Rooms Are Never Finished Quotes

Before reaching the final line, however, he had already understood that he would never leave that room, for it was foreseen that the city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureliano Babilonia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth.

How could he convey to someone who'd never even met her the way she always smelled like rain, or how his stomach knotted up every time he saw her shake loose her hair from its braid? How could he describe how it felt when she finished his sentences, turnec the mug they were sharing so that her mouth landed where his had been? How did he explain the way they could be in a locker room, or underwater, or in the piney woods of Maine, bus as long as Em was with him, he was at home?

No matter how old you are now. You are never too young or too old for success or going after what you want. Here’s a short list of people who accomplished great things at different ages 1) Helen Keller, at the age of 19 months, became deaf and blind. But that didn’t stop her. She was the first deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. 2) Mozart was already competent on keyboard and violin; he composed from the age of 5. 3) Shirley Temple was 6 when she became a movie star on “Bright Eyes.” 4) Anne Frank was 12 when she wrote the diary of Anne Frank. 5) Magnus Carlsen became a chess Grandmaster at the age of 13. 6) Nadia Comăneci was a gymnast from Romania that scored seven perfect 10.0 and won three gold medals at the Olympics at age 14. 7) Tenzin Gyatso was formally recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama in November 1950, at the age of 15. 8) Pele, a soccer superstar, was 17 years old when he won the world cup in 1958 with Brazil. 9) Elvis was a superstar by age 19. 10) John Lennon was 20 years and Paul Mcartney was 18 when the Beatles had their first concert in 1961. 11) Jesse Owens was 22 when he won 4 gold medals in Berlin 1936. 12) Beethoven was a piano virtuoso by age 23 13) Issac Newton wrote Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica at age 24 14) Roger Bannister was 25 when he broke the 4 minute mile record 15) Albert Einstein was 26 when he wrote the theory of relativity 16) Lance E. Armstrong was 27 when he won the tour de France 17) Michelangelo created two of the greatest sculptures “David” and “Pieta” by age 28 18) Alexander the Great, by age 29, had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world 19) J.K. Rowling was 30 years old when she finished the first manuscript of Harry Potter 20) Amelia Earhart was 31 years old when she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean 21) Oprah was 32 when she started her talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind 22) Edmund Hillary was 33 when he became the first man to reach Mount Everest 23) Martin Luther King Jr. was 34 when he wrote the speech “I Have a Dream." 24) Marie Curie was 35 years old when she got nominated for a Nobel Prize in Physics 25) The Wright brothers, Orville (32) and Wilbur (36) invented and built the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight 26) Vincent Van Gogh was 37 when he died virtually unknown, yet his paintings today are worth millions. 27) Neil Armstrong was 38 when he became the first man to set foot on the moon. 28) Mark Twain was 40 when he wrote "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and 49 years old when he wrote "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" 29) Christopher Columbus was 41 when he discovered the Americas 30) Rosa Parks was 42 when she refused to obey the bus driver’s order to give up her seat to make room for a white passenger 31) John F. Kennedy was 43 years old when he became President of the United States 32) Henry Ford Was 45 when the Ford T came out. 33) Suzanne Collins was 46 when she wrote "The Hunger Games" 34) Charles Darwin was 50 years old when his book On the Origin of Species came out. 35) Leonardo Da Vinci was 51 years old when he painted the Mona Lisa. 36) Abraham Lincoln was 52 when he became president. 37) Ray Kroc Was 53 when he bought the McDonalds Franchise and took it to unprecedented levels. 38) Dr. Seuss was 54 when he wrote "The Cat in the Hat". 40) Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III was 57 years old when he successfully ditched US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009. All of the 155 passengers aboard the aircraft survived 41) Colonel Harland Sanders was 61 when he started the KFC Franchise 42) J.R.R Tolkien was 62 when the Lord of the Ring books came out 43) Ronald Reagan was 69 when he became President of the US 44) Jack Lalane at age 70 handcuffed, shackled, towed 70 rowboats 45) Nelson Mandela was 76 when he became President

I know you, I know you. You're the only serious person in the room, aren't you, the only one who understands, and you can prove it by the fact that you've never finished a single thing in your life. You're the only well-educated person, because you never went to college, and you resent education, you resent social ease, you resent good manners, you resent success, you resent any kind of success, you resent God, you resent Christ, you resent thousand-dollar bills, you resent Christmas, by God, you resent happiness, you resent happiness itself, because none of that's real. What is real, then? Nothing's real to you that isn't part of your own past, real life, a swamp of failures, of social, sexual, financial, personal...spiritual failure. Real life. You poor bastard. You don't know what real life is, you've never been near it. All you have is a thousand intellectualized ideas about life. But life? Have you ever measured yourself against anything but your own lousy past? Have you ever faced anything outside yourself? Life! You poor bastard.

Closing The Cycle One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters - whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished. Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents' house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden? You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won't take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that. But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister, everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill. None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot for ever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back. Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away. That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts - and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place. Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else. Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the "ideal moment." Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person - nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important. Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.

You cannot be afraid to disappoint people. You have to live the life you want to live. Sometimes, that means being the motherfucker who can put a middle finger up to everyone in the room and be totally comfortable with that.

The notion of ambiguity must not be confused with that of absurdity. To declare that existence is absurd is to deny that it can ever be given a meaning; so to say it is ambiguous is to assert that it's meaning is never fixed, that it must be constantly won. Absurdity challenges every ethics; but also the finished rationalization of the real would leave no room for ethics; it is because man's condition is ambiguous that he seeks, through failure & outrageousness, to save his existence.

Modern man is full of platitudes about living life to its fullest, with catchy keychain phrases and little plaques for kitchen walls. But if you've never retreated to the solitude of a dark room and listened to Beethoven's Ninth from start to finish, you know nothing. For music is a transcendental exploration of human emotion and experience, the very fabric of life in its purest form. And the Ninth our greatest musical achievement.

I am glad you are no relation of mine. I will never call you aunt again as long as I live. I will never come to visit you when I am grown up; and if any one asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with miserable cruelty. . . . You think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity. I shall remember how you thrust me back . . . into the red-room. . . . And that punishment you made me suffer because your wicked boy struck me—knocked me down for nothing. I will tell anybody who asks me questions this exact tale. ’Ere I had finished this reply, my soul began to expand, to exult, with the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt. It seemed as if an invisible bond had burst, and that I had struggled out into unhoped-for liberty. . . .

A good book is never exhausted. It goes on whispering to you from the wall. Books perfume and give weight to a room. A bookcase is as good as a view, as the sight of a city or a river. There are dawns and sunsets in books - storms, fogs, zephyrs. I read about a family whose apartment consists of a series of spaces so strictly planned that they are obliged to give away their books as soon as they've read them. I think they have misunderstood the way books work. Reading a book is only the first step in the relationship. After you've finished it, the book enters on its real career. It stand there as a badge, a blackmailer, a monument, a scar. It's both a flaw in the room, like a crack in the plaster, and a decoration. The contents of someone's bookcase are part of his history, like an ancestral portrait. - in "About books; recoiling, rereading, retelling", The New York Times, February 22, 1987

When I got home I mixed a stiff one and stood by the open window in the living room and sipped it and listened to the groundswell of traffic on Laurel Canyon Boulevard and looked at the glare of the big angry city hanging over the shoulder of the hills through which the boulevard had been cut. Far off the banshee wail of police or fire sirens rose and fell, never for very long completely silent. Twenty four hours a day somebody is running, somebody else is trying to catch him. Out there in the night of a thousand crimes, people were dying, being maimed, cut by flying glass, crushed against steering wheels or under heavy tires. People were being beaten, robbed, strangled, raped, and murdered. People were hungry, sick; bored, desperate with loneliness or remorse or fear, angry, cruel, feverish, shaken by sobs. A city no worse than others, a city rich and vigorous and full of pride, a city lost and beaten and full of emptiness. It all depends on where you sit and what your own private score is. I didn't have one. I didn't care. I finished the drink and went to bed.

On her way to the sink, she says, "Where's Toraf and Rayna? Oh!" She gasps. "Did they find an island?" Galen shakes his head and pours himself some water from a pitcher on the table, grateful for a topic change. "Nope. They're upstairs. He snuck into her bed. I've never seen anyone risk his life like that." Rachel makes a tsking sound as she rinses some dishes. "Why does everyone keep talking about finding an island?" Emma asks, finishing the rest of her juice. "Who else is talking about it?" Galen frowns. "In the living room, I hear Toraf give her a choice between going to the kitchen or finding an island." Galen laughs. "And she picked the kitchen, right?" Emma nods. "What? What's so funny?" "Rayna and Toraf are mated. I guess humans call it married," he says. "Syrena find an island when they're ready to...mate in a physical sense. We can only do that in human form." "Oh. Oh. Um, okay," she says, blushing anew. "I wondered about that. The physical part, I mean. So they're married? Seems like she hates him.

One day when no one else was around, I went into the craft room at the back of the ground floor. I touched Gran's collection of fabrics, the shiny bright buttons, the coloured threads. My head and shoulders melted first, followed by my hips and knees. Before long I was a puddle, soaking into the pretty cotton prints. I drenched the quilt she never finished, rusted the metal parts of her sewing machine. I was pure liquid loss...

ALTERNATE UNIVERSE IN WHICH I AM UNFAZED BY THE MEN WHO DO NOT LOVE ME when the businessman shoulder checks me in the airport, i do not apologize. instead, i write him an elegy on the back of a receipt and tuck it in his hand as i pass through the first class cabin. like a bee, he will die after stinging me. i am twenty-four and have never cried. once, a boy told me he doesn’t “believe in labels” so i embroidered the word chauvinist on the back of his favorite coat. a boy said he liked my hair the other way so i shaved my head instead of my pussy. while the boy isn’t calling back, i learn carpentry, build a desk, write a book at the desk. i taught myself to cum from counting ceiling tiles. the boy says he prefers blondes and i steam clean his clothes with bleach. the boy says i am not marriage material and i put gravel in his pepper grinder. the boy says period sex is disgusting and i slaughter a goat in his living room. the boy does not ask if he can choke me, so i pretend to die while he’s doing it. my mother says this is not the meaning of unfazed. when the boy says i curse too much to be pretty and i tattoo “cunt” on my inner lip, my mother calls this “being very fazed.” but left over from the other universe are hours and hours of waiting for him to kiss me and here, they are just hours. here, they are a bike ride across long island in june. here, they are a novel read in one sitting. here, they are arguments about god or a full night’s sleep. here, i hand an hour to the woman crying outside of the bar. i leave one on my best friend’s front porch, send my mother two in the mail. i do not slice his tires. i do not burn the photos. i do not write the letter. i do not beg. i do not ask for forgiveness. i do not hold my breath while he finishes. the man tells me he does not love me, and he does not love me. the man tells me who he is, and i listen. i have so much beautiful time.

It was a tale well known to children all over Africa: Abu Kassem, a miserly Baghdad merchant, had held on to his battered, much repaired pair of slippers even though they were objects of derision. At last, even he couldn't stomach the sight of them. But his every attempt to get rid of his slippers ended in disaster: when he tossed them out of his window they landed on the head of a pregnant woman who miscarried, and Abu Kassem was thrown in jail; when he dropped them in the canal, the slippers choked off the main drain and caused flooding, and off Abu Kassem went to jail... 'One night when Tawfiq finished, another prisoner, a quiet dignified old man, said, 'Abu Kassem might as well build a special room for his slippers. Why try to lose them? He'll never escape.' The old man laughed, and he seemed happy when he said that. That night the old man died in his sleep. We all saw it the same way. the old man was right. The slippers in the story mean that everything you see and do and touch, every seed you sow, or don't sow, becomes part of your destiny... In order to start to get rid of your slippers, you have to admit they are yours, and if you do, then they will get rid of themselves. Ghosh sighed. 'I hope one day you see this as clearly as I did in Kerchele. The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don't. If you keep saying your slippers aren't yours, then you'll die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.

Such are the visions which ceaselessly float up, pace beside, put their faces in front of, the actual thing; often overpowering the solitary traveller and taking away from him the sense of the earth, the wish to return, and giving him for substitute a general peace, as if (so he thinks as he advances down the forest ride) all this fever of living were simplicity itself; and myriads of things merged in one thing; and this figure, made of sky and branches as it is, had risen from the troubled sea (he is elderly, past fifty now) as a shape might be sucked up out of the waves to shower down from her magnificent hands, compassion, comprehension, absolution. So, he thinks, may I never go back to the lamplight; to the sitting-room; never finish my book; never knock out my pipe; never ring for Mrs. Turner to clear away; rather let me walk on to this great figure, who will, with a toss of her head, mount me on her streamers and let me blow to nothingness with the rest.

I feel like I’m waiting here. Waiting for something that hasn’t happened yet. Something that isn’t yet. But that’s all I feel and nothing else. I don’t know if I even exist. And then someone flips a switch and the light is gone, the room is gone, the weightlessness is gone. I want to ask to wait, because I wasn’t finished yet, but I don’t have a chance. There is no gentle pulling. No coaxing. No choice. I’m wrenched out. Yanked, as if my head is being snapped back. I’m in the dark and everything is pain. There are too many sensations at once. Every nerve ending is on fire. Like the shock of being born. And then, there are flashes of everything. Color, voices, machines, harsh words. The pain doesn’t flash. The pain is constant, steady, never-ending. It’s the only thing I know. I don’t want to be awake anymore.

5:15 I have never put makeup on. It's hard. "You assholes are crowding my mirror space. Gimme some room, I keep smearing my blush." Everyone's glares at me. I feel like a gay homosexual.

Her eyes narrowed, and her lips parted around a knowing laugh. "Oh. It's you." "Pardon?" He was taken aback. "Do we know each other, lass?" He was quite certain they didn't; he could never have forgotten this woman. The enticing manner in which her lips were currently pursed would have been seared into his memory. "The answer is no. I don't know you. But every other woman in this room does. Duncan Douglas, isn't it?" she said dryly. Duncan studied her face. Although she was young-perhaps no more than twenty-she had a regal bearing beyond her years. "I do have some reputation with the lasses," he conceded, downplaying his prowess, confident of her impending maidenly swoon. The look she gave him was far from admiring. He did a double take when he realized her gaze was downright disparaging. "Not something I care for in a man," she said coolly. "Thank you for your offer, but I'd sooner dance with last week's rushes. They would be less used. Who wants what everyone else has already had?" The words were delivered in a cool, modulated tone, shaped by an odd accent he couldn't place. Quite finished with him, she presented her back and resumed talking to her companion. Duncan was immobilized by shock.

I thought that if I couldn’t make a living as an artist, at least I shouldn’t starve. By the time I had finished these studies, I had realized that I simply did not draw well enough to be the kind of artist and illustrator that I wanted to be, and so for two days a week over two years I drew — and drew and drew — from the models in the life classes at Chelsea School of Art. I really found out how people looked and moved and balanced, and though nowadays I almost never use a sketchbook and just make everything up as I go along, it’s those days in the life room that are the back of it all.

Filling a room with the things you think you should because you’ve seen someone else do it that way or because you just want it to feel finished will never yield a home you truly love. You can make a room feel both beautiful and complete without filling every corner and surface with a bunch of random stuff.

You have the lovers, they are nameless, their histories only for each other, and you have the room, the bed, and the windows. Pretend it is a ritual. Unfurl the bed, bury the lovers, blacken the windows, let them live in that house for a generation or two. No one dares disturb them. Visitors in the corridor tip-toe past the long closed door, they listen for sounds, for a moan, for a song: nothing is heard, not even breathing. You know they are not dead, you can feel the presence of their intense love. Your children grow up, they leave you, they have become soldiers and riders. Your mate dies after a life of service. Who knows you? Who remembers you? But in your house a ritual is in progress: It is not finished: it needs more people. One day the door is opened to the lover's chamber. The room has become a dense garden, full of colours, smells, sounds you have never known. The bed is smooth as a wafer of sunlight, in the midst of the garden it stands alone. In the bed the lovers, slowly and deliberately and silently, perform the act of love. Their eyes are closed, as tightly as if heavy coins of flesh lay on them. Their lips are bruised with new and old bruises. Her hair and his beard are hopelessly tangled. When he puts his mouth against her shoulder she is uncertain whether her shoulder has given or received the kiss. All her flesh is like a mouth. He carries his fingers along her waist and feels his own waist caressed. She holds him closer and his own arms tighten around her. She kisses the hand besider her mouth. It is his hand or her hand, it hardly matters, there are so many more kisses. You stand beside the bed, weeping with happiness, you carefully peel away the sheets from the slow-moving bodies. Your eyes filled with tears, you barely make out the lovers, As you undress you sing out, and your voice is magnificent because now you believe it is the first human voice heard in that room. The garments you let fall grow into vines. You climb into bed and recover the flesh. You close your eyes and allow them to be sewn shut. You create an embrace and fall into it. There is only one moment of pain or doubt as you wonder how many multitudes are lying beside your body, but a mouth kisses and a hand soothes the moment away.

Is Etienene okay?" "Haven't seen him.He went to Ellie's last night." Just when I thought I couldn't feel any worse.I twist the corners of my pillow. "Did I,uh,say anything weird to him last night?" "Apart from acting like a jealous girlfriend and saying you never wanted to speak to him again? No. Nothing weird at all." I moan as she recounts the night for me blow by blow. "Listen," she says when she finishes, "what's the deal with you two?"" "What do you mean?" "You know what I mean.You two are inseparable." "Except when he's with his girlfriend." "Right.So what's the deal?" I groan again. "I don't know." "Have you guys...you know...done anything?" "No!" "But you like him.And he likes you, too." I stop choking my pillow. "You think?" "Please.The boy gets a boner every time you walk in the room." My eyes pop back open. Does she mean that figuratively or has she actually seen something? No. Focus, Anna. "So why-" "Why is he still with Ellie? He told you last night. He's lonely, or at least he's scared of being lonely. Josh says with all of this stuff with his mom, he's been too freaked out to change anything else in his life." So Meredith was right. Etienne is afraid of change. Why haven't I talked about this with Rashmi before? It seems obvious now.Of course she has inside information,because Etienne talks to Josh,and Josh talks to Rashmi. "You really think he likes me?" I can't help it. She sighs. "Anna.He teases you all the time. It's classic boy-pulling-girl's-pigtai-syndrome.And whenever anyone else even remotely does it,he always takes your side and tells them to shove it." "Huh." She pauses. "You really like him, don't you?" I'm struggling not to cry. "No.It's not like that." "Liar.So are you getting up today or what? You need sustenance.

