Read Online The Distance Between Us by Masha Hamilton - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Masha Hamilton
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overabundance of earnestness, was also a damned embarrassment.
Diligent, plodding even, Jon will be doing this until the day he dies. A perpetual Jerusalem fill-in, industrious, sweetly sincere and burnout-proof. She remembers three days after Yitzhak Rabin was shot, when they’d been working around the clock. He came back from Kapulsky’s with a box of doughnuts and a thermos of coffee, and for a few minutes they shared that intense undercurrent of camaraderie that can grow during a break in a big story. Often followed, she’s noticed, by the need to spill something personal. Something to do with life, not death.
Jon, in the foldout chair in front of the laptop, began talking between bites about his first time. Which, as it turned out, had been in a car not five minutes from the prime minister’s office, a little farther down Balfour Street. He’d been sixteen, visiting Israel with his parents, and the girl was fifteen, a rebelfrom an Orthodox family. Her collarbone obsessed him; he found it beautiful. It happened on a Thursday right before Yom Kippur. It had been sweet and touching and everything a first time should be, even for a boy. Certainly for a boy like him, he said, shy and awkward still.
She laughed when he said that, and he chuckled himself. And Caddie thought of her own first time, with an Indiana farm boy. Arnie was his name, a muscled D-student. He’d whispered that his parents weren’t home and described a plush living room couch with lacy pillows, but she’d led him to a cornfield, where she’d pulled him from sight between the rows. And there in the dirt, she’d learned two important facts. That her dreams, unlike those of her neighbors, were made of grit instead of lace. And that anticipation is nearly always sweeter than realization.
Then Jon was in the middle of saying what had happened with the girl afterward, how she didn’t show up to meet him as they’d planned and how he looked for her, when a government spokesman called to tell them of a news conference and Caddie dashed to cover it and the topic never came up again.
Now she clears her throat and he looks up and his face turns self-conscious. He tries to refold the newspaper and some pages flutter to the floor. He rises stiffly. “Caddie, I’m so—”
“I know,” she interrupts.
“I can’t believe . . .”
She nods. Oh, to get through this part.
“Well. You look great,” he says, as though she’s come back from some vacation. He says it even though he’s unable tomeet her eyes. “You’ve always been tough. But,” he spreads his arms, “should you really be . . .? I mean, Mike told me you weren’t to . . .” He trails off, his gaze wandering from her feet to her right cheek and then back to her feet again.
She steps into the office. “I’m ready to work, Jon. I have to work, in fact. But I’d like to keep it between us. It’ll only be features. Unless, of course,” she takes a deep breath, “a breaking story tumbles into my lap.”
He laughs. “You’re something. I don’t know if I could . . . but you . . . you don’t change. Okay, between us.” He pats her on the shoulder and shoots a look of admiration in her general direction. It comes from a great distance, that look, a long lack of understanding, but it’s what she’s going to have to live with.
Besides, it’s probably as much intimacy as she can handle right now. “Isn’t the Foreign Ministry presser about to start?” she asks.
He nods. “I better get going. You’ll be here when I get back, then?”
“Unless I think of somewhere else to go.”
When Jon has left, she still feels crowded, as though someone else is sucking up the air and filling the space, as though she must keep her elbows compressed to her waist and avoid expansive movements. She opens the top drawer of her desk. A stale smell escapes. She stares at a pile of notes for an economic feature she was planning to write, before. She slams the desk shut, and with her foot
Diligent, plodding even, Jon will be doing this until the day he dies. A perpetual Jerusalem fill-in, industrious, sweetly sincere and burnout-proof. She remembers three days after Yitzhak Rabin was shot, when they’d been working around the clock. He came back from Kapulsky’s with a box of doughnuts and a thermos of coffee, and for a few minutes they shared that intense undercurrent of camaraderie that can grow during a break in a big story. Often followed, she’s noticed, by the need to spill something personal. Something to do with life, not death.
Jon, in the foldout chair in front of the laptop, began talking between bites about his first time. Which, as it turned out, had been in a car not five minutes from the prime minister’s office, a little farther down Balfour Street. He’d been sixteen, visiting Israel with his parents, and the girl was fifteen, a rebelfrom an Orthodox family. Her collarbone obsessed him; he found it beautiful. It happened on a Thursday right before Yom Kippur. It had been sweet and touching and everything a first time should be, even for a boy. Certainly for a boy like him, he said, shy and awkward still.
She laughed when he said that, and he chuckled himself. And Caddie thought of her own first time, with an Indiana farm boy. Arnie was his name, a muscled D-student. He’d whispered that his parents weren’t home and described a plush living room couch with lacy pillows, but she’d led him to a cornfield, where she’d pulled him from sight between the rows. And there in the dirt, she’d learned two important facts. That her dreams, unlike those of her neighbors, were made of grit instead of lace. And that anticipation is nearly always sweeter than realization.
Then Jon was in the middle of saying what had happened with the girl afterward, how she didn’t show up to meet him as they’d planned and how he looked for her, when a government spokesman called to tell them of a news conference and Caddie dashed to cover it and the topic never came up again.
Now she clears her throat and he looks up and his face turns self-conscious. He tries to refold the newspaper and some pages flutter to the floor. He rises stiffly. “Caddie, I’m so—”
“I know,” she interrupts.
“I can’t believe . . .”
She nods. Oh, to get through this part.
“Well. You look great,” he says, as though she’s come back from some vacation. He says it even though he’s unable tomeet her eyes. “You’ve always been tough. But,” he spreads his arms, “should you really be . . .? I mean, Mike told me you weren’t to . . .” He trails off, his gaze wandering from her feet to her right cheek and then back to her feet again.
She steps into the office. “I’m ready to work, Jon. I have to work, in fact. But I’d like to keep it between us. It’ll only be features. Unless, of course,” she takes a deep breath, “a breaking story tumbles into my lap.”
He laughs. “You’re something. I don’t know if I could . . . but you . . . you don’t change. Okay, between us.” He pats her on the shoulder and shoots a look of admiration in her general direction. It comes from a great distance, that look, a long lack of understanding, but it’s what she’s going to have to live with.
Besides, it’s probably as much intimacy as she can handle right now. “Isn’t the Foreign Ministry presser about to start?” she asks.
He nods. “I better get going. You’ll be here when I get back, then?”
“Unless I think of somewhere else to go.”
When Jon has left, she still feels crowded, as though someone else is sucking up the air and filling the space, as though she must keep her elbows compressed to her waist and avoid expansive movements. She opens the top drawer of her desk. A stale smell escapes. She stares at a pile of notes for an economic feature she was planning to write, before. She slams the desk shut, and with her foot
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