Read Online The Heart of Henry Quantum by Pepper Harding - Free Book Online

I’m forty. Past fucking forty by three fucking months.
    He took another bite. It tasted like dust. Not really. It tasted like fish. But he heard his inner voice say it tasted like dust. Jesus! Why be so dramatic? You had an affair. You blew it. Just eat your fish.
    You’re married, for Christ’s sake.
    And this reminded him about the perfume.
    He asked for the check, left an overgenerous tip, and stepped out onto Claude Lane.
    â€œPerfume!” he declared to no one in particular. “Perfume!”
    And so he resumed his route toward Macy’s, but in spite of his new resolve, found himself walking at a snail’s pace, his arms folded in thought.

CHAPTER 5
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    2:24–4:16 p.m.
    Of all the people to run into on this very day—in the midst of his critical mission to buy perfume for his Margaret—why on earth did it have to be Daisy? Why couldn’t it be—he couldn’t think of anyone except for Donald Trump for some reason. But even Donald Trump would have been better than Daisy.
    And why vision science? That’s what she said she was studying, right? How we see. How can you see how we see? Just because you determine some neuron shoots off at a certain wavelength, what does that tell you about seeing ? Still, it was great she was in school. She’d actually end up with the PhD he’d never gotten. But what did she mean, she never stopped dreaming about him? She’d been living with some other guy: the one he once got a glimpse of in the white suit and the Panama hat at that fundraiser they both happened to attend a year or so after they’d stopped seeing each other. Seeing each other. Did they in fact see each other? Yes, perhaps they had. Perhaps that’s what she meant. She had been seen. That’s what scared her and that’s what she wanted back. But you can’t have things back. It’s like going on the same vacation twice. It’s never the same.
    He meandered back to where he had first run into Daisy, in front of SlinkyBlink, and here at last he stopped and took a breath. In the window were shredded jeans and rhinestone-studded T-shirts, flouncy skirts, platform shoes, bright-colored handbags with huge buckles—things he could barely imagine anyone wearing, except maybe Denise, the art director, and Gladys, the receptionist, but not really—Gladys was ultraconservative in her dress because she wanted to be taken seriously and become a copywriter. And he was pretty sure Denise was more Goth than SlinkyBlink, if people were still called Goth, which Henry seriously doubted. This all got back to the question of seeing. Fashion looked great one year and stupid the next. But the clothes—they stayed just the same. How is it they no longer looked the same? How is it the woman you loved last year is no longer the woman you love this year? And to whom was he referring? Daisy or Margaret?
    But Daisy said she dreamed about him every day.
    When he thought about it, it was all crazy. Before the divorce, Daisy had it all. The mansion in Ross, the rich and beautiful husband, the two brilliant kids, the garden parties, the Tesla runabout, the Land Rover, the Lynch-Bages as the house wine ($200 a pop!), and the Dom Pérignon in the fridge. Why did she throw that all away?
    She’d asked him, “Did you ever write that novel?” He had forgotten that he even wanted to write a book, that he’d actually taken notes, sketched out a few scenes, did a little research. Where was all that stuff? He knew very well where it was. In the earthen storeroom in the back of the garage, in a box, with the mildew and the smell of mouse turds and mushrooms. Maybe he should take it out and try again. But no. That would be Daisy entering his life again, too. That’s what she did to him. False hope, he called it. He had zero talent and he knew it.
    True, he had written little stories and poems for her. “I love your writing!” she’d say,