The autopsy took place in the morning and was the best argument for the buddy systemI had ever seen. Never live alone, I told myself. Before you chane a lightbulb, call someone from the other room and have him watch until you are finished.

I am in my mother's room. It's I who live there now. I don't know how I got there. Perhaps in an ambulance, certainly a vehicle of some kind. I was helped. I'd never have got there alone. There's this man who comes every week. Perhaps I got there thanks to him. He says not. He gives me money and takes away the pages. So many pages,so much money. Yes, I work now, a little like I used to, except that I don't know how to work any more. That doesn't matter apparently. What I'd like now is to speak of the things that are left, say my good-byes, finish dying. They don't want that. Yes, there is more than one, apparently. But it's always the same one that comes. You'll do that later, he says. Good. The truth is I haven't much will left. When he comes for the fresh pages he brings back the previous week's. They are marked with signs I don't understand ... Here's my beginning. It must mean something, or they wouldn't keep it. Here it is.

I found myself one evening in the dreams of the night, in that sacred building, the Temple. After a season of prayer and rejoicing, I was informed that I should have the privilege of entering into one of those rooms, to meet a glorious personage, and as I entered the door, I saw, seated on a raised platform, the most glorious Being my eyes have ever beheld, or that I ever conceived existed in all the eternal worlds. As I approached to be introduced, he arose and stepped towards me with extended arms, and he smiled as he softly spoke my name. If I shall live to be a million years old, I shall never forget that smile. He took me into his arms and kissed me, pressed me to His bosom, and blessed me, until the marrow of my bones seemed to melt! When He had finished, I fell at His feet, and as I bathed them with my tears and kisses, I saw the prints of the nails in the feet of the Redeemer of the world. The feeling that I had in the presence of Him who hath all things in His hands, to have His love, His affection, and His blessings was such that if I ever can receive that of which I had but a foretaste, I would give all that I am, all that I ever hope to be, to feel what I then felt (as cited in Bryant S. Hinckley, The Faith of Our Pioneer Fathers, pp. 226-27.)

So, he thinks, may I never go back to the lamplight; to the sitting-room; never finish my book; never knock out my pipe; never ring for Mrs. Turner to clear away; rather let me walk straight on to this great figure, who will, with a toss of her head, mount me on her streamers and let me blow to nothingness with the rest.

To: Anna Oliphant From: Etienne St. Clair Subject: Uncommon Prostitues I have nothing to say about prostitues (other than you'd make a terrible prostitute,the profession is much too unclean), I only wanted to type that. Isn't it odd we both have to spend Christmas with our fathers? Speaking of unpleasant matters,have you spoken with Bridge yet? I'm taking the bus to the hospital now.I expect a full breakdown of your Christmas dinner when I return. So far today,I've had a bowl of muesli. How does Mum eat that rubbish? I feel as if I've been gnawing on lumber. To: Etienne St. Clair From: Anna Oliphant Subject: Christmas Dinner MUESLY? It's Christmas,and you're eating CEREAL?? I'm mentally sending you a plate from my house. The turkey is in the oven,the gravy's on the stovetop,and the mashed potatoes and casseroles are being prepared as I type this. Wait. I bet you eat bread pudding and mince pies or something,don't you? Well, I'm mentally sending you bread pudding. Whatever that is. No, I haven't talked to Bridgette.Mom keeps bugging me to answer her calls,but winter break sucks enough already. (WHY is my dad here? SERIOUSLY. MAKE HIM LEAVE. He's wearing this giant white cable-knit sweater,and he looks like a pompous snowman,and he keeps rearranging the stuff on our kitchen cabinets. Mom is about to kill him. WHICH IS WHY SHE SHOULDN'T INVITE HIM OVER FOR HOLIDAYS). Anyway.I'd rather not add to the drama. P.S. I hope your mom is doing better. I'm so sorry you have to spend today in a hospital. I really do wish I could send you both a plate of turkey. To: Anna Oliphant From: Etienne St. Clair Subject: Re: Christmas Dinner YOU feel sorry for ME? I am not the one who has never tasted bread pudding. The hospital was the same. I won't bore you with the details. Though I had to wait an hour to catch the bus back,and it started raining.Now that I'm at the flat, my father has left for the hospital. We're each making stellar work of pretending the other doesn't exist. P.S. Mum says to tell you "Merry Christmas." So Merry Christmas from my mum, but Happy Christmas from me. To: Etienne St. Clair From: Anna Oliphant Subject: SAVE ME Worst.Dinner.Ever.It took less than five minutes for things to explode. My dad tried to force Seany to eat the green bean casserole, and when he wouldn't, Dad accused Mom of not feeding my brother enough vegetables. So she threw down her fork,and said that Dad had no right to tell her how to raise her children. And then he brought out the "I'm their father" crap, and she brought out the "You abandoned them" crap,and meanwhile, the WHOLE TIME my half-dead Nanna is shouting, "WHERE'S THE SALT! I CAN'T TASTE THE CASSEROLE! PASS THE SALT!" And then Granddad complained that Mom's turkey was "a wee dry," and she lost it. I mean,Mom just started screaming. And it freaked Seany out,and he ran to his room crying, and when I checked on him, he was UNWRAPPING A CANDY CANE!! I have no idea where it came from. He knows he can't eat Red Dye #40! So I grabbed it from him,and he cried harder, and Mom ran in and yelled at ME, like I'd given him the stupid thing. Not, "Thank you for saving my only son's life,Anna." And then Dad came in and the fighting resumed,and they didn't even notice that Seany was still sobbing. So I took him outside and fed him cookies,and now he's running aruond in circles,and my grandparents are still at the table, as if we're all going to sit back down and finish our meal. WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY FAMILY? And now Dad is knocking on my door. Great. Can this stupid holiday get any worse??

My old man 16 years old during the depression I’d come home drunk and all my clothing– shorts, shirts, stockings– suitcase, and pages of short stories would be thrown out on the front lawn and about the street. my mother would be waiting behind a tree: “Henry, Henry, don’t go in . . .he’ll kill you, he’s read your stories . . .” “I can whip his ass . . .” “Henry, please take this . . .and find yourself a room.” but it worried him that I might not finish high school so I’d be back again. one evening he walked in with the pages of one of my short stories (which I had never submitted to him) and he said, “this is a great short story.” I said, “o.k.,” and he handed it to me and I read it. it was a story about a rich man who had a fight with his wife and had gone out into the night for a cup of coffee and had observed the waitress and the spoons and forks and the salt and pepper shakers and the neon sign in the window and then had gone back to his stable to see and touch his favorite horse who then kicked him in the head and killed him. somehow the story held meaning for him though when I had written it I had no idea of what I was writing about. so I told him, “o.k., old man, you can have it.” and he took it and walked out and closed the door. I guess that’s as close as we ever got.

What do we leave behind but things not done, not said, not finished? Empty clothes, empty rooms, empty spaces in the ones who knew us? Mistakes never made right and hopes rotted down to nothing?

When [an abusive man] tells me that he became abusive because he lost control of himself, I ask him why he didn’t do something even worse. For example, I might say, “You called her a fucking whore, you grabbed the phone out of her hand and whipped it across the room, and then you gave her a shove and she fell down. There she was at your feet where it would have been easy to kick her in the head. Now, you have just finished telling me that you were ‘totally out of control’ at that time, but you didn’t kick her. What stopped you?” And the client can always give me a reason. Here are some common explanations: “I wouldn’t want to cause her a serious injury.” “I realized one of the children was watching.” “I was afraid someone would call the police.” “I could kill her if I did that.” “The fight was getting loud, and I was afraid the neighbors would hear.” And the most frequent response of all: “Jesus, I wouldn’t do that. I would never do something like that to her.” The response that I almost never heard – I remember hearing it twice in the fifteen years – was: “I don’t know.” These ready answers strip the cover off of my clients’ loss of control excuse.

Oh, Kathleen!" sighed Nancy as the two went into the kitchen together. "Isn't mother the most interesting 'scolder' you ever listened to? I love to hear her do it, especially when somebody else is getting it. When it's I, I grow smaller and smaller, curling myself up like a little worm. Then when she has finished I squirm to the door and wriggle out. Other mothers say: 'If you don't, I shall tell your father!' 'Do as I tell you, and ask no questions.' 'I never heard of such behavior in my life!' 'Haven't you any sense of propriety?' 'If this happens again I shall have to do something desperate.' 'Leave the room at once,' and so on; but mother sets you to thinking." "Mother doesn't really scold," Kathleen objected. "No, but she shows you how wrong you are, just the same...

How could he convey to someone who'd never even met her the way she always smelled like rain, or how his stomach knotted up every time he saw her shake loose her hair from its braid? How could he describe how it felt when she finished his sentences, turned the mug they were sharing so that her mouth landed where his had been? How did he explain the way they could be in a locker room, or underwater, or in the piney woods of Maine, bus as long as Em was with him, he was at home?

Nana and Pops were waiting in the living room. They had their recliners pushed in front of the couch, the only place available for Cole and me to sit. The moment we were in position, the interrogation began. Pops: Plans for the future? Groaning, I dropped my head in my hands. He'd kicked things off with Justin the exact same way. Guaranteed, he'd end the same way. Cole: College, law enforcement. Nana: Oh, I like him better than that other boy already. Pops: Good, that's good. Now finish this sentence for me. When a girl says no, she means... Yep. Exactly the same. Cole: No. And that's that. I don't push for more. Nana: Another excellent answer. But here's an even tougher sentence for you to finish. Premarital sex is... I should have let the zombies have me. Cole: Up to the couple. What happens between them is no one else's business. Sorry, but not even yours. Both Pops ans Nana blustered over that for a minute, but they soon calmed down. I, of course, blushed the most horrifying shade of lobster. (That was just a guess.) However, I found Cole's answer exceptional. Pops: That's fair enough, I guess. So how do you feel about drinking and driving? Cole: I think it's stupid, that's one thing you'll never have to worry about with me and Ali. I never drink, and if she does, I won't take advantage of her. I'd bring her home. I'll always look out for her safety, you have my word. "I won't be drinking, either," I said. "Ever." Nana: Aren't you just a breath of fresh air? Pops: He is. He is indeed. I think I was as impressed with him as my grandparents were. Underneath the muscles, scars and tattoos (which my grandparents couldn't see, since he wore a long-sleeved shirt) he was a really good guy. And because they were so impressed, they let us go with no more fuss!

* You should read the book that you hear two booksellers arguing about at the registers while you’re browsing in a bookstore. * You should read the book that you see someone on the train reading and trying to hide that they’re laughing. * You should read the book that you see someone on the train reading and trying to hide that they’re crying. * You should read the book that you find left behind in the airplane seat pocket, on a park bench, on the bus, at a restaurant, or in a hotel room. * You should read the book that you see someone reading for hours in a coffee shop — there when you got there and still there when you left — that made you envious because you were working instead of absorbed in a book. * You should read the book you find in your grandparents’ house that’s inscribed “To Ray, all my love, Christmas 1949.” * You should read the book that you didn’t read when it was assigned in your high school English class. You’d probably like it better now anyway. * You should read the book whose author happened to mention on Charlie Rose that their favorite band is your favorite band. * You should read the book that your favorite band references in their lyrics. * You should read the book that your history professor mentions and then says, “which, by the way, is a great book,” offhandedly. * You should read the book that you loved in high school. Read it again. * You should read the book that you find on the library’s free cart whose cover makes you laugh. * You should read the book whose main character has your first name. * You should read the book whose author gets into funny Twitter exchanges with Colson Whitehead. * You should read the book about your hometown’s history that was published by someone who grew up there. * You should read the book your parents give you for your high school graduation. * You should read the book you’ve started a few times and keep meaning to finish once and for all. * You should read books with characters you don’t like. * You should read books about countries you’re about to visit. * You should read books about historical events you don’t know anything about. * You should read books about things you already know a little about. * You should read books you can’t stop hearing about and books you’ve never heard of. * You should read books mentioned in other books. * You should read prize-winners, bestsellers, beach reads, book club picks, and classics, when you want to. You should just keep reading." [28 Books You Should Read If You Want To (The Millions, February 18, 2014)]

In every room the recollection of my childhood is slight, and fireflies of memory disappear as soon as I turn my mind to them. I passed through my past, I didn't or couldn't savour the time, and now my history is huge and vacant, like a film I never finished watching.

Then I saw the keyboard of an organ which filled one whole side of the walls. On the desk was a music-book covered with red notes. I asked leave to look at it and read, ‘Don Juan Triumphant.’ ‘Yes,’ he said, 'I compose sometimes.’ I began that work twenty years ago. When I have finished, I shall take it away with me in that coffin and never wake up again.’ 'You must work at it as seldom as you can,’ I said. He replied, 'I sometimes work at it for fourteen days and nights together, during which I live on music only, and then I rest for years at a time.’ 'Will you play me something out of your Don Juan Triumphant?’ I asked, thinking to please him. 'You must never ask me that,’ he said, in a gloomy voice. 'I will play you Mozart, if you like, which will only make you weep; but my Don Juan, Christine, burns; and yet he is not struck by fire from Heaven.’ Thereupon we returned to the drawing-room. I noticed that there was no mirror in the whole apartment. I was going to remark upon this, but Erik had already sat down to the piano. He said, 'You see, Christine, there is some music that is so terrible that it consumes all those who approach it. Fortunately, you have not come to that music yet, for you would lose all your pretty coloring and nobody would know you when you returned to Paris. Let us sing something from the Opera, Christine Daae.’ He spoke these last words as though he were flinging an insult at me.” “What did you do?” “I had no time to think about the meaning he put into his words. We at once began the duet in Othello and already the catastrophe was upon us. I sang Desdemona with a despair, a terror which I had never displayed before. As for him, his voice thundered forth his revengeful soul at every note. Love, jealousy, hatred, burst out around us in harrowing cries. Erik’s black mask made me think of the natural mask of the Moor of Venice. He was Othello himself. Suddenly, I felt a need to see beneath the mask. I wanted to know the FACE of the voice, and, with a movement which I was utterly unable to control, swiftly my fingers tore away the mask. Oh, horror, horror, horror!” Christine stopped, at the thought of the vision that had scared her, while the echoes of the night, which had repeated the name of Erik, now thrice moaned the cry: “Horror! … Horror! … Horror!

Goodbye,Nick," she said, starting to close the door. "And thank you for stopping by." He accepted her decision with a slight inclination of his head, and Lauren made herself finish closing the door. She forced herself to walk away on legs that felt like lead, reminding herself at the same time how insane it would be to let him near her. But halfway across the living room she lost the internal battle. Pivoting on her heel, she raced for the door, yanked it open and hurtled straight into Nick's chest. He was lounging with one hand braced high against the doorframe, gazing down at her flushed face with a knowing, satisfied grin. "Hello,Lauren.I happened to be in the neighborhood and decided to drop by." "What do you want,Nick?" she sighed, her blue eyes searching his. "You." Resolutely she started to close the door again, but his hand shot out to stop her. "Do you really want me to go?" "I told you on Wednesday that what I want has nothing to do with it. What matters is what's best for me, and-" He interrupted her with a boyish grin. "I promise I'll never wear your clothes,and I won't steal your allowances or your boyfriends either." Lauren couldn't help starting to smile as he finished, "And if you swear never to call me Nicky again, I won't bite you." She stepped aside and let him in, then took his jacket and hung it in the closet. When she turned, Nick was leaning against the closed front door, his arms crossed over his chest. "On second thought," he grinned, "I take part of that back.I'd love to bite you." "Pervert!" she returned teasingly, her heart thumping so much with excitement that she hardly knew what she was saying. "Come here and I'll show you just how perverted I can be," he invited smoothly. Lauren took a cautious step backward. "Absolutely not.

