of talk; we just talk.
Today Lynn was talking about trust. She is an avid cyclist, and her bike was leaning against a lamppost just out of view of the window. “How do I know it won’t be stolen?” she asked us. “Why is it I’m absolutely sure it’s safe?”
“Because this is Orangetown,” Sally said.
“Because school’s in session,” I suggested.
“Because it’s a twenty-year-old bike.” From Annette. “Not that it isn’t a terrific model.”
“And why is it,” Lynn went on, “that I’m not afraid of riding my bike down Borden Road and turning on to Main Street? I’ve got my helmet on and I’m trying to keep way over on the margin of the road, but what if a driver suddenly decides to go into road rage and ram straight into me?”
“I don’t think there’s that much road rage in Orangetown at this hour,” I said, remembering that I had left my own house unlocked.
“Don’t believe it,” Annette said. “There’s rage everywhere.”
“Someone could walk into this cafe right this minute brandishing a sword. I read about a man who went into a church in England and started slicing up people.”
“He was insane.”
“It could never have been predicted.”
“Like being struck by lightning. You can’t go around worrying about lightning.”
“Or planes crashing into your house.”
“If someone came in here with a sword,” Lynn said coolly, “we wouldn’t have a chance.”
“We’d be helpless.”
“We could duck under the table.”
“No, we’d be helpless.”
“Trust. We’ve had it drilled into us at birth. Or rather, we emerge from the womb already trusting. Trusting the hand that’s about to hold us.”
“So?” Lynn said. “When are we disabused of this notion?”
“When does doubt cut in, you mean?”
“Immediately,” I said. “One second after birth. I’m sure of it.”
So, the days go by, early fall, middle fall. Natalie and Chris both got small parts in The Pajama Game that the high school is putting on, and at home they’re always bursting into Pajama Game songs, which, after all these years, are still good songs. “Hernando’s Hideaway,” “Seven and a Half Cents.” I’ve got ssss-steam heat . That’s Natalie’s favourite; she belts it out, descending the stairs as she sings, going from one side to another, leaning over the banister, stretching her arms wide; Chris, just behind her on the stairs, chants a subtle boom-de-boom in accompaniment. Tom is writing a paperfor the trilobite conference next year in Estonia. “Wouldn’t you like to go to Estonia?” he asks me. I don’t know. It depends on Norah, what happens to Norah. I’m trying to work on my new novel but am often derailed. Danielle’s new book is selling well even without an author tour, even with minimal promotion. So it goes.
Otherwise
T WO YEARS AGO I inhabited another kind of life in which I scarcely registered my notion of heartbreak. Hurt feelings, minor slights, minimal losses, small treacheries, even bad reviews—that’s what I thought sadness was made of: tragedy was someone not liking my book.
I wrote a novel for no particular reason other than feeling it was the right time in my life to write a novel. My publisher sent me on a four-city book tour: Toronto, New York, Washington, and Baltimore. A very modest bit of promotion, you might say, but Scribano & Lawrence scarcely knew what to do with me. I had never written a novel before. I was a woman in her forties, not at all remarkable looking and certainly not media-smart. If I had any reputation at all it was for being an editor and scholar, and not for producing, to everyone’s amazement, a “fresh, bright, springtime piece of fiction,” or so it was described in Publishers Weekly .
My Thyme Is Up baffled everyone with its sparky sales. We had no idea who was walking into bookstores and buying it. I didn’t know and Mr. Scribano didn’t know. “Probablyyoung working girls,” he ventured, “gnawed by
Today Lynn was talking about trust. She is an avid cyclist, and her bike was leaning against a lamppost just out of view of the window. “How do I know it won’t be stolen?” she asked us. “Why is it I’m absolutely sure it’s safe?”
“Because this is Orangetown,” Sally said.
“Because school’s in session,” I suggested.
“Because it’s a twenty-year-old bike.” From Annette. “Not that it isn’t a terrific model.”
“And why is it,” Lynn went on, “that I’m not afraid of riding my bike down Borden Road and turning on to Main Street? I’ve got my helmet on and I’m trying to keep way over on the margin of the road, but what if a driver suddenly decides to go into road rage and ram straight into me?”
“I don’t think there’s that much road rage in Orangetown at this hour,” I said, remembering that I had left my own house unlocked.
“Don’t believe it,” Annette said. “There’s rage everywhere.”
“Someone could walk into this cafe right this minute brandishing a sword. I read about a man who went into a church in England and started slicing up people.”
“He was insane.”
“It could never have been predicted.”
“Like being struck by lightning. You can’t go around worrying about lightning.”
“Or planes crashing into your house.”
“If someone came in here with a sword,” Lynn said coolly, “we wouldn’t have a chance.”
“We’d be helpless.”
“We could duck under the table.”
“No, we’d be helpless.”
“Trust. We’ve had it drilled into us at birth. Or rather, we emerge from the womb already trusting. Trusting the hand that’s about to hold us.”
“So?” Lynn said. “When are we disabused of this notion?”
“When does doubt cut in, you mean?”
“Immediately,” I said. “One second after birth. I’m sure of it.”
So, the days go by, early fall, middle fall. Natalie and Chris both got small parts in The Pajama Game that the high school is putting on, and at home they’re always bursting into Pajama Game songs, which, after all these years, are still good songs. “Hernando’s Hideaway,” “Seven and a Half Cents.” I’ve got ssss-steam heat . That’s Natalie’s favourite; she belts it out, descending the stairs as she sings, going from one side to another, leaning over the banister, stretching her arms wide; Chris, just behind her on the stairs, chants a subtle boom-de-boom in accompaniment. Tom is writing a paperfor the trilobite conference next year in Estonia. “Wouldn’t you like to go to Estonia?” he asks me. I don’t know. It depends on Norah, what happens to Norah. I’m trying to work on my new novel but am often derailed. Danielle’s new book is selling well even without an author tour, even with minimal promotion. So it goes.
Otherwise
T WO YEARS AGO I inhabited another kind of life in which I scarcely registered my notion of heartbreak. Hurt feelings, minor slights, minimal losses, small treacheries, even bad reviews—that’s what I thought sadness was made of: tragedy was someone not liking my book.
I wrote a novel for no particular reason other than feeling it was the right time in my life to write a novel. My publisher sent me on a four-city book tour: Toronto, New York, Washington, and Baltimore. A very modest bit of promotion, you might say, but Scribano & Lawrence scarcely knew what to do with me. I had never written a novel before. I was a woman in her forties, not at all remarkable looking and certainly not media-smart. If I had any reputation at all it was for being an editor and scholar, and not for producing, to everyone’s amazement, a “fresh, bright, springtime piece of fiction,” or so it was described in Publishers Weekly .
My Thyme Is Up baffled everyone with its sparky sales. We had no idea who was walking into bookstores and buying it. I didn’t know and Mr. Scribano didn’t know. “Probablyyoung working girls,” he ventured, “gnawed by
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