they’ve recently
been in bed together; I could tell, because that was just how Ernest and I greeted each other.
As no dinner invitation appeared to be in the offing, I said my good-byes and went home. Back then I still lived in a one-bedroom
apartment on Orechusetts Drive. My complex—essentially a stucco rectangle with views of the 420 freeway—was called Eaton Manor.
Nearby were Cavendish Hall, Hampton Estates, and Chatsworth Court. Most of my neighbors were fellow secretaries, some of whom
were also having affairs with their bosses. On Sunday afternoons, Ford LTDs and Oldsmobile Cutlasses filled the parking lot,
taking up the empty spaces between the Chevy Novas and Dodge Darts. At this point, my relationship with Ernest had not yet
settled into the durable bond that would later prove so sustaining for us both; it was still an off-and-on thing, fretful
and fitful. Some Sunday afternoons he would arrive unannounced at my door, pinion me to the wall or push me onto the bed,
where we would make rough love. Afterward I would give him tea or Coca-Cola, and we’d look at the television until dusk fell,
when he’d leave with as few words as he had come, and I’d move to the window, to watch his car pull out of the parking lot
and imagine what, back on Florizona Avenue, Nancy was up to: feeding the cat, or baking a ham, or knitting. I admit that at
those moments I envied Ernest, with Dame Carcas to have to hurry home to.
Much has changed in the field of psychoanalysis during the years since Ernest practiced it in the office above his garage.
Freud is no longer totemic, and today, if a therapist were to say to his patient,
stay two nights, and then on Saturday head up north, stopping for a few days at Big Sur on the way. And the best part is,
Anne and I will have plenty of time to play. Finally we can take another crack at the Grand Duo.”
I pretended both surprise and pleasure. It was obvious that Nancy needed a sounding board for her fretfulness and planning
impulses; also an assistant in what was clearly going to be a redecoration project of considerable scope. And so that very
afternoon, along with Daphne—whose outrage at being thrown out of her room Nancy had managed to quell, somewhat, by promising
to let her to pick out the sheets—I was taken to Macy’, first to the furniture department, where Nancy arranged for immediate
delivery of a new Serta Perfect Sleeper, and then to the whites department, where Daphne, after much debate, settled on a
set of “Vera” sheets decorated with bright orange sunsets and blue rainbows in the style of Peter Max. Here the trouble began.
Nancy didn’t like the sheets. She worried that Boyd—a novelist, after all—would mock them in one of his books, follow a description
of their psychedelic gaudiness with some insulting witticism, something like, “I had to wear sunglasses to bed.” For Nancy,
in addition to biographies of crowned heads, was an avid consumer of novels in which adulterous men and women parried rude
remarks over martinis, and though she had not yet read any of Jonah Boyd’ novels, she took it for granted that they would
fit into this category. “Really, honey, couldn’t we get something more subdued?” she asked Daphne, who had inherited her mother’
stubbornness, if not her taste.
“But you said I could choose!” Daphne said. “You promised. After all, these people are only going to sleep on them two nights. But I have
to sleep on them practically the rest of my life!”
In the end, to avoid a public scene, Nancy gave in on the sheets. Bags in tow, we hastened back to Florizona Avenue, where
we found Ernest and Glenn in the study, smoking cigars and listening to Mahler’ Fifth Symphony on the HarmonKardon stereo.
Glenn and Daphne greeted each other with the studied casualness of people who don’t want anyone to guess they’ve recently
been in bed together; I could tell, because that was just how Ernest and I greeted each other.
As no dinner invitation appeared to be in the offing, I said my good-byes and went home. Back then I still lived in a one-bedroom
apartment on Orechusetts Drive. My complex—essentially a stucco rectangle with views of the 420 freeway—was called Eaton Manor.
Nearby were Cavendish Hall, Hampton Estates, and Chatsworth Court. Most of my neighbors were fellow secretaries, some of whom
were also having affairs with their bosses. On Sunday afternoons, Ford LTDs and Oldsmobile Cutlasses filled the parking lot,
taking up the empty spaces between the Chevy Novas and Dodge Darts. At this point, my relationship with Ernest had not yet
settled into the durable bond that would later prove so sustaining for us both; it was still an off-and-on thing, fretful
and fitful. Some Sunday afternoons he would arrive unannounced at my door, pinion me to the wall or push me onto the bed,
where we would make rough love. Afterward I would give him tea or Coca-Cola, and we’d look at the television until dusk fell,
when he’d leave with as few words as he had come, and I’d move to the window, to watch his car pull out of the parking lot
and imagine what, back on Florizona Avenue, Nancy was up to: feeding the cat, or baking a ham, or knitting. I admit that at
those moments I envied Ernest, with Dame Carcas to have to hurry home to.
Much has changed in the field of psychoanalysis during the years since Ernest practiced it in the office above his garage.
Freud is no longer totemic, and today, if a therapist were to say to his patient,
Similar Books