Dear Jessa, I’ve started this letter so many times and I’ve never been able to finish it. So here goes again . . . I’m sorry. I’m sorry that Riley is dead. I’m sorry for ignoring your emails and for not being there for you. I’m sorry I’ve hurt you. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish it had been me that died and not Riley. If I could go back in time and change everything I would. I’m sorry I left without a word. There’s no excuse for my behaviour but please know that it had nothing to do with you. I was a mess. I haven’t been able to talk to anyone for months. And I felt too guilty and didn’t know how to tell you the truth about what happened. I couldn’t bear the thought of you knowing. I got all your emails but I didn’t read them until last week. I couldn’t face it and I guess that makes me the biggest coward you’ll ever meet. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I never replied. You needed me and I wasn’t there for you. I don’t even know how to ask your forgiveness because I don’t deserve it. I’m just glad you’re doing better. I’m better too. I’ve started seeing a therapist – twice a week – you’d like her. She reminds me of Didi. I never thought I’d be the kind of guy who needed therapy, but they made it a condition of me keeping my job. She’s helped me a lot with getting the panic attacks under control. Working in a room the size of a janitor’s closet helps too – there aren’t too many surprises, only the occasional rogue paperclip. I asked for the posting. I have to thank your dad ironically. The demotion worked out. Kind of funny that I totally get where your father was coming from all those years. Looks like I’ll be spending the remainder of my marine career behind a desk, but I’m OK with that. I don’t know what else to say, Jessa. My therapist says I should just write down whatever comes into my head. So here goes. Here’s what’s in my head . . . I miss you. I love you. Even though I long ago gave up the right to any sort of claim over you, I can’t stop loving you. I won’t ever stop. You’re in my blood. You’re the only thing that got me through this, Jessa. Because even during the bad times, the worst times, the times I’d wake up in a cold sweat, my heart thumping, the times I’d think the only way out was by killing myself and just having it all go away, I’d think of you and it would pull me back out of whatever dark place I’d fallen into. You’re my light, Jessa. My north star. You asked me once to come back to you and I told you I always would. I’m working on it. It might take me a little while, and I know I have no right to ask you to wait for me after everything I’ve done, but I’m going to anyway because the truth is I don’t know how to live without you. I’ve tried and I can’t do it. So please, I’m asking you to wait for me. I’m going to come back to you. I promise. And I’m going to make things right. I’ll do whatever it takes. I’ll never stop trying for the rest of my life to make things right between us. I love you. Always. Kit

How lovely the months, the years with him had been. At the moment I hadn’t understood their importance, and now here I was, growing sad. The rain the cold the snow the scents of Spring along the Arno and on the flowering streets of the city, the warmth we gave each other. Choosing a dress, glasses. His pleasure in changing me. And Paris, the exciting trip to a foreign country, the cafes, the politics, the literature, the revolution that would soon arrive, even though the working class was becoming integrated. And him. His room at night. His body. All finished. I tossed nervously in my bed unable to sleep. I’m lying to myself , I thought. Had it really been so wonderful ? I knew very well that at that time, too, there had been shame. And uneasiness, and humiliation, and disgust: accept, submit force yourself. Is it possible that even happy moments of pleasure never stand up to rigorous examination

He took up another long strip of towel in his right hand. He had to lean in to loop it behind her. He was so close now. His mind took in the shell of her ear, the hair tucked behind it, that rapid pulse fluttering in her throat. Alive, alive, alive. It isn’t easy for me either. He looped the bandage around again. The barest touches. Unavoidable. Shoulder, clavicle, once her knee. The water rose around him. He secured the knot. Step back. He did not step back. He stood there, hearing his own breath, hers, the rhythm of them alone in this room. The sickness was there, the need to run, the need for something else too. Kaz thought he knew the language of pain intimately, but this ache was new. It hurt to stand here like this, so close to the circle of her arms. It isn’t easy for me either. After all she’d endured, he was the weak one. But she would never know what it was like for him to see Nina pull her close, watch Jesper loop his arm through hers, what it was to stand in doorways and against walls and know he could never draw nearer. But I’m here now, he thought wildly. He had carried her, fought beside her, spent whole nights next to her, both of them on their bellies, peering through a long glass, watching some warehouse or merch’s mansion. This was nothing like that. He was sick and frightened, his body slick with sweat, but he was here. He watched that pulse, the evidence of her heart, matching his own beat for anxious beat. He saw the damp curve of her neck, the gleam of her brown skin. He wanted to … He wanted. Before he even knew what he intended, he lowered his head. She drew in a sharp breath. His lips hovered just above the warm juncture between her shoulder and the column of her neck. He waited. Tell me to stop. Push me away. She exhaled. “Go on,” she repeated. Finish the story. The barest movement and his lips brushed her skin—warm, smooth, beaded with moisture. Desire coursed through him, a thousand images he’d hoarded, barely let himself imagine—the fall of her dark hair freed from its braid, his hand fitted to the lithe curve of her waist, her lips parted, whispering his name.

You turn to shit, alright. But maybe you can leave something good behind you.’ She barked empty laughter at him. ‘What do we leave behind but things not done, not said, not finished? Empty clothes, empty rooms, empty spaces in the ones who knew us? Mistakes never made right and hopes rotted down to nothing?

I got a book deal, I told Neil grumpily. I’m going to write a book about the TED talk. And all the…other stuff I couldn’t fit into twelve minutes. He was writing at the kitchen table and looked up with delight. Of course you did. They’re paying me an actual advance, I said. I can pay you back now. That’s wonderful, my clever wife. I told you it would all work out. But I’ve never written a book. How could they pay me to write a book? I don’t know how to write a book. You’re the writer. You’re hopeless, my darling, he said. I glared at him. Just write the book, Amanda. Do what I do: finish your tour, go away somewhere, and write it all down in one sitting. They’ll get you an editor. You’re a songwriter. You blog. A book is just…longer. You’ll have fun. Fine, I’ll write it, I said, crossing my arms. And I’m putting EVERYTHING in it. And then everyone will know what an asshole I truly am for having a best-selling novelist husband who covered my ass while I waited for the check to clear while writing the ridiculous self-absorbed nonfiction book about how you should be able to take help from everybody. You realize you’re a walking contradiction, right? he asked. So? I contain multitudes. Can’t you just let me cling to my own misery? He looked at me. Sure, darling. If that’s what you want. I stood there, fuming. He sighed. I love you, miserable wife. Would you like to go out to dinner to maybe celebrate your book deal? NO! I DON’T WANT TO CELEBRATE. IT’S ALL MEANINGLESS! DON’T YOU SEE? I give up, he said, and walked out of the room. GOOD! I shouted after him. YOU SHOULD GIVE UP! THIS IS A HOPELESS FUCKING SITUATION! I AM A TOTALLY WORTHLESS FRAUD AND THIS BOOK DEAL PROVES IT. Darling, he called from the other room, are you maybe expecting your period? NO. MAYBE. I DON’T KNOW! DON’T EVEN FUCKING ASK ME THAT. GOD. Just checking, he said. I got my period a few days later. I really hate him sometimes.

I never said I didn’t identify with Lily,” she went on, her voice clear and her own. “I think in some way she’s the heart of the book. And her transformation at the end, when she’s finally able to finish her painting, after she doesn’t have anything holding her back…it’s one of the most important scenes in the novel. It’s when she finally realises who she is.” Mr Whitley nodded vaguely, pacing the length of a square-paned window overlooking the courtyard below. “And what was it?” he asked deliberately. “What do you think was holding her back all that time?” Olivia looked down at her feet, feeling every pair of eyes in the class burning holes into the top of her head. Miles’s mushroom loafers were fidgeting under the chair beside her, and she felt him holding his breathe. Her heart was pounding, but this time it was different. Everybody in the room was waiting for her, and that was okay. This time she had things to say. “The past,” Olivia answered finally. “The past was holding her back.

You say you know these streets pretty well? The city knows you better than any living person because it has seen you when you are alone. It saw you steeling yourself for the job interview, slowly walking home after the late date, tripping over nonexistent impediments on the sidewalk. It saw you wince when the single frigid drop fell from the air-conditioner 12 stories up and zapped you. It saw the bewilderment on your face as you stepped out of the stolen matinee, incredulous that there was still daylight after such a long movie. It saw you half-running up the street after you got the keys to your first apartment. It saw all that. Remembers too. Consider what all your old apartments would say if they got together to swap stories. They could piece together the starts and finishes of your relationships, complain about your wardrobe and musical tastes, gossip about who you are after midnight. 7J says, ''So that's what happened to Lucy; I knew it would never work out.'' You picked up yoga, you put down yoga, you tried various cures. You tried on selves and got rid of them, and this makes your old rooms wistful: why must things change? 3R says: ''Saxophone, you say? I knew him when he played guitar.'' Cherish your old apartments and pause for a moment when you pass them. Pay tribute, for they are the caretakers of your reinventions.

You should read the book that you hear two booksellers arguing about at the registers while you’re browsing in a bookstore. You should read the book that you see someone on the train reading and trying to hide that they’re laughing. You should read the book that you see someone on the train reading and trying to hide that they’re crying. You should read the book that you find left behind in the airplane seat pocket, on a park bench, on the bus, at a restaurant, or in a hotel room. You should read the book that you see someone reading for hours in a coffee shop — there when you got there and still there when you left — that made you envious because you were working instead of absorbed in a book. You should read the book you find in your grandparents’ house that’s inscribed “To Ray, all my love, Christmas 1949.” You should read the book that you didn’t read when it was assigned in your high school English class. You’d probably like it better now anyway. You should read the book whose author happened to mention on Charlie Rose that their favorite band is your favorite band. You should read the book that your favorite band references in their lyrics. You should read the book that your history professor mentions and then says, “which, by the way, is a great book,” offhandedly. You should read the book that you loved in high school. Read it again. You should read the book that you find on the library’s free cart whose cover makes you laugh. You should read the book whose main character has your first name. You should read the book whose author gets into funny Twitter exchanges with Colson Whitehead. You should read the book about your hometown’s history that was published by someone who grew up there. You should read the book your parents give you for your high school graduation. You should read the book you’ve started a few times and keep meaning to finish once and for all. You should read books with characters you don’t like. You should read books about countries you’re about to visit. You should read books about historical events you don’t know anything about. You should read books about things you already know a little about. You should read books you can’t stop hearing about and books you’ve never heard of. You should read books mentioned in other books. You should read prize-winners, bestsellers, beach reads, book club picks, and classics, when you want to. You should just keep reading.

What did she say to you?" "Nothing." "Oh, great. I have to try to get you out of this mess after you hit a girl for nothing," he whispered angrily. "Josephine, don't waste my time. You don't seem like a violent type. She had to have said something to rile you. "I just don't like her. She's vain. She puts her hair all over my books when she sits in front of me in class." "So you hit her?" "No ... yes." "A girl puts her hair all over your books, so you break her nose?" "Well, I don't think it's broken, personally." "Doctor Kildare, we are not here to give a medical opinion. I want to know what she said to you." "God," I yelled exasperated. "She said something to upset me, okay?" "What? That you were ugly? That you smell? What?" I looked horrified. "I'm not ugly. I don't smell." He sighed and took off his glasses, sitting down in front of me and pulling my chair towards him. "I was just asking for a reason." "Never mind," I said. "That creep out there wants -you to pay for his daughter's nose-job. Because of that nose-job she will be a famous model one day and you'll be working in a fast-food chain because you couldn't finish your Higher School Certificate due to expulsion. Now tell me what she said." "There's nothing wrong with a fast-food chain," I said, thinking of my McDonald's job. "I'm really getting pissed off now, Josephine. You called me out of work for this and you won't tell me why." "Just go," I said, as he stood up and paced the room. "I'll defend myself in court." He groaned and looked up to the ceiling pulling his hair. "God save me from days like this," he begged. "Go," I yelled. "Okay. Let him win. He's a creep. Creeps always win," he said walking to the door. "But don't think you're going to make it in a court room, young lady. If you can't be honest, don't expect to stand up in a court room and defend honesty." "She called me a wog, amongst other things," I said, finally. "I haven't been called one for so long. It offended me. It made me feel pathetic." "Did you provoke her?" "Yes. I called her a racist pig due to some things she was saying." "Is she one?" "God, yes. The biggest.

Here's how I feel: People take one another for granted. Like, I'd hang out with Ingrid in all of these random places-in her room or at school or just on some sidewalk somewhere. And the whole time we'd tell each other things, just say all our thoughts out loud. Maybe that would've been boring to some people, but it was never boring to us. I never realized what a big deal that was. How amazing it is to find someone who wants to hear about all the things that go on in your head. You just think that things will stay the way they are. You never look up, in a moment that feels like every other moment of your life, and think, soon this will be over. But I understand more now. About the way life works. I know that when I finish reading Ingrid's journal, there won't be anything new between us ever again. So when I get back to my house, I lock my room door even though I'm the only one home, take Ingrid's journal out, and just hold it for a little while. I look at the drawing on the first page again. And then I put the journal back. I'm going to try to make her last.

I’d seen what evil could do. Evil never gave itself for anyone. It takes what it doesn’t own. Holds your head under the water. Rips your head off your neck and dangles it from the city wall. Evil dominates. Controls. Eradicates. Evil is a sniveling punk, and if you let it inside you then you spew hatred, which is just another name for the poison we drink hoping it’ll hurt someone else.” I glanced around the courtroom at Allie, Catalina, Gabby, Suzy, and finally at the cameras. “But not love. Love rushes in where others won’t. Where the bullets are flying. It stands between. Pours out. Empties itself. It scours the wasteland, returns the pieces that were lost, and it never counts the cost.” Despite a packed house, the room was silent. After a minute, I continued, “Love walks into hell, where I sit in chains, where the verdict is guilty, grabs you by the heart, and says to the warden, ‘Me for him.’” I turned and glanced at my brother. “Sir, we live in an angry, evil world. Where stuff doesn’t always make sense. Where hope seems like something we did when we were kids and the love we cling to slips through our fingers like cold water, but”—I tapped my chest—“nothing that happens here today changes the fact that love heals the shattered places.” I shook my head once. “It’s the only thing that can—” The faces in the courtroom held steady on mine. “It’s the only thing worth fighting for,” I finished, then turned to Bobby. I’d like to think my eyes smiled. “So, no, sir, I don’t hate my brother.

They were striking the set of a play, humble, one-handed domestic drama, without permission from the cast. They started in what she called her sewing room—his old room. She was never coming back, she no longer knew what knitting was, but wrapping up her scores of needles, her thousand patterns, a baby’s half-finished yellow shawl, to give them all away to strangers was to banish her from the living. They worked quickly, almost in a frenzy. She’s not dead, Henry kept telling himself. But her life, all lives, seemed tenuous when he saw how quickly, with what ease, all the trappings, all the fine details of a lifetime could be packed and scattered, or junked. Objects became junk as soon as they were separated from their owner and their pasts—without her, her old tea cosy was repellent, with its faded farmhouse motif and pale brown stains on cheap fabric, and stuffing that was pathetically thin. As the shelves and drawers emptied, and the boxes and bags filled, he saw that no one owned anything really. It’s all rented, or borrowed. Our possessions will outlast us, we’ll desert them in the end. They worked all day, and put out twenty-three bags for the dustmen.

Do you get it now,Becks?" Jack wrapped a finger around a long strand of my hair, and we were quiet as it slipped through his grip. "You haven't moved on?" He chuckled. "I have a lifetime of memories made up of chestnut wars and poker games and midnight excursions and Christmas Dances...It's all you. It's only ever been you.I love you." The last part seemed to escape his lips unintentionally, and afterward he closed his eyes and put his head in his hands,as if he had a sudden headache. "I've gotta not say that out loud." The sight of how messed up he was made me want to wrap my arms around him and fold him into me and cushion him from everything that lay ahead. Instead,I reached for his hand. Brought it to my lips. Kissed it. He raised his head and winced. "You shouldn't do that," he said, even though he didn't pull his hand away. "Why?" "Because...it'll make everything worse...If you don't feel-" His voice cut off as I kissed his hand again, pausing with his fingers at my lips. He let out a shaky sigh and his hair flopped forward. Then he looked at my lips for a long moment. "What if...?" I bit my lower lip. "What?" "What if we could be like this again?" He leaned in closer with a smile, and as he did,he said, "Are you going to steal my soul?" "Um...it's not technically your soul that..." I couldn't finish my sentence. His lips brushed mine, and I felt the whoosh of transferring emotions,but it wasn't as strong as the last time. The space inside me was practically full again. The Shades were right. Six months was just long enough to recover. He kept his lips touching mine when he asked, "Is it okay?" Okay in that I wasn't going to suck him dry anymore. Not okay in that my own emotions were in hyperdrive. Only our lips touched.Thankfully there was space between us everywhere else. He took my silence to mean it was safe. We held our lips together, tentative and still. But he didn't let it stay that casual for long.He pressed his lips closer, parting his mouth against mine. I shivered,and he put his arms around me and pulled me closer so that our bodies were touching in so many places. He pulled back a little.His breath was on my lips. "What is it?" I asked. "I dreamed of you every night." He briefly touched his lips to mine again. "It felt so real.And when I'd wake up the next morning,it was like your disappearance was fresh. Like you'd left me all over again." I lowered my chin and tucked my head into his chest. "I'm sorry." He sighed and tightened his grip around me. "It never got easier.But the dreams themselves." I felt him shake his head. "It's like I had a physical connection to you. They were so real. Every night,you were in my room with me. It was so real." I tilted my head back so I could face him again, realizing for the first time how difficult it must've been for Jack. I kissed his chin, his cheek, and then his lips. "I'm sorry," I said again. He shook his head. "It's not your fault I dreamed of you, Becks.I just want to know if it was as real as it felt." "I don't know," I said. But I told him about the book I'd read on Orpheus and Eurydice, and my theory that it was her connection to Orpheus that saved her.

A pandemic paradoxically becomes an opportunity to finally be able to deal with ourselves, in a long interval where the world has stopped and everything around us starts to function at a slow pace. Shopping becomes a long and slow business, and if before we hated getting stuck in the traffic or queuing at the post office, today we can do nothing but adapt to this new world of expectations and shifts, and discover the faces of our fellow men, finally looking them in the face (or rather, in the eyes). We have rediscovered the pleasure of cooking and eating, a world that before the quarantine stopped only on TV with masterchef. If before we considered it a waste of time to cook a plate of pasta, now we have had all the time to devote to cakes, pizzas, biscuits and homemade bread as our grandmothers once did. Rediscovering genuine flavors that have little of "fast" and much of "slow". And so we also found time to read the book that we are not never managed to finish, or we pulled our favorite board game off the shelf. These small gestures, sometimes even insignificant in appearance, are rich in meaning, since they are imbued with our time, our dedication, our passion and our love. Characteristics of the human being that have been forgotten for too long. Thus we find ourselves reflecting on our time, on the past and on the future, observing a precipitous past that makes room for a rich and decidedly slower present. We have resumed the taste of walking slowly, to escape and symbolically get closer to its initiatory role ... the road teaches you that you fall, you get up, you go back, you make miraculous encounters and sometimes you are helped by Samaritans or, in cases worst, deceived by demons. But is always a discovery, going towards something new, a unique experience in which the mind is regenerated. Walking is rediscovered today as an existential alternative, as an opposition to speed, to displacement technologies, it is essentially a criticism of the dominant competitive spirit. We have given importance to windows and balconies, from where you can observe small corners of the world. Terraces from which to peer into the universe, to observe the rising sun, setting, to discover that in the sky there is a wonderful creature called the Moon, accompanied by billions of stars. We finally had a chat with our neighbors who are no longer perfect strangers, we made friends with boredom and, let's face it, we found that time, in general, is not just that marked by watches. Suddenly we found ourselves in the present time, immersed in the much-talked about Here and Now, but little frequented. This small temporal space that marks our life, which contains our ugliest and most beautiful experiences, which brings our youth with us and will bring our old age, becomes the protagonist of this pandemic, which if on the one hand has stuck, on the other it gave us the opportunity to look at our life with different eyes, which seemed to really need to stop for a moment to breathe. Because let's put it on our heads, slowness is not a waste of time, but awareness of one's life time!

