off. His head was absorbed into the sharp black shadow that fell from the side of the house.
“Wait a minute, James,” I said. “Don’t leave yet.”
He turned, and his face reemerged from the shadow, and I walked over to him, flicking the burnt end of the joint into the air.
“Come on inside the house for a minute,” I said, lowering my voice to a whisper that came out sounding so sinister and friendless that I suddenly felt ashamed. “There’s something upstairs I think you ought to see.”
W HEN WE WALKED back into the kitchen, the party was breaking up; Walter Gaskell had already led a large contingent of staff members off to Thaw Hall, among them the shy little elf in the turtleneck sweater who was to address us that evening on the subject of “The Writer as Doppelgänger.” Sara and a young woman in a gray service uniform were busy scraping out bowls into the kitchen trash, stretching plastic wrap across plates of cookies, shoving corks back into half-empty bottles of wine. They had the water running into the sink and didn’t hear us as we slipped past into the living room, where a crew of students was gathering up streaked paper plates and ashtrays filled with cigarette butts. I felt very stoned, now that I was inside, light and insubstantial as a ghost, and far less certain than a few minutes earlier of my motives in sneaking James Leer up to the Gaskells’ bedroom to show him what was hanging from a silver hanger in Walter Gaskell’s closet.
“Grady,” said one of the students, a young woman named Carrie McWhirty. She had been among James Leer’s most cruel detractors that afternoon, and she was herself a truly terrible writer, but I nevertheless held her in a certain tender and pitying regard, because she had been working on a novel, called Liza and the Cat People , since she was nine years old; almost half her life, longer even than I’d been working on Wonder Boys. “Hannah was looking for you. Hi, James.”
“Hello,” said James, glumly.
“Hannah?” I said. At the thought that she had been looking for me my heart was seized with panic or delight. “Where’d she go?”
“I’m out here, Grady,” called Hannah, from the foyer. She stuck her head into the living room, “I was wondering what happened to you guys.”
“Uh, we were outside,” I said. “We had a few things to discuss.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said Hannah, reading the pink calligraphy inked across the whites of my eyes. She had on a man’s plaid flannel shirt, tucked imperfectly into a baggy pair of Levi’s, and the cracked red cowboy boots I’d never once seen her go without, not even when she prowled the house in a terry-cloth bathrobe, or a pair of sweatpants, or running shorts. In idle moments I liked to summon up an image of her naked feet, long and intelligent, aglitter with down, toenails painted red as the leather of her boots. Beyond the mess of her dirty blond hair, however, and a certain heaviness of jaw—she was originally from Provo, Utah, and she had the wide, stubborn face of a Western girl—it was difficult to see much of a resemblance to Frances Farmer; but Hannah Green was very beautiful, and she knew it all too well, and she tried with all her might, I thought, not to let it fuck her up; maybe it was in this doomed struggle that James Leer saw a sad resemblance. “No, but really,” she said. “James, do you need a ride? I’m leaving right now. I was planning to give your friends a ride, too, Grady. Terry and his friend. Who is she, anyw—— hey. Grady, what’s the matter? You look kind of wiped.”
She reached out to put a hand on my arm—she was a person who liked to touch you—and I took a step away from her. I was always backing off from Hannah Green, pressing myself against the wall when we passed each other in a wide and empty hallway, hiding behind my newspaper when we found ourselves in the kitchen alone, with an admirable and highly unlikely steadfastness that I had a
“Wait a minute, James,” I said. “Don’t leave yet.”
He turned, and his face reemerged from the shadow, and I walked over to him, flicking the burnt end of the joint into the air.
“Come on inside the house for a minute,” I said, lowering my voice to a whisper that came out sounding so sinister and friendless that I suddenly felt ashamed. “There’s something upstairs I think you ought to see.”
W HEN WE WALKED back into the kitchen, the party was breaking up; Walter Gaskell had already led a large contingent of staff members off to Thaw Hall, among them the shy little elf in the turtleneck sweater who was to address us that evening on the subject of “The Writer as Doppelgänger.” Sara and a young woman in a gray service uniform were busy scraping out bowls into the kitchen trash, stretching plastic wrap across plates of cookies, shoving corks back into half-empty bottles of wine. They had the water running into the sink and didn’t hear us as we slipped past into the living room, where a crew of students was gathering up streaked paper plates and ashtrays filled with cigarette butts. I felt very stoned, now that I was inside, light and insubstantial as a ghost, and far less certain than a few minutes earlier of my motives in sneaking James Leer up to the Gaskells’ bedroom to show him what was hanging from a silver hanger in Walter Gaskell’s closet.
“Grady,” said one of the students, a young woman named Carrie McWhirty. She had been among James Leer’s most cruel detractors that afternoon, and she was herself a truly terrible writer, but I nevertheless held her in a certain tender and pitying regard, because she had been working on a novel, called Liza and the Cat People , since she was nine years old; almost half her life, longer even than I’d been working on Wonder Boys. “Hannah was looking for you. Hi, James.”
“Hello,” said James, glumly.
“Hannah?” I said. At the thought that she had been looking for me my heart was seized with panic or delight. “Where’d she go?”
“I’m out here, Grady,” called Hannah, from the foyer. She stuck her head into the living room, “I was wondering what happened to you guys.”
“Uh, we were outside,” I said. “We had a few things to discuss.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said Hannah, reading the pink calligraphy inked across the whites of my eyes. She had on a man’s plaid flannel shirt, tucked imperfectly into a baggy pair of Levi’s, and the cracked red cowboy boots I’d never once seen her go without, not even when she prowled the house in a terry-cloth bathrobe, or a pair of sweatpants, or running shorts. In idle moments I liked to summon up an image of her naked feet, long and intelligent, aglitter with down, toenails painted red as the leather of her boots. Beyond the mess of her dirty blond hair, however, and a certain heaviness of jaw—she was originally from Provo, Utah, and she had the wide, stubborn face of a Western girl—it was difficult to see much of a resemblance to Frances Farmer; but Hannah Green was very beautiful, and she knew it all too well, and she tried with all her might, I thought, not to let it fuck her up; maybe it was in this doomed struggle that James Leer saw a sad resemblance. “No, but really,” she said. “James, do you need a ride? I’m leaving right now. I was planning to give your friends a ride, too, Grady. Terry and his friend. Who is she, anyw—— hey. Grady, what’s the matter? You look kind of wiped.”
She reached out to put a hand on my arm—she was a person who liked to touch you—and I took a step away from her. I was always backing off from Hannah Green, pressing myself against the wall when we passed each other in a wide and empty hallway, hiding behind my newspaper when we found ourselves in the kitchen alone, with an admirable and highly unlikely steadfastness that I had a
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