It is an inherent property of intelligence that it can jump out of the task which it is performing, and survey what it has done; it is always looking for, and often finding, patterns. Now I said that an intelligence canjump out of its task, but that does not mean that it always will. However, a little prompt- ing will often suffice. For example, a human being who is reading a book may grow sleepy. Instead of continuing to read until the book is finished, he is just as likely to put the book aside and turn off the light. He has stepped "out of the system" and yet it seems the most natural thing in the world to us. Or, suppose person A is watching television when person B comes in the room, and shows evident displeasure with the situation. Person A may think he understands the problem, and try to remedy it by exiting the present system (that television program), and flipping the chan- nel knob, looking for a better show. Person B may have a more radical concept of what it is to "exit the system"-namely to turn the television off! Of course, there are cases where only a rare individual will have the vision to perceive a system which governs many peoples' lives, a system which had never before even been recognized as a system; then such people often devote their lives to convincing other people that the system really is there, and that it ought to be exited from!

- You listen to me. I've just taken a lot from you. I've taken a lot from people just like you. Just like you. That's tough, isn't it, just like you, that this town is loaded with people just like you, the world is loaded with people just like you. The honest men who are too good to fit anywhere. You're one of the people, aren't you. Look at your hands, have you ever had a callus? You don't get them lifting glasses. Who are you, to be so bitter? Have you ever done one day of work? And you talk to me about life, about real life, about human misery. -I know you, I know you. You're the only serious person in the room aren't you, the only one who understands, and you can prove it by the fact that you've never finished a single thing in your life. You're the only well-educated person. You resent good manners, you resent success, you resent any kind of success, you resent God, you resent thousand-dollar bills, you resent happiness, you resent happiness itself, because none of that's real. What is real, then? Nothing's real to you that isn't part of your own past, real life, a swamp of failures, of social, sexual, financial, personal, . . . spiritual failure. Real life. You poor bastard. You don't know what real life is, you've never been near it. All you have a thousand intellectualized ideas about life. But life? Have you ever measured yourself against anything but your own lousy past? Have you ever faced anything outside yourself? Life! You poor bastard.

Anna? Anna,are you there? I've been waiting in the lobby for fifteen minutes." A scrambling noise,and St. Clair curses from the floorboards. "And I see your light's off.Brilliant. Could've mentioned you'd decided to go on without me." I explode out of bed. I overslept! I can't believe I overslept! How could this happen? St. Clair's boots clomp away,and his suitcase drags heavily behind him. I throw open my door. Even though they're dimmed this time of night,the crystal sconces in the hall make me blink and shade my eyes. St. Clair twists into focus.He's stunned. "Anna?" "Help," I gasp. "Help me." He drops his suitcase and runs to me. "Are you all right? What happened?" I pull him in and flick on my light. The room is illuminated in its disheveled entirety. My luggage with its zippers open and clothes piled on top like acrobats. Toiletries scattered around my sink. Bedsheets twined into ropes. And me. Belatedly, I remember that not only is my hair crazy and my face smeared with zit cream,but I'm also wearing matching flannel Batman pajamas. "No way." He's gleeful. "You slept in? I woke you up?" I fall to the floor and frantically squish clothes into my suitcase. "You haven't packed yet?" "I was gonna finish this morning! WOULD YOU FREAKING HELP ALREADY?" I tug on a zipper.It catches a yellow Bat symbol, and I scream in frustration. We're going to miss our flight. We're going to iss it,and it's my fault. And who knows when the next plane will leave, and we'll be stuck here all day, and I'll never make it in time for Bridge and Toph's show. And St. Clair's mom will cry when she has to go to the hospital without him for her first round of internal radiation, because he'll be stuck iin an airport on the other side of the world,and its ALL. MY FAULT. "Okay,okay." He takes the zipper and wiggles it from my pajama bottoms. I make a strange sound between a moan and a squeal. The suitcase finally lets go, and St. Clair rests his arms on my shoulders to steady them. "Get dressed. Wipe your face off.I'll takecare of the rest." Yes,one thing at a time.I can do this. I can do this. ARRRGH! He packs my clothes. Don't think about him touching your underwear. Do NOT think about him touching your underwear. I grab my travel outfit-thankfully laid out the night before-and freeze. "Um." St. Clair looks up and sees me holding my jeans. He sputters. "I'll, I'll step out-" "Turn around.Just turn around, there's not time!" He quickly turns,and his shoulders hunch low over my suitcase to prove by posture how hard he is Not Looking.

A woman's ability to achieve depends on childlessness or childcare. In America, where we don't believe in an underclass to do 'women's work', women themselves become the underclass. For love. Nobody doubts the love is real. It's for our children. But we are supposed to do it invisibly and never mention it. Alfred North Whitehead, who wasn't a woman after all, said that the truth of a society is what cannot be said. And women's work still cannot be said. It's called whining -- even by other women. It's called self-indulgence -- even by other women. Perhaps women writer are hated because abstraction makes oppression possible and we refuse to be abstract. How can we be? Our struggles are concrete: food, fire, babies, a room of one's own. These basics are rare -- even for the privileged. It is nothing short of a miracle every time a woman with a child finishes a book. Our lives -- from the baby to the writing desk -- are the lives of the majority of humanity: never enough time to think, eternal exhaustion. The cared-for male elite, with female slaves to tend their bodily needs, can hardly credit our difficulties as 'real'. 'Real' is the deficit, oil wars in the Middle East, or how much of our children's milk the Pentagon shall get. This is the true division in the world today: between those who carelessly say 'Third World' believing themselves part of the '¨First', and those who know they are the Third World -- wherever they live. Women everywhere are the 'Third World', In my country, where most women do not feel part of what matters, they are thirdly third, trapped in the myth of being 'first'.

Rachel came carefully downstairs one morning, in a dressing gown that wasn't quite clean, and stood at the brink of the living room as though preparing to make an announcement. She looked around at each member of the double household - at Evan, who was soberly opening the morning paper, at Phil, who'd been home from Costello's for hours but hadn't felt like sleeping yet, and at her mother, who was setting the table for breakfast - and then she came out with it. "I love everybody," she said, stepping into the room with an uncertain smile. And her declaration might have had the generally soothing effect she'd intended if her mother hadn't picked it up and exploited it for all the sentimental weight it would bear. "Oh Rachel," she cried, "What a sweet, lovely thing to say!" and she turned to address Evan and Phil as if both of them might be too crass or numbskulled to appreciate it by themselves. "Isn't that a wonderful thing for this girl to say, on a perfectly ordinary Friday morning? Rachel, I think you've put us all to shame for our petty bickering and our selfish little silences, and it's something I'll never forget. You really do have a marvelous wife, Evan, and I have a marvelous daughter. Oh, and Rachel, you can be sure that everybody in this house loves you, too, and we're all tremendously glad to have you feeling so well." Rachel's embarrassment was now so intense that it seemed almost to prevent her from taking her place at the table; she tried two quick, apologetic looks at her husband and her brother, but they both missed the message in her eyes. And Gloria wasn't yet quite finished. "I honestly believe that was a moment we'll remember all our lives," she said. "Little Rachel coming downstairs - or little big Rachel, rather - and saying 'I love everybody.' You know what I wish though Evan? I only wish your father could've been here this morning to share it with us." But by then even Gloria seemed to sense that the thing had been carried far enough. As soon as she'd stopped talking the four of them took their breakfast in a hunched and businesslike silence, until Phil mumbled "Excuse me" and shoved back his chair. "Where do you think you're going, young man?" Gloria inquired. "I don't think you'd better go anywhere until you finish up all of that egg.

Worse, the long, sleepless night in a room stored with mementoes of Alton's life confronted Rusty with the tracks of a ghost. Like a mattress sagging under the weight of an unseen body and a fluffed pillow impressed with the indentation of its head, the room seemed to mold itself around Alton's absence. The shirts that hung over creased pants in the small armoire remembered the boy's shoulders. Toy soldiers, headless and one-legged after a childhood of tabletop battles, did not desert the formation Alton had last ordered. A half-finished model airplane on his desk did not complete itself. As Rusty pitched from side to side in the narrow bed, his eyes fell upon object after object, which each in its own voice seemed to utter Alton's name as a kind of question--a question, he well knew, that would never be answered. THe chorus of Alton's things, silently protesting their perplexed abandonment, disturbed Rusty's sleep like crickets chirping in the dark. It felt to him as if everything is the room was hardening around Alton's absence And what was a ghost, anyway, he began to understand while lying in a dead man's bed, but a felt absence, a keen unpresence?

I will have you for husband tonight,” she said in fierce, low tones, “or I will not go until I do!” “If there was any way, I would,” he protested. “Daise Congar would crack my head if I wanted to go against custom. For the love of the Light, Faile, just carry the message, and I’ll wed you the very first day I can.” He would. If that day ever came. Suddenly she was very intent on his beard, smoothing it and not meeting his eyes. She started speaking slowly but picked up speed like a runaway horse. “I … just happened to mention … in passing … I just mentioned to Mistress al’Vere how we had been traveling together—I don’t know how it came up—and she said—and Mistress Congar agreed with her—not that I talked to everybody!—she said that we probably—certainly—could be considered betrothed already under your customs, and the year is just to make sure you really do get on well together—which we do, as anyone can see—and here I am being as forward as some Domani hussy or one of those Tairen galls—if you ever even think of Berelain—oh, Light, I’m babbling, and you won’t even—” He cut her off by kissing her as thoroughly as he knew how. “Will you marry me?” he said breathlessly when he was done. “Tonight?” He must have done ever better with the kiss than he thought; he had to repeat himself six times, with her giggling against his throat and demanding he say it again, before she seemed to understand. Which was how he found himself not half an hour later kneeling opposite her in the common room, in front of Daise Congar and Marin al’Vere, Alsbet Luhhan and Neysa Ayellin and all the Women’s Circle. Loial had been roused to stand for him with Aram, and Bain and Chiad stood for Faile. There were no flowers to put in her hair or his, but Bain, guided by Marin, tucked a long red wedding ribbon around his neck, and Loial threaded another through Faile’s dark hair, his thick fingers surprisingly deft and gentle. Perrin’s hands trembled as he cupped hers. “I, Perrin Aybara, do pledge you my love, Faile Bashere, for as long as I live.” For as long as I live and after. “What I possess in this world I give to you.” A horse, an axe, a bow. A hammer. Not much to gift a bride. I give you life, my love. It’s all I have. “I will keep and hold you, succor and tend you, protect and shelter you, for all the days of my life.” I can’t keep you; the only way I can protect you is to send you away. “I am yours, always and forever.” By the time he finished, his hands were shaking visibly. Faile moved her hands to hold his. “I, Zarine Bashere …” That was a surprise; she hated that name. “ … do pledge you my love, Perrin Aybara … .” Her hands never trembled at all.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I said, a little too heartily, “So this is the library.” There certainly couldn’t be any doubt on that score; never had a room so resembled popular preconception. The walls were paneled in rich, dark wood, although the finish had worn off the edges in spots, where books had scraped against the wood in passing one too many times. A whimsical iron staircase curved to the balcony, the steps narrowing into pie-shaped wedges that promised a broken neck to the unwary. I tilted my head back, dizzied by the sheer number of books, row upon row, more than the most devoted bibliophile could hope to consume in a lifetime of reading. In one corner, a pile of crumbling paperbacks—James Bond, I noticed, squinting sideways, in splashy seventies covers—struck a slightly incongruous note. I spotted a moldering pile of Country Life cheek by jowl with a complete set of Trevelyan’s History of England in the original Victorian bindings. The air was rich with the smell of decaying paper and old leather bindings. Downstairs, where I stood with Colin, the shelves made way for four tall windows, two to the east and two to the north, all hung with rich red draperies checked with blue, in the obverse of the red-flecked blue carpet. On the west wall, the bookshelves surrendered pride of place to a massive fireplace, topped with a carved hood to make Ivanhoe proud, and large enough to roast a serf. In short, the library was a Gothic fantasy.

As a girl, it had been firmly set down that one ought never speak until one was spoken to, and when one did, one ought not speak of anything that might provoke or worry. One referred to the limb of the table, not the leg, the white meat on the chicken, not the breast. Good manners were the foundations of civilization. One knew precisely with whom one sat in a room based entirely on how well they behaved, and in what manner. Forks and knives were placed at the ten-twenty on one's plate when one was finished eating, One ought to walk straight and keep one's hands to oneself when one s poke, least one be taken for an Italian or Jew. A woman was meant to tend a child, a garden, or a conversation. A woman ought to know how to mind the temperature in a room, adding a little heat in a well-timed question, or cool a warm temper with the suggestion of another drink, a bowl of nuts, and a smile. What Kitty had learned at Miss Porter's School---handed down from Sarah Porter through the spinsters teaching there, themselves the sisters of Yale men who handed down the great words, Truth. Verity. Honor--was that your brothers and your husbands and your sons will lead, and you will tend., You will watch and suggest, guide and protect. You will carry the torch forward, and all to the good. There was the world. And one fixed an eye keenly on it. One learned its history; one understood the causes of its wars. One debated and, gradually, a picture emerged of mankind over the centuries; on understood the difference between what was good and what was right. On understood that men could be led to evil, against the judgment of their better selves. Debauchery. Poverty of spirit. This was the explanation for so many unfortunate ills--slavery, for instance. The was the reason. Men, individual men, were not at fault. They had to be taught. Led. Shown by example what was best. Unfairness, unkindness could be addressed. Queitly. Patiently.. Without a lot of noisy attention. Noise was for the poorly bred. If one worried, if one were afraid, if one doubted--one kept it to oneself. One looked for the good, and one found it. The woman found it, the woman pointed it out, and the man tucked it in his pocket, heartened. These were the rules.

We’ve got the guest room all set up.” He gives me a fond look before saying, “Lara Jean put in a new pair of slippers and a robe for you, Ravi.” Before Ravi can reply, Margot says, “Oh, that’s so nice. But actually, I think Ravi’s just going to stay with me in my room.” It’s as if Margot has dropped a stink bomb in the middle of our living room. Kitty and I are looking at each other with huge OMG eyes; Daddy just looks stunned and at a complete loss for words. When I made up the guest room for Ravi, folded a set of towels for him on the side of the bed, and put out the robe and slippers, it never occurred to me that he’d be staying in Margot’s room. Clearly, the thought never occurred to Daddy either. Daddy’s face is growing redder by the second. “Oh, um…I don’t know if…” Margot purses her lips nervously as she waits for Daddy to finish his sentence. We’re all waiting, but he can’t seem to figure out what to say next. His eyes dart over to Ms. Rothschild for help, and she puts her hand on the small of his back in support. Poor Ravi looks supremely uncomfortable. My first thought was that he was a Ravenclaw like Margot; now I’m thinking he’s a Hufflepuff like me. In a soft voice he says, “I truly don’t mind staying in the guest room. I’d hate to make things awkward.” Daddy starts to answer him, but Margot gets there first. “No, it’s totally fine,” she assures Ravi. “Let’s go get the rest of our stuff out of the car.” The second they leave, Kitty and I turn to each other. At the same time we say, “Oh my God.

I wiped the blade against my jeans and walked into the bar. It was mid-afternoon, very hot and still. The bar was deserted. I ordered a whisky. The barman looked at the blood and asked: ‘God?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘S’pose it’s time someone finished that hypocritical little punk, always bragging about his old man’s power…’ He smiled crookedly, insinuatingly, a slight nausea shuddered through me. I replied weakly: ‘It was kind of sick, he didn’t fight back or anything, just kept trying to touch me and shit, like one of those dogs that try to fuck your leg. Something in me snapped, the whingeing had ground me down too low. I really hated that sanctimonious little creep.’ ‘So you snuffed him?’ ‘Yeah, I’ve killed him, knifed the life out of him, once I started I got frenzied, it was an ecstasy, I never knew I could hate so much.’ I felt very calm, slightly light-headed. The whisky tasted good, vaporizing in my throat. We were silent for a few moments. The barman looked at me levelly, the edge of his eyes twitching slightly with anxiety: There’ll be trouble though, don’tcha think?’ ‘I don’t give a shit, the threats are all used up, I just don’t give a shit.’ ‘You know what they say about his old man? Ruthless bastard they say. Cruel…’ ‘I just hope I’ve hurt him, if he even exists.’ ‘Woulden wanna cross him merself,’ he muttered. I wanted to say ‘yeah, well that’s where we differ’, but the energy for it wasn’t there. The fan rotated languidly, casting spidery shadows across the room. We sat in silence a little longer. The barman broke first: ‘So God’s dead?’ ‘If that’s who he was. That fucking kid lied all the time. I just hope it’s true this time.’ The barman worked at one of his teeth with his tongue, uneasily: ‘It’s kindova big crime though, isn’t it? You know how it is, when one of the cops goes down and everything’s dropped ’til they find the guy who did it. I mean, you’re not just breaking a law, your breaking LAW.’ I scraped my finger along my jeans, and suspended it over the bar, so that a thick clot of blood fell down into my whisky, and dissolved. I smiled: ‘Maybe it’s a big crime,’ I mused vaguely ‘but maybe it’s nothing at all…’ ‘…and we have killed him’ writes Nietzsche, but—destituted of community—I crave a little time with him on my own. In perfect communion I lick the dagger foamed with God’s blood.

This is the carpenter's painful truth: that nothing is true. By true, he means level, plumb, perfect. Every room you've ever entered has been off by at least a sixteenth of an inch -- more probably an eighth. Guaranteed. We think we live in boxes until we look closer and find we're in fact living in irregular shapes, in big, misshapen accidents. Which makes carpenters the high priests of living with mistakes. And while sloppiness is the most grievous insult you could throw at another carpenter, true perfection is maddeningly unattainable, which is why it's never spoken of. Because even after you cut a piece of wood and lay it straight, it lives on after you've finished, soaking up moisture, twisting, bowing, and warping into unintended forms. Our lives are no different.

Rigor Mortis.” I say, almost as an apology. But he won’t have any of it. He locks onto my gaze. He doesn’t lean forward, but he doesn’t need to, suddenly the room feels like it’s filled with him. His presence floats in the air like a noxious gas, and I’m breathing it in. “Ike, you don’t get it. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. Do you think I have the right to talk to anyone? Do you think its fun to have a ‘human’ brain in a pet’s body? Sure, I have Kamu. And that’s fugging great, but guess what? Kamu is queen to be, and emotionally unstable.” I've never heard Rig talk this powerfully before, but he doesn’t seem scary, just sad. “And then I get someone else I can actually talk to, Ike, I get you. And you don’t treat me like I’m a pet and you talk about Kamu like she needs to be protected and you are there. You are there, and you keep being there, and the only one who’s ever there is Kamu, but now there is Ike. And Ike is perfect, albeit a bit dense, but perfect.” “Rig, I’m really sorry bu-“ I start, I don’t know how much more of this I can take. With each sentence Rig loses some of his force, he sounds more pathetic and lost. “I’m not done.” He pronounces the words in such a voice that it makes me shut up more than the context of the sentence does. “And all I want is to be with this boy who is there, this boy who is my friend, this boy who isn’t always caught up in politics. All I want is to have my one good break.” He finishes. I keep holding his eye contact, and his eyes, they already reflect hurt and rejectment. I don’t know if from me…or from life.

She huffed at me, “That I knew you were here. It’s a coincidence. I mean, of course you would follow me, right? I ran out of the room in a fit! What are you, a boy scout?” She laughed, “Am I your next badge? The ‘Save Skye Martin from herself’ badge?” she finished in a disgusted voice, as she came to stand in front of me. I watched the myriad of expressions roll across her face: worry, confusion, fear - they were all there, as she stood toe-to-toe with me. When I didn’t answer her fast enough, she turned to walk away. “Hey, Skye,” I called after her. “I’m not a boy scout.” She turned, but kept on walking; shrugging her shoulders. “Yeah, so?” I took a deep breath, and then I let her in on one of the many secrets I had. “I’m not a boy scout, but I am here to save you…I’m a Guardian.

John Isidore said, “I found a spider.” The three androids glanced up, momentarily moving their attention from the TV screen to him. “Let’s see it,” Pris said. She held out her hand. Roy Baty said, “Don’t talk while Buster is on.” “I’ve never seen a spider,” Pris said. She cupped the medicine bottle in her palms, surveying the creature within. “All those legs. Why’s it need so many legs, J. R.?” “That’s the way spiders are,” Isidore said, his heart pounding; he had difficulty breathing. “Eight legs.” Rising to her feet, Pris said, “You know what I think, J. R.? I think it doesn’t need all those legs.” “Eight?” Irmgard Baty said. “Why couldn’t it get by on four? Cut four off and see.” Impulsively opening her purse, she produced a pair of clean, sharp cuticle scissors, which she passed to Pris. A weird terror struck at J. R. Isidore. Carrying the medicine bottle into the kitchen, Pris seated herself at J. R. Isidore’s breakfast table. She removed the lid from the bottle and dumped the spider out. “It probably won’t be able to run as fast,” she said, “but there’s nothing for it to catch around here anyhow. It’ll die anyway.” She reached for the scissors. “Please,” Isidore said. Pris glanced up inquiringly. “Is it worth something?” “Don’t mutilate it,” he said wheezingly. Imploringly. With the scissors, Pris snipped off one of the spider’s legs. In the living room Buster Friendly on the TV screen said, “Take a look at this enlargement of a section of background. This is the sky you usually see. Wait, I’ll have Earl Parameter, head of my research staff, explain their virtually world-shaking discovery to you.” Pris clipped off another leg, restraining the spider with the edge of her hand. She was smiling. “Blowups of the video pictures,” a new voice from the TV said, “when subjected to rigorous laboratory scrutiny, reveal that the gray backdrop of sky and daytime moon against which Mercer moves is not only not Terran—it is artificial.” “You’re missing it!” Irmgard called anxiously to Pris; she rushed to the kitchen door, saw what Pris had begun doing. “Oh, do that afterward,” she said coaxingly. “This is so important, what they’re saying; it proves that everything we believed—” “Be quiet,” Roy Baty said. “—is true,” Irmgard finished. The TV set continued, “The ‘moon’ is painted; in the enlargements, one of which you see now on your screen, brush strokes show. And there is even some evidence that the scraggly weeds and dismal, sterile soil—perhaps even the stones hurled at Mercer by unseen alleged parties—are equally faked. It is quite possible in fact that the ‘stones’ are made of soft plastic, causing no authentic wounds.” “In other words,” Buster Friendly broke in, “Wilbur Mercer is not suffering at all.” The research chief said, “We at last managed, Mr. Friendly, to track down a former Hollywood special-effects man, a Mr. Wade Cortot, who flatly states, from his years of experience, that the figure of ‘Mercer’ could well be merely some bit player marching across a sound stage. Cortot has gone so far as to declare that he recognizes the stage as one used by a now out-of-business minor moviemaker with whom Cortot had various dealings several decades ago.” “So according to Cortot,” Buster Friendly said, “there can be virtually no doubt.” Pris had now cut three legs from the spider, which crept about miserably on the kitchen table, seeking a way out, a path to freedom. It found none.

Jack coughed slightly and offered his hand. “Hi, uh. I’m Jack.” Kim took it. “Jack what?” “Huh?” “Your last name, silly.” “Jackson.” She blinked at him. “Your name is Jack Jackson?” He blushed. “No, uh, my first name’s Rhett, but I hate it, so…” He gestured to the chair and she sat. Her dress rode up several inches, exposing pleasing long lines of creamy skin. “Well, Jack, what’s your field of study?” “Biological Engineering, Genetics, and Microbiology. Post-doc. I’m working on a research project at the institute.” “Really? Oh, uh, my apple martini’s getting a little low.” “I’ve got that, one second.” He scurried to the bar and bought her a fresh one. She sipped and managed to make it look not only seductive but graceful as well. “What do you want to do after you’re done with the project?” Kim continued. “Depends on what I find.” She sent him a simmering smile. “What are you looking for?” Immediately, Jack’s eyes lit up and his posture straightened. “I started the project with the intention of learning how to increase the reproduction of certain endangered species. I had interest in the idea of cloning, but it proved too difficult based on the research I compiled, so I went into animal genetics and cellular biology. It turns out the animals with the best potential to combine genes were reptiles because their ability to lay eggs was a smoother transition into combining the cells to create a new species, or one with a similar ancestry that could hopefully lead to rebuilding extinct animals via surrogate birth or in-vitro fertilization. We’re on the edge of breaking that code, and if we do, it would mean that we could engineer all kinds of life and reverse what damage we’ve done to the planet’s ecosystem.” Kim stared. “Right. Would you excuse me for a second?” She wiggled off back to her pack of friends by the bar. Judging by the sniggering and the disgusted glances he was getting, she wasn’t coming back. Jack sighed and finished off his beer, massaging his forehead. “Yes, brilliant move. You blinded her with science. Genius, Jack.” He ordered a second one and finished it before he felt smallish hands on his shoulders and a pair of soft lips on his cheek. He turned to find Kamala had returned, her smile unnaturally bright in the black lights glowing over the room. “So…how did it go with Kim?” He shot her a flat look. “You notice the chair is empty.” Kamala groaned. “You talked about the research project, didn’t you?” “No!” She glared at him. “…maybe…” “You’re so useless, Jack.” She paused and then tousled his hair a bit. “Cheer up. The night’s still young. I’m not giving up on you.” He smiled in spite of himself. “Yet.” Her brown eyes flashed. “Never.

It's just that when a woman is kidnapped and forced into agreeing to marriage, she hopes for a bit more... excitement. Than this." He rolled slowly- maddeningly- to face her, the air between them thickened, and Penelope was instantly aware of their position, scant inches apart, on a warm pallet in a small room in an empty house, beneath the same blanket- which happened to be his greatcoat. And she realized that perhaps she should not have implied that the evening was unexciting. Because she was not at all certain that she was prepared for it to become any more exciting. "I didn't mean-" She rushed to correct herself. "Oh, I think you did an excellent job of meaning." The words were low and dark, and suddenly she was not so very sure that she wasn't afraid after all. "I am not stimulating enough for you?" "Not you..." she was quick to reply. "The whole..." She waved one hand, lifting the greatcoat as she thought better of finishing. "Never mind." His gaze was on her, intent and unmoving and, while he had not moved, it seemed as though he had grown larger, more looming. As though he had sucked a great deal of air from the room. "How can I make this night more satisfying for you, my lady?" The soft question sent a thrum of feeling through her... the way the word- satisfying- rolled languid from his tongue set her heart racing and her stomach turning. It seemed the night was becoming very exciting very quickly. And everything was moving much too quickly for Penelope's tastes. "No need," she said, at an alarmingly high pitch. "It's fine." "Fine?" The word rolled lazily from his tongue. "Quite thrilling." She nodded, bringing one hand to her mouth to feign a yawn. "So thrilling, in fact, that I find myself unbearably exhausted." She made to turn her back to him. "I shall bid you good night." "I don't think so," he said, the soft words as loud as a gunshot in the tiny space between them.

Or when you keep a sex-addiction meeting under surveillance because they’re the best places to pick up chicks.” Serge looked around the room at suspicious eyes. “Okay, maybe that last one’s just me. But you should try it. They keep the men’s and women’s meetings separate for obvious reasons. And there are so many more opportunities today because the whole country’s wallowing in this whiny new sex-rehab craze after some golfer diddled every pancake waitress on the seaboard. That’s not a disease; that’s cheating. He should have been sent to confession or marriage counseling after his wife finished chasing him around Orlando with a pitching wedge. But today, the nation is into humiliation, tearing down a lifetime of achievement by labeling some guy a damaged little dick weasel. The upside is the meetings. So what you do is wait on the sidewalk for the women to get out, pretending like you’re loitering. And because of the nature of the sessions they just left, there’s no need for idle chatter or lame pickup lines. You get right to business: ‘What’s your hang-up?’ And she answers, and you say, ‘What a coincidence. Me, too.’ Then, hang on to your hat! It’s like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get. Most people are aware of the obvious, like foot fetish or leather. But there are more than five hundred lesser-known but clinically documented paraphilia that make no sexual sense. Those are my favorites . . .” Serge began counting off on his fingers. “This one woman had Ursusagalmatophilia, which meant she got off on teddy bears—that was easily my weirdest three-way. And nasophilia, which meant she was completely into my nose, and she phoned a friend with mucophilia, which is mucus. The details on that one are a little disgusting. And formicophilia, which is being crawled on by insects, so the babe bought an ant farm. And symphorophilia—that’s staging car accidents, which means you have to time the air bags perfectly

On the third day after all hell broke loose, I come upstairs to the apartment, finished with my shift and so looking forward to a hot shower. Well, lukewarm—but I’ll pretend it’s hot. But when I pass Ellie’s room, I hear cursing—Linda Blair-Exorcist-head-spinning-around kind of cursing. I push open her door and spot my sister at her little desk, yelling at her laptop. Even Bosco barks from the bed. “What’s going on?” I ask. “I just came up but Marty’s down there on his own—he won’t last longer than ten minutes.” “I know, I know.” She waves her hand. “I’m in a flame war with a toxic bitch on Twitter. Let me just huff and puff and burn her motherfucking house down…and then I’ll go sell some coffee.” “What happened?” I ask sarcastically. “Did she insult your makeup video?” Ellie sighs, long and tortured. “That’s Instagram, Liv—I seriously think you were born in the wrong century. And anyway, she didn’t insult me—she insulted you.” Her words pour over me like the ice-bucket challenge. “Me? I have like two followers on Twitter.” Ellie finishes typing. “Boo-ya. Take that, skank-a-licious!” Then she turns slowly my way. “You haven’t been online lately, have you?” This isn’t going to end well, I know it. My stomach knows it too—it whines and grumbles. “Ah, no?” Ellie nods and stands, gesturing to her computer. “You might want to check it out. Or not—ignorance is bliss, after all. If you do decide to take a peek, you might want to have some grain alcohol nearby.” Then she pats my shoulder and heads downstairs, her blond ponytail swaying behind her. I glance at the screen and my breath comes in quick, semi-panicked bursts and my blood rushes like a runaway train in my veins. I’ve never been in a fight, not in my whole life. The closest I came was sophomore year in high school, when Kimberly Willis told everyone she was going to kick the crap out of me. So I told my gym teacher, Coach Brewster—a giant lumberjack of a man—that I got my period unexpectedly and had to go home. He spent the rest of the school year avoiding eye contact with me. But it worked—by the next day, Kimberly found out Tara Hoffman was the one talking shit about her and kicked the crap out of her instead

On Claud, though, the look is very cool.) For example, today she was wearing a neon green tank top under a white oversized man’s shirt and fuschia pink stirrup pants. The shirt was rolled at the sleeves and belted with a colorful woven belt. Claud finished the outfit with dangly ceramic-bead earrings she’d made herself in pottery class. She’s super artistic. She paints, sketches, draws, sculpts. You name it! Besides art and cool clothing, Claudia loves junk food. Her parents disapprove of Ho-Ho’s and Twinkies and stuff like that, so she hides them all over her room. You never know when you’re going to pick up a pillow and find a bag of potato chips or something behind it. The other thing she stashes away are her Nancy Drew books. Her parents don’t approve of those, either. They don’t think the mysteries are “intellectual” enough. Claudia couldn’t care less if the books are “intellectual.” One thing Claud is not interested in is school work. Although she can’t spell for anything, she’s definitely not dumb. She just doesn’t like school. And, unfortunately, her grades show it. She’s the complete

How did you find me?" "I've followed you for a long time." He must have mistaken the look on my face for alarm or fear, and said, "Not literally. I just mean I never lost track." But it wasn't fear, or anything like that. It was an instant of realization I'd have a lot in the coming days: I'd been thinking of him as coming back from the dead, but the fact was he'd been there all along. He'd been alive when I cried in my room over him being gone. He'd been alive when I started a new school without him, the day I made my first friend a Jones Hall, the time I ran into Ethan at the library. Cameron Quick and I had existed simultaneously on the planet during all of those moments. It didn't seem possible that we could have been leading separate lives, not after everything we'd been through together. "...then I looked you up online," he was saying, "and found your mom's wedding announcement from before you changed your name. I didn't even need to do that. It's easy to find someone you never lost." I struggled to understand what he was saying. "You mean...you could have written to me, or seen me, sooner?" "I wanted to. Almost did, a bunch of times." "Why didn't you? I wish you had." And I did, I wished it so much, imagined how it would have been to know all those years that he was there, thinking of me. "Things seemed different for you," he said, matter-of-fact. "Better. I could tell that from the bits of information I found...like an interview with the parents who were putting their kids in your school when it first started. Or an article about that essay contest you won a couple years ago." "You knew about that?" He nodded. "That one had a picture. I could see just from looking at you that you had a good thing going. Didn't need me coming along and messing it up." "Don't say that," I said quickly. Then: "You were never part of what I wanted to forget." "Nice of you to say, but I know it's not true." I knew what he was thinking, could see that he'd been carrying around the same burden all those years as me. "You didn't do anything wrong." It was getting cold on the porch, and late, and the looming topic scared me. I got up. "Let's go in. I can make coffee or hot chocolate or something?" "I have to go." "No! Already?" I didn't want to let him out of my sight. "Don't worry," he said. "Just have to go to work. I'll be around." "Give me your number. I'll call you." "I don't have a phone right now." "Find me at school," I said, "or anytime. Eat lunch with us tomorrow." He didn't answer. "Really," I continued, "you should meet my friends and stuff." "You have a boyfriend," he finally said. "I saw you guys holding hands." I nodded. "Ethan." "For how long?" "Three months, almost." I couldn't picture Cameron Quick dating anyone, though he must have at some point. If I'd found Ethan, I was sure Cameron had some Ashley or Becca or Caitlin along the way. I didn't ask. "He's nice," I added. "He's..." I don't know what I'd planned to say, but whatever it was it seemed insignificant so I finished that sentence with a shrug. "You lost your lisp." And about twenty-five pounds, I thought. "I guess speech therapy worked for both of us." He smiled. "I always liked that, you know. Your lisp. It was...you." He started down the porch steps. "See you tomorrow, okay?" "Yeah," I said, unable to take my eyes off of him. "Tomorrow.

Normally, Bentner would have beamed approvingly at the pretty portrait the girls made, but this morning, as he put out butter and jam, he had grim news to impart and a confession to make. As he swept the cover off the scones he gave his news and made his confession. “We had a guest last night,” he told Elizabeth. “I slammed the door on him.” “Who was it?” “A Mr. Ian Thornton.” Elizabeth stifled a horrified chuckle at the image that called to mind, but before she could comment Bentner said fiercely, “I regretted my actions afterward! I should have invited him inside, offered him refreshment, and slipped some of that purgative powder into his drink. He’d have had a bellyache that lasted a month!” “Bentner,” Alex sputtered, “you are a treasure!” “Do not encourage him in these fantasies,” Elizabeth warned wryly. “Bentner is so addicted to mystery novels that he occasionally forgets that what one does in a novel cannot always be done in real life. He actually did a similar thing to my uncle last year.” “Yes, and he didn’t return for six months,” Bentner told Alex proudly. “And when he does come,” Elizabeth reminded him with a frown to sound severe, “he refuses to eat or drink anything.” “Which is why he never stays long,” Bentner countered, undaunted. As was his habit whenever his mistress’s future was being discussed, as it was now, Bentner hung about to make suggestions as they occurred to him. Since Elizabeth had always seemed to appreciate his advice and assistance, he found nothing odd about a butler sitting down at the table and contributing to the conversation when the only guest was someone he’d known since she was a girl. “It’s that odious Belhaven we have to rid you of first,” Alexandra said, returning to their earlier conversation. “He hung about last night, glowering at anyone who might have approached you.” She shuddered. “And the way he ogles you. It’s revolting. It’s worse than that; he’s almost frightening.” Bentner heard that, and his elderly eyes grew thoughtful as he recalled something he’d read about in one of his novels. “As a solution it is a trifle extreme,” he said, “but as a last resort it could work.” Two pairs of eyes turned to him with interest, and he continued, “I read it in The Nefarious Gentleman. We would have Aaron abduct this Belhaven in our carriage and bring him straightaway to the docks, where we’ll sell him to the press gangs.” Shaking her head in amused affection, Elizabeth said, “I daresay he wouldn’t just meekly go along with Aaron.” “And I don’t think,” Alex added, her smiling gaze meeting Elizabeth’s, “a press gang would take him. They’re not that desperate.” “There’s always black magic,” Bentner continued. “In Deathly Endeavors there was a perpetrator of ancient rites who cast an evil spell. We would require some rats’ tails, as I recall, and tongues of-“ “No,” Elizabeth said with finality. “-lizards,” Bentner finished determinedly. “Absolutely not,” his mistress returned. “And fresh toad old, but procuring that might be tricky. The novel didn’t say how to tell fresh from-“ “Bentner!” Elizabeth exclaimed, laughing. “You’ll cast us all into a swoon if you don’t desist at once.” When Bentner had padded away to seek privacy for further contemplation of solutions, Elizabeth looked at Alex. “Rats’ tails and lizards’ tongues,” she said, chuckling. “No wonder Bentner insists on having a lighted candle in his room all night.” “He must be afraid to close his eyes after reading such things,” Alex agreed.

I have made it an observation since our absence, that we are much fonder of the pictures of those we love when they are at a great distance than when they are near us. It seems to me as if the farther they are removed their pictures grow the more finished, and acquire a greater resemblance; or at least our imagination, which perpetually figures them to us by the desire we have of seeing them again, makes us think so. By a peculiar power, love can make that seem life itself which, as soon as the loved object returns, is nothing but a little canvas and flat color. I have your picture in my room; I never pass it without stopping to look at it; and yet when you are present with me I scarce ever cast my eyes on it. If a picture, which is but a mute representation of an object, can give such pleasure, what cannot letters inspire? They have souls; they can speak; they have in them all that force which expresses the transports of the heart; they have all the fire of our passions, they can raise them as much as if the persons themselves were present; they have all the tenderness and the delicacy of speech, and sometimes even a boldness of expression beyond it.

He couldn’t have known it, but among the original run of The History of Love, at least one copy was destined to change a life. This particular book was one of the last of the two thousand to be printed, and sat for longer than the rest in a warehouse in the outskirts of Santiago, absorbing the humidity. From there it was finally sent to a bookstore in Buenos Aires. The careless owner hardly noticed it, and for some years it languished on the shelves, acquiring a pattern of mildew across the cover. It was a slim volume, and its position on the shelf wasn’t exactly prime: crowded on the left by an overweight biography of a minor actress, and on the right by the once-bestselling novel of an author that everyone had since forgotten, it hardly left its spine visible to even the most rigorous browser. When the store changed owners it fell victim to a massive clearance, and was trucked off to another warehouse, foul, dingy, crawling with daddy longlegs, where it remained in the dark and damp before finally being sent to a small secondhand bookstore not far from the home of the writer Jorge Luis Borges. The owner took her time unpacking the books she’d bought cheaply and in bulk from the warehouse. One morning, going through the boxes, she discovered the mildewed copy of The History of Love. She’d never heard of it, but the title caught her eye. She put it aside, and during a slow hour in the shop she read the opening chapter, called 'The Age of Silence.' The owner of the secondhand bookstore lowered the volume of the radio. She flipped to the back flap of the book to find out more about the author, but all it said was that Zvi Litvinoff had been born in Poland and moved to Chile in 1941, where he still lived today. There was no photograph. That day, in between helping customers, she finished the book. Before locking up the shop that evening, she placed it in the window, a little wistful about having to part with it. The next morning, the first rays of the rising sun fell across the cover of The History of Love. The first of many flies alighted on its jacket. Its mildewed pages began to dry out in the heat as the blue-gray Persian cat who lorded over the shop brushed past it to lay claim to a pool of sunlight. A few hours later, the first of many passersby gave it a cursory glance as they went by the window. The shop owner did not try to push the book on any of her customers. She knew that in the wrong hands such a book could easily be dismissed or, worse, go unread. Instead she let it sit where it was in the hope that the right reader might discover it. And that’s what happened. One afternoon a tall young man saw the book in the window. He came into the shop, picked it up, read a few pages, and brought it to the register. When he spoke to the owner, she couldn’t place his accent. She asked where he was from, curious about the person who was taking the book away. Israel, he told her, explaining that he’d recently finished his time in the army and was traveling around South America for a few months. The owner was about to put the book in a bag, but the young man said he didn’t need one, and slipped it into his backpack. The door chimes were still tinkling as she watched him disappear, his sandals slapping against the hot, bright street. That night, shirtless in his rented room, under a fan lazily pushing around the hot air, the young man opened the book and, in a flourish he had been fine-tuning for years, signed his name: David Singer. Filled with restlessness and longing, he began to read.

Anything Bunny wrote was bound to be alarmingly original, since he began with such odd working materials and managed to alter them further by his befuddled scrutiny, but the John Donne paper must have been the worst of all the bad papers he ever wrote (ironic, given that it was the only thing he ever wrote that saw print. After he disappeared, a journalist asked for an excerpt from the missing young scholar's work and Marion gave him a copy of it, a laboriously edited paragraph of which eventually found its way into People magazine). Somewhere, Bunny had heard that John Donne had been acquainted with Izaak Walton, and in some dim corridor of his mind this friendship grew larger and larger, until in his mind the two men were practically interchangeable. We never understood how this fatal connection had established itself: Henry blamed it on Men of Thought and Deed, but no one knew for sure. A week or two before the paper was due, he had started showing up in my room about two or three in the morning, looking as if he had just narrowly escaped some natural disaster, his tie askew and his eyes wild and rolling. 'Hello, hello,' he would say, stepping in, running both hands through his disordered hair. 'Hope I didn't wake you, don't mind if I cut on the lights, do you, ah, here we go, yes, yes…' He would turn on the lights and then pace back and forth for a while without taking off his coat, hands clasped behind his back, shaking his head. Finally he would stop dead in his tracks and say, with a desperate look in his eye: 'Metahemeralism. Tell me about it. Everything you know. I gotta know something about metahemeralism.' 'I'm sorry. I don't know what that is.' 'I don't either,' Bunny would say brokenly. 'Got to do with art or pastoralism or something. That's how I gotta tie together John Donne and Izaak Walton, see.' He would resume pacing. 'Donne. Walton. Metahemeralism. That's the problem as I see it.' 'Bunny, I don't think "metahemeralism" is even a word.' 'Sure it is. Comes from the Latin. Has to do with irony and the pastoral. Yeah. That's it. Painting or sculpture or something, maybe.' 'Is it in the dictionary?' 'Dunno. Don't know how to spell it. I mean' – he made a picture frame with his hands – 'the poet and the fisherman. Parfait. Boon companions. Out in the open spaces. Living the good life. Metahemeralism's gotta be the glue here, see?' And so it would go, for sometimes half an hour or more, with Bunny raving about fishing, and sonnets, and heaven knew what, until in the middle of his monologue he would be struck by a brilliant thought and bluster off as suddenly as he had descended. He finished the paper four days before the deadline and ran around showing it to everyone before he turned it in. 'This is a nice paper, Bun -,' Charles said cautiously. 'Thanks, thanks.' 'But don't you think you ought to mention John Donne more often? Wasn't that your assignment?' 'Oh, Donne,' Bunny had said scoffingly. 'I don't want to drag him into this.' Henry refused to read it. 'I'm sure it's over my head, Bunny, really,' he said, glancing over the first page. 'Say, what's wrong with this type?' 'Triple-spaced it,' said Bunny proudly. 'These lines are about an inch apart.' 'Looks kind of like free verse, doesn't it?' Henry made a funny little snorting noise through his nose. 'Looks kind of like a menu,' he said. All I remember about the paper was that it ended with the sentence 'And as we leave Donne and Walton on the shores of Metahemeralism, we wave a fond farewell to those famous chums of yore.' We wondered if he would fail.

I open the door to see him on my doorstep and he doesn’t even say hello. He says, “Let’s cut the crap, Daisy. You need to record this album or Runner’s taking you to court.” I said, “I don’t care about any of that. They can take their money back, get me kicked out of here if they want. I’ll live in a cardboard box.” I was very annoying. I had no idea what it meant to truly suffer. Teddy said, “Just get in the studio, love. How hard is that?” I told him, “I want to write my own stuff.” I think I even crossed my arms in front of my chest like a child. He said, “I’ve read your stuff. Some of it’s really good. But you don’t have a single song that’s finished. You don’t have anything ready to be recorded.” He said I should fulfill my contract with Runner and he would help me get my songs to a point where I could release an album of my own stuff. He called it “a goal for us all to work toward.” I said, “I want to release my own stuff now.” And that’s when he got testy with me. He said, “Do you want to be a professional groupie? Is that what you want? Because the way it looks from here is that you have a chance to do something of your own. And you’d rather just end up pregnant by Bowie.” Let me take this opportunity to be clear about one thing: I never slept with David Bowie. At least, I’m pretty sure I didn’t. I said, “I am an artist. So you either let me record the album I want or I’m not showing up. Ever.” Teddy said, “Daisy, someone who insists on the perfect conditions to make art isn’t an artist. They’re an asshole.” I shut the door in his face. And sometime later that day, I opened up my songbook and I started reading. I hated to admit it but I could see what he was saying. I had good lines but I didn’t have anything polished from beginning to end. The way I was working then, I’d have a loose melody in my head and I’d come up with lyrics to it and then I’d move on. I didn’t work on my songs after one or two rounds. I was sitting in the living room of my cottage, looking out the window, my songbook in my lap, realizing that if I didn’t start trying—I mean being willing to squeeze out my own blood, sweat, and tears for what I wanted—I’d never be anything, never matter much to anybody. I called Teddy a few days later, I said, “I’ll record your album. I’ll do it.” And he said, “It’s your album.” And I realized he was right. The album didn’t have to be exactly my way for it to still be mine.

I missed my workout this morning, so I vault up the stairs to my flat. Breakfast has taken longer than intended, and I'm expecting Oliver at any minute. Part of me also hopes that Alessia will still be there. As I approach my front door, I hear music coming from the flat. Music? What's going on? I slide my key into the lock and cautiously open the door. It's Bach, one of his preludes in G Major. Perhaps Alessia is playing music through my computer. But how can she? She doesn't know the password. Does she? Maybe she's playing her phone through the sound system, though from the look of her tatty anorak she doesn't strike me as someone who has a smartphone. I've never seen her with one. The music rings through my flat, lighting up its darkest corners. Who knew that my daily likes classical? This is a tiny piece of the Alessia Demachi puzzle. Quickly I close the door, but as I stand in the hallway, it becomes apparent that the music is not coming from the sound system. It's from my piano. Bach. Fluid and light, played with a deftness and understanding I've only heard from concert-standard performers. Alessia? I've never managed to make my piano sing like this. Taking off my shoes, I creep down the hallway and peer around the door into the drawing room. She is seated at the piano in her housecoat and scarf, swaying a little, completely lost in the music, her eyes closed in concentration as her hands move with graceful dexterity across the keys. The music flows through her, echoing off the walls and ceiling in a flawless performance worthy of any concert pianist. I watch her in awe as she plays, her head bowed. She is brilliant. In every way. And I'm completely spellbound. She finishes the prelude, and I step back into the hall, flattening myself against the wall in case she looks up, not daring to breath. However, without missing a beat she goes straight into the fugue. I lean against the wall and close my eyes, marveling at her artistry and the feeling that she puts into each phrase. I'm carried away by the music, and as I listen, I realize that she wasn't reading the music. She's playing from memory. Good God. She's a fucking virtuoso. And I remember her intense focus when she examined my score while she was dusting the piano. Clearly she was reading the music. Shit. She plays at this standard and she was reading my composition? The fugue ends, and seamlessly she launches into another piece. Again Bach, Prelude in C-sharp Major, I think.

That's the beauty of discipline. It trumps everything. A lot of us are born with minimal talent, unhappy in our own skin and with the genetic makeup with which we were born. We have fucked-up parents, grow up bullied and abused, or are diagnosed with learning disabilities. We hate our hometown, our teachers, our families, and damn near everything about ourselves. We wish we could be born again as some other motherfucker in some other time and place. Well, I am proof that rebirth is possible through discipline, which is the only thing capable of altering your DNA. It is the skeleton key that can get you past all the gatekeepers and into each and every room you wish to enter. Even the ones built to keep you the fuck out! ... Discipline builds mental endurance because when effort is your main priority, you stop looking for everything to be enjoyable. Our phones and social media have turned too many of us inside out with envy and greed as we get inundated with other people's success, their new cars and houses, big contracts, resort vacations, and romantic getaways. We see how much fun everyone else is having and feel like the world is passing us by, so we bitch about it and then wonder why we are not where we want to be. When you become disciplined, you don't have time for that bullshit. p140

She knew how to play him so very well. He slipped his hand around hers. "Friends," he repeated roughly. Her smile was bright enough to light up the room-and make him see stars. "Excellent! I'm so pleased. And now I really should go. I don't want to keep your family waiting." His family. She was going out with his family. His mother and sister, who would no doubt think her absolutely perfect. Perfect for Archer, who his mother was determined to see married, now that she had given up all hopes for Grey. Or perhaps they'd want her for Trystan, although he was still living the life of an adventurous young man. "Have fun," he encouraged with all the false enthusiasm he could muster. She flashed a quick grin at him over her shoulder as she made for the door. "I'm sure I will. Your brother will see to that." As far as parting shots went, it wasn't bad. By no means mortal, but deep enough to wound never the less. Alone once more, Grey returned to his chair and pulled the copy of Voluptuous out from underneath the cushion of the other. He stared at it for a moment, contemplating finishing the article on pleasing a woman orally. And then, with a snarl, he flung the pages into the fire, watching ash and embers fly up in the assault. The paper caught quickly, giving off a sudden bloom of heat. Women, he thought as he watched the magazine's mocking text blacken and char. He would be much happier in his misery without them.

It was a familiar feeling, to be hurrying someplace without really knowing what is going on. When I was a child, this happened all the time, because when you are a child, nothing is your business, and you are constantly being yanked one place or another with no satisfying explanation provided by the adults doing the yanking, and so you soon get used to being in a constant state of bewilderment. You are yanked awake in the morning, often before you want to get out of bed, and you are yanked toward breakfast and away from the table before you are done. You are probably yanked toward school, whether or not you are in the mood, and it might be a school in which you are yanked from one room to another to learn about different things, or one in which you stay in one room and your brain is yanked from subject to subject no matter what you might be thinking about. Sometimes you have a good time and sometimes you do not, but never is there a satisfying answer if you ask Why can’t I stay in bed a little longer and read the poem about the sea being “all a case of knives”? or Couldn’t I please instead just eat a little more toast and finish this chapter? or What reason could there possibly be that I must face the blackboard instead of looking out the window at the rain making quick tiny circles everywhere on the ground? and even now, when I am an adult and sometimes find myself being asked questions like these, as my hand reaches out to yank someone someplace, I have no good answer.

more than anything.” He turned to Jean Louise. “Seven-thirty tonight and no Landing. We’ll go to the show.” “Okay. Where’re you all going?” “Courthouse. Meeting.” “On Sunday?” “Yep.” “That’s right, I keep forgetting all the politicking’s done on Sunday in these parts.” Atticus called for Henry to come on. “Bye, baby,” he said. Jean Louise followed him into the livingroom. When the front door slammed behind her father and Henry, she went to her father’s chair to tidy up the papers he had left on the floor beside it. She picked them up, arranged them in sectional order, and put them on the sofa in a neat pile. She crossed the room again to straighten the stack of books on his lamp table, and was doing so when a pamphlet the size of a business envelope caught her eye. On its cover was a drawing of an anthropophagous Negro; above the drawing was printed The Black Plague. Its author was somebody with several academic degrees after his name. She opened the pamphlet, sat down in her father’s chair, and began reading. When she had finished, she took the pamphlet by one of its corners, held it like she would hold a dead rat by the tail, and walked into the kitchen. She held the pamphlet in front of her aunt. “What is this thing?” she said. Alexandra looked over her glasses at it. “Something of your father’s.” Jean Louise stepped on the garbage can trigger and threw the pamphlet in. “Don’t do that,” said Alexandra. “They’re hard to come by these days.” Jean Louise opened her mouth, shut it, and opened it again. “Aunty, have you read that thing? Do you know what’s in it?” “Certainly.” If Alexandra had uttered an obscenity in her face, Jean Louise would have been less surprised. “You—Aunty, do you know the stuff in that thing makes Dr. Goebbels look like a naive little country boy?” “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jean Louise. There are a lot of truths in that book.” “Yes indeedy,” said Jean Louise wryly. “I especially liked the part where the Negroes, bless their hearts, couldn’t help being inferior to the white race because their skulls are thicker and their brain-pans shallower—whatever that means—so we must all be very kind to them and not let them do anything to hurt themselves and keep them in their places. Good God, Aunty—” Alexandra was ramrod straight. “Well?” she said. Jean Louise said, “It’s just that I never knew you went in for salacious reading material, Aunty.” Her aunt was silent, and Jean Louise continued: “I was real impressed with the parable where since the dawn of history the rulers of the world have always been white, except Genghis Khan or somebody—the author was real fair about that—and he made a killin’ point about even the Pharaohs were white and their subjects were either black or Jews—” “That’s true, isn’t it?” “Sure, but what’s that got to do with the case?” When Jean Louise felt apprehensive, expectant, or on edge, especially when confronting her aunt, her brain clicked to the meter of Gilbertian tomfoolery. Three sprightly figures

What does it take to make you stop?” Elizabeth flinched from the hatred in the voice she loved and drew a shaking breath, praying she could finish without starting to cry. “I’ve hurt you terribly, my love, and I’ll hurt you again during the next fifty years. And you are going to hurt me, Ian-never, I hope, as much as you are hurting me now. But if that’s the way it has to be, then I’ll endure it, because the only alternative is to live without you, and that is no life at all. The difference is that I know it, and you don’t-not yet.” “Are you finished now?” “Not quite,” she said, straightening at the sound of footsteps in the hall. “There’s one more thing,” she informed him, lifting her quivering chin. “I am not a Labrador retriever! You cannot put me out of your life, because I won’t stay.” When she left, Ian stared at the empty room that had been alive with her presence but moments before, wondering what in hell she meant by her last comment. He glanced toward the door as Larimore walked in, then he nodded curtly toward the chairs in front of his desk, silently ordering the solicitor to sit down. “I gathered from your message,” Larimore said quietly, opening his legal case, “that you now wish to proceed with the divorce?” Ian hesitated a moment while Elizabeth’s heartbroken words whirled through his mind, juxtaposed with the lies and omissions that had begun on the night they met and continued right up to their last night together. He recalled the torment of the first weeks after she’d left him and compared it to the cold, blessed numbness that had now taken its place. He looked at the solicitor, who was waiting for his answer. And he nodded.

what I knew that morning in March 1977 as we settled around the conference table. I wasn’t even sure how these guys reached us, or how they’d arranged this meeting. “Okay, fellas,” I said, “what’ve you got?” It was a beautiful day, I remember. The light outside the room was a buttery pale yellow, and the sky was blue for the first time in months, so I was distracted, a little spring feverish, as Rudy leaned his weight on the edge of the conference table and smiled. “Mr. Knight, we’ve come up with a way to inject . . . air . . . into a running shoe.” I frowned and dropped my pencil. “Why?” I said. “For greater cushioning,” he said. “For greater support. For the ride of a lifetime.” I stared. “You’re kidding me, right?” I’d heard a lot of silliness from a lot of different people in the shoe business, but this. Oh. Brother. Rudy handed me a pair of soles that looked as if they’d been teleported from the twenty-second century. Big, clunky, they were clear thick plastic and inside were—bubbles? I turned them over. “Bubbles?” I said. “Pressurized air bags,” he said. I set down the soles and gave Rudy a closer look, a full head-to-toe. Six-three, lanky, with unruly dark hair, bottle-bottom glasses, a lopsided grin, and a severe vitamin D deficiency, I thought. Not enough sunshine. Or else a long-lost member of the Addams Family. He saw me appraising him, saw my skepticism, and wasn’t the least fazed. He walked to the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk, and began writing numbers, symbols, equations. He explained at some length why an air shoe would work, why it would never go flat, why it was the Next Big Thing. When he finished I stared at the blackboard. As a trained accountant I’d spent a good part of my life looking at blackboards, but this Rudy fella’s scribbles were something else. Indecipherable.

So that is how we came to be standing in a sparse room, in a nondescript building in the barracks at SAS HQ--just a handful out of all those who had started out so many months earlier. We shuffled around impatiently. We were ready. Ready, finally, to get badged as SAS soldiers. The colonel of the regiment walked in, dressed casually in lightweight camo trousers, shirt, beret, and blue SAS belt. He smiled at us. “Well done, lads. Hard work, isn’t it?” We smiled back. “You should be proud today. But remember: this is only the beginning. The real hard work starts now, when you return to your squadron. Many are called, few are chosen. Live up to that.” He paused. “And from now on for the rest of your life remember this: you are part of the SAS family. You’ve earned that. And it is the finest family in the world. But what makes our work here extraordinary is that everyone here goes that little bit extra. When everyone else gives up, we give more. That is what sets us apart.” It is a speech I have never forgotten. I stood there, my boots worn, cracked, and muddy, my trousers ripped, and wearing a sweaty black T-shirt. I felt prouder than I had ever felt in my life. We all came to attention--no pomp and ceremony. We each shook the colonel’s hand and were handed the coveted SAS sandy beret. Along the way, I had come to learn that it was never about the beret--it was about what it stood for: camaraderie, sweat, skill, humility, endurance, and character. I molded the beret carefully onto my head as he finished down the line. Then he turned and said: “Welcome to the SAS. My door is always open if you need anything--that’s how things work around here. Now go and have a beer or two on me.” Trucker and I had done it, together, against all the odds. So that was SAS Selection. And as the colonel had said, really it was just the beginning.

Mike continued to walk unhurriedly toward the crowd until he loomed up in the stereo tank in life size, as if he were in the room with his water brothers. He stopped on the grass verge in front of the hotel, a few feet from the crowd. "You called me?" He was answered with a growl. The sky held scattered clouds; at that instant the sun came out from behind one and a shaft of golden light hit him. His clothes vanished. He stood before them, a golden youth, clothed only in his own beauty, beauty that made Jubal's heart ache, thinking that Michelangelo in his ancient years would have climbed down from his high scaffolding to record it for generations unborn. Mike said gently, "Look at me. I am a son of man." . . . . "God damn you!" A half brick caught Mike in the ribs. He turned his face slightly toward his assailant. "But you yourself are God. You can damn only yourself and you can never escape yourself." "Blasphemer!" A rock caught him just over his left eye and blood welled forth. Mike said calmly, "In fighting me, you fight yourself... for Thou art God and I am God * . . and all that groks is God-there is no other." More rocks hit him, from various directions; he began to bleed in several places. "Hear the Truth. You need not hate, you need not fight, you need not fear. I offer you the water of life-" Suddenly his hand held a tumbler of water, sparkling in the sunlight. "-and you may share it whenever you so will . . . and walk in peace and love and happiness together." A rock caught the glass and shattered it. Another struck him in the mouth. Through bruised and bleeding lips he smiled at them, looking straight into the camera with an expression of yearning tenderness on his face. Some trick of sunlight and stereo formed a golden halo back of his head. "Oh my brothers, I love you so! Drink deep. Share and grow closer without end. Thou art God." Jubal whispered it back to him. . . . "Lynch him! Give the bastard a nigger necktie!" A heavy-gauge shotgun blasted at close range and Mike's right arm was struck off at the elbow and fell. It floated gently down, then came to rest on the cool grasses, its hand curved open in invitation. "Give him the other barrel, Shortie-and aim closer!" The crowd laughed and applauded. A brick smashed Mike's nose and more rocks gave him a crown of blood. "The Truth is simple but the Way of Man is hard. First you must learn to control yourself. The rest follows. Blessed is he who knows himself and commands himself, for the world is his and love and happiness and peace walk with him wherever he goes." Another shotgun blast was followed by two more shots. One shot, a forty-five slug, hit Mike over the heart, shattering the sixth rib near the sternum and making a large wound; the buckshot and the other slug sheered through his left tibia five inches below the patella and left the fibula sticking out at an angle, broken and white against the yellow and red of the wound. Mike staggered slightly and laughed, went on talking, his words clear and unhurried. "Thou art God. Know that and the Way is opened." "God damn it-let's stop this taking the Name of the Lord in vain!"- "Come on, men! Let's finish him!" The mob surged forward, led by one bold with a club; they were on him with rocks and fists, and then with feet as he went down. He went on talking while they kicked his ribs in and smashed his golden body, broke his bones and tore an ear loose. At last someone called out, "Back away a little so we can get the gasoline on him!" The mob opened up a little at that waning and the camera zoomed to pick up his face and shoulders. The Man from Mars smiled at his brothers, said once more, softly and clearly, "I love you." An incautious grasshopper came whirring to a landing on the grass a few inches from his face; Mike turned his head, looked at it as it stared back at him. "Thou art God," he said happily and discorporated.

Just what do you think you’re doing, Arin?” He looked up at Sarsine, blearily rubbing his eyes. He had fallen asleep in a chair. It was full morning. “I couldn’t sleep in my old rooms. At least here, in Etta’s suite--” “I’m not talking about your choice of bedchamber, though I can’t help but notice how conveniently close it is to the east wing.” Arin winced. There was usually only one reason why a man kept a conquered woman prisoner after a battle. “This isn’t what it seems.” “Oh, no? Too many people heard you call her a spoil of war.” “It’s not true.” Sarsine threw her hands up in the air. “Then why did you say it?” “Because I couldn’t think of any other way to save her!” Sarsine stood still. Then she leaned over him and shook his shoulder as if waking him from a nightmare. “You? Save a Valorian?” Arin captured her hand. “Please listen to me.” “I will when you say something I can understand.” “I did your lessons for you, when we were children.” “So?” “I told Anireh to shut up when she made fun of your nose. Do you remember? She pushed me down.” “Your sister was too beautiful for her own good. But all this was long ago. What’s your point?” Arin held both her hands now. “We share something, and probably not for very long. The Valorians will come. There will be a siege.” He groped for what to say. “By the gods, just listen.” “Oh, Arin. Haven’t you learned? The gods won’t hear you.” She sighed. “But I will.” He told her about the day he had been sold to Kestrel, and every day since. He held nothing back. When he finished, Sarsine’s expression had changed. “You’re still a fool,” she said, but gently. “I am,” he whispered. “What do you plan to do with her?” Arin tilted his head helplessly against the carved back of his father’s chair. “I don’t know.” “She demanded to see a sick friend. Said you made her a promise.” “Yes, but I can’t do it.” “Why not?” “Kestrel hates me, but she still speaks to me. Once she sees Jess…she’ll never do that again.

We do eventually get dressed and look for food, although we only make it to the dining room in time for lunch. Egeria accepts her ousting as Alpha Sinta without a hint of anger or regret. Clearly, it’s what she was expecting all along. Piers is away on a recruitment trip, but the rest of the family is here and overjoyed by our wedding announcement. Jocasta decrees that we have to go shopping, now, and Kaia bounces in her seat, beyond excited about any outing that will actually get her on the other side of the castle gate. Shopping requires money, so I dig around in Griffin’s pocket under the table, letting my fingers wander enough for him to nearly choke on his stew. I find four gold coins and hold on to them. “You never pay me.” He looks aghast. “I can’t pay you anymore.” “We’re about to get married. No one’s going to confuse me with a prostitute.” Kaia spits out a grape. It bounces across the table and then lands in her mother’s lap. Kaia slaps her hand over her mouth, her blue-gray eyes huge, and Nerissa gives her a quelling look. The look finishes on me, and I might have felt a little quelled myself if Carver hadn’t suddenly made a noise like a donkey, finally belting out the laugh he’d been holding back. Anatole bangs his hand down on the table and bursts out laughing. He sounds like a donkey, too. It’s contagious, and the whole table erupts, snorting and braying until most of us are wiping tears from our eyes. I shake my head, grinning. I haven’t laughed like this in…well, ever. Nerissa eventually gets up, comes over to me, and then kisses my cheek, something that would usually make me squirm. Today, it somehow feels normal. “I always wanted to have four daughters.” She squeezes my shoulder. “Now I do.” I keep smiling like a loon even though my throat suddenly feels thick, and heat stings the backs of my eyes. I have a family that loves me. I would protect them with my life. Well, maybe not Piers, but I have a feeling he would return the sentiment

Dom, are you out here?” called a voice from somewhere beyond the stables. Damn it all. It was Tristan. Swiftly Dom donned his shirt. “Be quiet,” he whispered to Jane, “and he’ll go away.” Tristan’s voice sounded again, even nearer now. “I swear to God, Dom, if you ride off to London in the dark and make a liar out of me before Ravenswood, I will kick you from here to France!” “He won’t go away,” Jane whispered back, a hint of desperation in her voice. “He promised Ravenswood that you wouldn’t head for London with broken carriage lamps, and now he’ll want to make sure that you don’t.” Which meant his arse of a brother wasn’t going to stop looking for him. Any minute now, he’d be striding into the harness room. Then Jane would have to marry Dom. As soon as the thought entered Dom’s head, it apparently occurred to her, too, for she paled and stepped near enough to whisper, “Please. Not like this.” He stared at her ashen face, and his stomach sank. He couldn’t force her to wed him. After what had happened between them years ago, she would never forgive him for taking her choice away from her yet again. Besides, he didn’t want to force her into anything. The only way he could prove that he didn’t intend to run roughshod over her for the rest of their lives was to walk away now. Even if it killed him. Bloody hell. “I’ll draw Tristan away from the stables,” Dom said tersely as he shoved his stocking feet into his boots. “That will give you a chance to finish dressing and sneak back into the house.” Relief spreading over her face, she bobbed her head. He buttoned up his shirt. “It will also give you a chance to decide what you want.” Gathering up his coat, waistcoat, and cravat, he added in a low murmur, “But know this, Jane. I am not, nor ever intend to be, a man like your father. Somewhere inside of you, you must…” He winced. “You surely do know it.” He waited long enough to see uncertainty flicker in her eyes. Then he strode out of the harness room and closed the door behind him.

As I sat down to dinner in the dining room in my accustomed place, with Maxim at the head of the table, I pictured Rebecca sitting in where I sat now, picking up her fork for the fish, and then the telephone ringing and Frith coming into the room and saying “Mr. Favell on the phone, Madam, wishing to speak to you,” and Rebecca would get up from her chair with a quick glance at Maxim, who would not say anything, who would go on eating his fish. And when she came back, having finished her conversation, and sat down in her place again, Rebecca would begin talking about something different, in a gay, careless way, to cover up the little cloud between them. At first Maxim would be glum, answering in monosyllables, but little by little she would win his humor back again, telling him some story of her day, about someone she had seen in Kerrith, and when they had finished the next course he would be laughing again, looking at her and smiling, putting out his hand to her across the table. “What the devil are you thinking about?” said Maxim. I started, the color flooding my face, for in that brief moment, sixty seconds in time perhaps, I had so identified myself with Rebecca that my own dull self did not exist, had never come to Manderley. I had gone back in thought and in person to the days that were gone. “Do you know you were going through the most extraordinary antics instead of eating your fish?” said Maxim. “First you listened, as though you heard the telephone, and then your lips moved, and you threw half a glance at me. And you shook your head, and smiled, and shrugged your shoulders. All in about a second. Are you practicing your appearance for the fancy dress ball?” He looked across at me, laughing, and I wondered what he would say if he really knew my thoughts, my heart, and my mind, and that for one second he had been the Maxim of another year, and I had been Rebecca. “You look like a little criminal,” he said, “what is it?” “Nothing,” I said quickly, “I wasn’t doing anything.” “Tell me what you were thinking?

Although thrilled that the era of the personal computer had arrived, he was afraid that he was going to miss the party. Slapping down seventy-five cents, he grabbed the issue and trotted through the slushy snow to the Harvard dorm room of Bill Gates, his high school buddy and fellow computer fanatic from Seattle, who had convinced him to drop out of college and move to Cambridge. “Hey, this thing is happening without us,” Allen declared. Gates began to rock back and forth, as he often did during moments of intensity. When he finished the article, he realized that Allen was right. For the next eight weeks, the two of them embarked on a frenzy of code writing that would change the nature of the computer business.1 Unlike the computer pioneers before him, Gates, who was born in 1955, had not grown up caring much about the hardware. He had never gotten his thrills by building Heathkit radios or soldering circuit boards. A high school physics teacher, annoyed by the arrogance Gates sometimes displayed while jockeying at the school’s timesharing terminal, had once assigned him the project of assembling a Radio Shack electronics kit. When Gates finally turned it in, the teacher recalled, “solder was dripping all over the back” and it didn’t work.2 For Gates, the magic of computers was not in their hardware circuits but in their software code. “We’re not hardware gurus, Paul,” he repeatedly pronounced whenever Allen proposed building a machine. “What we know is software.” Even his slightly older friend Allen, who had built shortwave radios, knew that the future belonged to the coders. “Hardware,” he admitted, “was not our area of expertise.”3 What Gates and Allen set out to do on that December day in 1974 when they first saw the Popular Electronics cover was to create the software for personal computers. More than that, they wanted to shift the balance in the emerging industry so that the hardware would become an interchangeable commodity, while those who created the operating system and application software would capture most of the profits.

She did not like it that Jasper should shoot birds; but it was only a stage; they all went through stages. Why, she asked, pressing her chin on James's head, should they grow up so fast? Why should they go to school? She would have liked always to have had a baby. She was happiest carrying one in her arms. Then people might say she was tyrannical, domineering, masterful, if they chose; she did not mind. And, touching his hair with her lips, she thought, he will never be so happy again, but stopped herself, remembering how it angered her husband that she should say that. Still, it was true. They were happier now than they would ever be again. A tenpenny tea set made Cam happy for days. She heard them stamping and crowing on the floor above her head the moment they awoke. They came bustling along the passage. Then the door sprang open and in they came, fresh as roses, staring, wide awake, as if this coming into the dining-room after breakfast, which they did every day of their lives, was a positive event to them, and so on, with one thing after another, all day long, until she went up to say good-night to them, and found them netted in their cots like birds among cherries and raspberries, still making up stories about some little bit of rubbish - something they had heard, something they had picked up in the garden. They all had their little treasures... And so she went down and said to her husband, Why must they grow up and lose it all? Never will they be so happy again. And he was angry. Why take such a gloomy view of life? he said. It is not sensible. For it was odd; and she believed it to be true; that with all his gloom and desperation he was happier, more hopeful on the whole, than she was. Less exposed to human worries - perhaps that was it. He had always his work to fall back on. Not that she herself was "pessimistic," as he accused her of being. Only she thought life - and a little strip of time presented itself to her eyes - her fifty years. There it was before her - life. Life, she thought - but she did not finish her thought.

The day-to-day horror of writing gave me a notion of tournament time. Writing novels is tedious. When will this book be finished, when will it reveal its bright and shining true self? it takes freakin’ years. At the poker table, you’re only playing a fraction of the hands, waiting for your shot. If you keep your wits, can keep from flying apart while those around you are self-destructing, devouring each other, you’re halfway there. … Let them flame out while you develop a new relationship with time, and they drift away from the table. 86-7 Coach Helen’s mantra: It’s OK to be scared, but don’t play scared. 90 [During a young adult trip to Los Vegas] I was contemplating the nickel in my hand. Before we pushed open the glass doors, what the heck, I dropped it into a one-armed bandit and won two dollars. In a dank utility room deep in the subbasements of my personality, a little man wiped his hands on his overalls and pulled the switch: More. Remembering it now, I hear a sizzling sound, like meat being thrown into a hot skillet. I didn't do risk, generally. So I thought. But I see now I'd been testing the House Rules the last few years. I'd always been a goody-goody. Study hard, obey your parents, hut-hut-hut through the training exercises of Decent Society. Then in college, now that no one was around, I started to push the boundaries, a little more each semester. I was an empty seat in lecture halls, slept late in a depressive funk, handed in term papers later and later to see how much I could get away with before the House swatted me down. Push it some more. We go to casinos to tell the everyday world that we will not submit. There are rules and codes and institutions, yes, but for a few hours in this temple of pure chaos, of random cards and inscrutable dice, we are in control of our fates. My little gambles were a way of pretending that no one was the boss of me. … The nickels poured into the basin, sweet music. If it worked once, it will work again. We hit the street. 106-8 [Matt Matros, 3x bracelet winner; wrote The Making of a Poker Player]: “One way or another you’re going to have a read, and you’re going to do something that you didn’t expect you were going to do before, right or wrong. Obviously it’s better if you’re right, but even if you’re wrong, it can be really satisfying to just have a read, a feeling, and go with it. Your gut.” I could play it safe, or I could really play. 180 Early on, you wanted to stay cool and keep out of expensive confrontations, but you also needed to feed the stack. The stack is hungry. 187 The awful knowledge that you did what you set out to do, and you would never, ever top it. It was gone the instant you put your hands on it. It was gambling. 224

The name is somewhat familiar, but I can’t recall a face to go with it.” Obviously disappointed in her reaction, her uncle said irritably, “You apparently have a poor memory. If you can’t recall a knight or an earl,” he added sarcastically, “I doubt you’ll remember a mere mister.” Stung by his unprovoked remark, she said stiffly, “Who is the third?” “Mr. Ian Thornton. He’s-“ That name sent Elizabeth jolting to her feet while a blaze of animosity and a sock of terror erupted through her entire body. “Ian Thornton!” she cried, leaning her palms on the desk to steady herself. “Ian Thornton!” she repeated, her voice rising with a mixture of anger and hysterical laughter. “Uncle, if Ian Thornton discussed marrying me, it was at the point of Robert’s gun! His interest in me was never marriage, and Robert dueled with him over his behavior. In fact, Robert shot him!” Instead of relenting or being upset, her uncle merely regarded her with blank indifference, and Elizabeth said fiercely, “Don’t you understand?” “What I understand,” he said, glowering, “is that he replied to my message in the affirmative and was very cordial. Perhaps he regrets his earlier behavior and wishes to make amends.” “Amends!” she cried. “I’ve no idea whether he feels loathing for me or merely contempt, but I can assure you he does not and has never wished to wed me! He’s the reason I can’t show my face in society!” “In my opinion, you’re better off away from that decadent London influence; however, that’s not to the point. He has accepted my terms.” “What terms?” Inured to Elizabeth’s quaking alarm, Julius stated matter-of-factly, “Each of the three candidates has agreed that you will come to visit him briefly in order to allow you to decide if you suit. Lucinda will accompany you as chaperon. You’re to leave in five days. Belhaven is first, then Marchman, then Thornton.” The room swam before Elizabeth’s eyes. “I can’t believe this!” she burst out, and in her misery she seized on the least of her problems. “Lucinda has taken her first holiday in years! She’s in Devon visiting her sister.” “Then take Berta instead and have Lucinda join you later when you go to visit Thornton in Scotland.” “Berta! Berta is a maid. My reputation will be in shreds if I spend a week in the home of a man with no one but a maid for a chaperon.” “Then don’t say she’s a maid,” he snapped. “Since I already referred to Lucinda Throckmorton-Jones as your chaperon in my letters, you can say that Berta is your aunt No more objections, miss,” he finished, “the matter is settled. That will be all for now. You may go.” “It’s not settled! There’s been some sort of horrible mistake, I tell you. Ian Thornton would never want to see me, any more than I wish to see him!” “There’s no mistake,” Julius said with completely finality. “Ian Thornton received my letter and accepted our offer. He even sent directions to his place in Scotland.” “Your offer,” Elizabeth cried, “not mine!” “I’ll not debate technicalities any further with you, Elizabeth. This discussion is at an end.

I stopped struggling, going limp in his arms. He reached around us and shoved the door closed, spinning around and facing us toward the kitchen. “I was trying to make you breakfast.” It took a moment for his words and their meaning to sink in. I stared dumbfounded across the room and past the island. There was smoke billowing up from the stove and the window above the sink was wide open. Bowls and spoons littered the island and there was a carton of eggs sitting out. He was trying to cook. He was really bad at it. I started to laugh. The kind of laugh that shook my shoulders and bubbled up hysterically. My heart rate was still out of control, and I took in a few breaths between laughs to try and calm it down. He said something, but I couldn’t hear him because the fire alarm was still going off. I had no doubt half the neighborhood was now awake from the sound. He didn’t bother to put me down, instead hauling me along with him, where he finally set me down, dragged a chair over near the alarm, and climbed up to remove the battery. The noise cut off and the kitchen fell silent. “Well, shit,” he said, staring at the battery in his hand. A giggle escaped me. “Does this always happen when you cook?” He shrugged. “The only time I ever cook is when it’s my turn at the station.” His forehead creased and a thoughtful look came over his face. “The guys are never around when it’s my night to cook. Now I know why.” He snagged a towel off the counter and began waving away the rest of the lingering smoke. I clicked on the vent fan above the stove. There was a pan with half a melted spatula, something that may or may not have once been eggs, and a muffin tin with half-burned, half-raw muffins (how was that even possible?). “Well, this looks…” My words faltered, trying to come up with something positive to say. “Completely inedible?” he finished. I grinned. “You did all this for me?” “I figured after a week of hospital food, you might like something good. Apparently you aren’t going to find that here.” I had the urge to hug him. I kept my feet planted where they were. “Thank you. No one’s ever ruined a pan for me before.” He grinned. “I have cereal. Even I can’t mess that up.” I watched as he pulled down a bowl and poured me some, adding milk. He looked so cute when he handed me the bowl that I lifted the spoon and took a bite. “Best cereal I ever had.” “Damn straight.” I carried it over to the counter and sat down. “After we eat, would you mind taking me to my car? I hope it’s still drivable.” “What about the keys?” “I have a security deposit box at the bank. I keep my spare there in case I ever need them.” “Pretty smart.” “I have a few good ideas now and then.” “Contrary to the way it looks, I do too.” “Thank you for trying to make me breakfast. And for the cereal.” He walked over to the stove and picked up the ruined pan. “You died with honor,” he said, giving it a mock salute. And then he threw the entire thing into the trashcan. I laughed. “You could have washed it, you know.” He made a face. “No. Then I might be tempted to use it again.

I have an-odd ability-to read very quickly.” “Oh,” Elizabeth replied, “how lucky you are. I never heard of a talent like that.” A lazy glamorous smile swept across his face, and he squeezed her hand. “It’s not nearly as uncommon as your eyes,” he said. Elizabeth thought it must be a great deal more uncommon, but she wasn’t completely certain and she let it pass. The following day, that discovery was completely eclipsed by another one. At Ian’s insistence, she’d spread the books from Havenhurst across his desk in order to go over the quarter’s accounts, and as the morning wore on, the long columns of figures she’d been adding and multiplying began to blur together and transpose themselves in her mind-due in part, she thought with a weary smile, to the fact that her husband had kept her awake half the night making love to her. For the third time, she added the same long columns of expenditures, and for the third time, she came up with a different sum. So frustrated was she that she didn’t realize Ian had come into the room, until he leaned over her from behind and put his hands on the desk on either side of her own. “Problems?” he asked, kissing the top of her head. “Yes,” she said, glancing at the clock and realizing that the business acquaintances he was expecting would be there momentarily. As she explained her problem to him, she started shoving loose papers into the books, hurriedly trying to reassemble everything and clear his desk. “For the last forty-five minutes, I’ve been adding the same four columns, so that I could divide them by eighteen servants, multiply that by forty servants which we now have there, times four quarters. Once I know that, I can forecast the real cost of food and supplies with the increased staff. I’ve gotten three different answers to those miserable columns, and I haven’t even tried the rest of the calculations. Tomorrow I’ll have to start all over again,” she finished irritably, “and it takes forever just to get all this laid out and organized.” She reached out to close the book and shove her calculations into it, but Ian stopped her. “Which columns are they?” he asked calmly, his surprised gaze studying the genuine ire on her face. “Those long ones down the left-hand side. It doesn’t matter, I’ll fight it out tomorrow,” she said. She shoved the chair back, dropped two sheets of paper, and bent over to pick them up. They’d slid beneath the kneehole of the desk, and in growing disgust Elizabeth crawled underneath to get them. Above her, Ian said, “$364.” “Pardon?” she asked when she reemerged, clutching the errant sheets of paper. He was writing it down on a scrap of paper. “$364.” “Do not make light of my wanting to know the figures,” she warned him with an exasperated smile. “Besides,” she continued, leaning up and pressing an apologetic kiss on his cheek, loving the tangy scent of his cologne, “I usually enjoy the bookwork. I’m simply a little short of sleep today, because,” she whispered, “my husband kept me awake half the night.” “Elizabeth,” he began hesitantly, “there’s something I-“ Then he shook his head and changed his mind, and since Shipley was already standing in the doorway to announce the arrival of his business acquaintances, Elizabeth thought no more of it. Until the next morning.

Are you Hilary Westfield?” She sounded like she hoped it wasn’t the case. Hilary nodded. “Oh. Well, I’m Philomena. I have to show you to your room.” Hilary looked wildly at Miss Greyson. “I’m Miss Westfield’s governess,” Miss Greyson said, to Hilary’s relief. Maybe talking politely to people like Philomena was something you learned at Miss Pimm’s, or maybe getting past Philomena was a sort of entrance exam. “Is there any chance we could see Miss Pimm? We’re old acquaintances. I used to go to school here, you see.” Miss Greyson smiled for the second time that day—the world was getting stranger and stranger by the minute—but Philomena didn’t smile back. “I’m terribly sorry,” said Philomena, “but Miss Pimm doesn’t receive visitors. You can leave Miss Westfield with me, and the porter will collect Miss Westfield’s bags.” She raised her eyebrows as the carriage driver deposited the golden traveling trunk on the doorstep. “I hope you have another pair of stockings in there.” “I do.” Hilary met Philomena’s stare. “I have nineteen pairs, in fact. And a sword.” Miss Greyson groaned and put her hand to her forehead. “Excuse me?” said Philomena. “I’m afraid Miss Westfield is prone to fits of imagination,” Miss Greyson said quickly. Philomena’s eyebrows retreated. “I understand completely,” she said. “Well, you have nothing to worry about. Miss Pimm’s will cure her of that nasty habit soon enough. Now, Miss Westfield, please come along with me.” Hilary and Miss Greyson started to follow Philomena inside. “Only students and instructors are permitted inside the school building,” said Philomena to Miss Greyson. “With all the thefts breaking out in the kingdom these days, one really can’t be too careful. But you’re perfectly welcome to say your good-byes outside.” Miss Greyson agreed and knelt down in front of Hilary. “A sword?” she whispered. “I’m sorry, Miss Greyson.” “All I ask is that you take care not to carve up your classmates. If I were not a governess, however, I might mention that the lovely Philomena is in need of a haircut.” Hilary nearly laughed, but she suspected it might be against the rules to laugh on the grounds of Miss Pimm’s, so she gave Miss Greyson her most solemn nod instead. “Now,” said Miss Greyson, “you must promise to write. You must keep up with the news of the day and tell me all about it in your letters. And you’ll come and visit me in my bookshop at the end of the term, won’t you?” “Of course.” Hilary’s stomach was starting to feel very strange, and she didn’t trust herself to say more than a few words at a time. This couldn’t be right; pirates were hardly ever sentimental. Then again, neither was Miss Greyson. Yet here she was, leaning forward to hug Hilary, and Hilary found herself hugging Miss Greyson back. “Please don’t tell me to be a good little girl,” she said. Miss Greyson sniffed and stood up. “My dear,” she said, “I would never dream of it.” She gave Hilary’s canvas bag an affectionate pat, nodded politely to Philomena, and walked down the steps and through the gate, back to the waiting carriage. “Come along,” said Philomena, picking up the lightest of Hilary’s bags. “And please don’t dawdle. I have lessons to finish.” HILARY FOLLOWED PHILOMENA through a maze of dark stone walls and high archways. From the inside, the building seemed more like a fortress

At that moment Elizabeth would have said or done anything to reach him. She could not believe, actually could not comprehend that the tender, passionate man who had loved and teased her could be doing this to her-without listening to reason, without even giving her a chance to explain. Her eyes filled with tears of love and terror as she tried brokenly to tease him. “You’re going to look extremely silly, darling, if you claim desertion in court, because I’ll be standing right behind you claiming I’m more than willing to keep my vows.” Ian tore his gaze from the love in her eyes. “If you aren’t out of this house in three minutes,” he warned icily, “I’ll change the grounds to adultery.” “I have not committed adultery.” “Maybe not, but you’ll have a hell of a time proving you haven’t done something. I’ve had some experience in that area. Now, for the last time, get out of my life. It’s over.” To prove it, he walked over and sat down at his desk, reaching behind him to pull the bell cord. “Bring Larimore in,” he instructed Dolton, who appeared almost instantly. Elizabeth stiffened, thinking wildly for some way to reach him before he took irrevocable steps to banish her. Every fiber of her being believed he loved her. Surely, if one loved another deeply enough to be hurt like this…It hit her then, what he was doing and why, and she turned on him while the vicar’s story about Ian’s actions after his parents’ death seared her mind. She, however, was not a Labrador retriever who could be shoved away and out of his life. Turning, she walked over to his desk, leaning her damp palms on it, waiting until he was forced to meet her gaze. Looking like a courageous, heartbroken angel, Elizabeth faced her adversary across his desk, her voice shaking with love. “Listen carefully to me, darling, because I’m giving you fair warning that I won’t let you do this to us. You gave me your love, and I will not let you take it away. The harder you try, the harder I’ll fight you. I’ll haunt your dreams at night, exactly the way you’ve haunted mine every night I was away from you. You’ll lie awake in bed at night, wanting me, and you’ll know I’m lying awake, wanting you. And when you cannot stand it anymore,” she promised achingly, “you’ll come back to me, and I’ll be there, waiting for you. I’ll cry in your arms, and I’ll tell you I’m sorry for everything I’ve done, and you’ll help me find a way to forgive myself-“ “Damn you!” he bit out, his face white with fury. “What does it take to make you stop?” Elizabeth flinched from the hatred in the voice she loved and drew a shaking breath, praying she could finish without starting to cry. “I’ve hurt you terribly, my love, and I’ll hurt you again during the next fifty years. And you are going to hurt me, Ian-never, I hope, as much as you are hurting me now. But if that’s the way it has to be, then I’ll endure it, because the only alternative is to live without you, and that is no life at all. The difference is that I know it, and you don’t-not yet.” “Are you finished now?” “Not quite,” she said, straightening at the sound of footsteps in the hall. “There’s one more thing,” she informed him, lifting her quivering chin. “I am not a Labrador retriever! You cannot put me out of your life, because I won’t stay.” When she left, Ian stared at the empty room that had been alive with her presence but moments before, wondering what in hell she meant by her last comment.

Before their chaise drew to a complete halt in front of the house a door was already being flung open, and a tall, stocky man was bouncing down the steps. “It would appear that our greeting here is going to be far more enthusiastic than the one we received at our last stop,” Elizabeth said in a resolute voice that still shook with nerves as she drew on her gloves, bravely preparing to meet and defy the next obstacle to her happiness and independence. The door of their chaise was wrenched open with enough force to pull it from its hinges, and a masculine face poked inside. “Lady Elizabeth!” boomed Lord Marchman, his face flushed with eagerness-or drink; Elizabeth wasn’t certain. “This is indeed a long-awaited surprise,” and then, as if dumbstruck by his inane remark, he shook his large head and hastily said, “A long-awaited pleasure, that is! The surprise is that you’ve arrived early.” Elizabeth firmly repressed a surge of compassion for his obvious embarrassment, along with the thought that he might be rather likeable. “I hope we haven’t inconvenienced you overmuch,” she said. “Not overmuch. That is,” he corrected, gazing into her wide eyes and feeling himself drowning, “not at all.” Elizabeth smiled and introduced “Aunt Berta,” then allowed their exuberant host to escort them up the steps. Beside her Berta whispered with some satisfaction, “I think he’s as nervous as I am.” The interior of the house seemed drab and rather gloomy after the sunny splendor outside. As their host led her forward Elizabeth glimpsed the furnishings in the salon and drawing room-all of which were upholstered in dark leathers that appeared to have once been maroon and brown. Lord Marchman, who was watching her closely and hopefully, glanced about and suddenly saw his home as she must be seeing it. Trying to explain away the inadequacies of his furnishings, he said hastily, “This home is in need of a woman’s touch. I’m an old bachelor, you see, as was my father.” Berta’s eyes snapped to his face. “Well, I never!” she exclaimed in outraged reaction to his apparent admission of being a bastard.” “I didn’t mean,” Lord Marchman hastily assured, “that my father was never married. I meant”-he paused to nervously tug on his neckcloth, as if trying to loosen it-“that my mother died when I was very young, and my father never remarried. We lived here together.” At the juncture of two hallways and the stairs Lord Marchman turned and looked at Berta and Elizabeth. “Would you care for refreshment, or would you rather go straight to bed?” Elizabeth wanted a rest, and she particularly wanted to spend as little time in his company as was possible. “The latter, if you please.” “In that case,” he said with a sweeping gesture of his arm toward the staircase, “let’s go.” Berta let out a gasp of indignant outrage at what she perceived to be a clear indication that he was no better than Sir Francis. “Now see here, milord! I’ve been putting her in bed for nigh onto two score, and I don’t need help from the likes of you!” And then, as if she realized her true station, she ruined the whole magnificent effect by curtsying and adding in a servile whisper, “if you don’t mind, sir.” “Mind? No, I-“ It finally occurred to John Marchmen what she thought, and he colored up clear to the roots of his hair. “I-I only meant to show you how,” he began, and then he leaned his head back and briefly closed his eyes as if praying for deliverance from his own tongue. “How to find the way,” he finished with a gusty sigh of relief. Elizabeth was secretly touched by his sincerity and his awkwardness, and were the situation less threatening, she would have gone out of her way to put him at his ease.