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.“Something wonderful has happened!” he said to Sondra at breakfast, and showed her the sign he had made.He was intoxicated with happiness for Franklin, though still he ought to have anticipated that Sondra might be sad about it, and so he should have broken the news to her more gently.As soon as she understood, she started to cry.“I’m just so happy for him,” Sondra said, but Jim could tell that was for the benefit of all the other faces around the table.You weren’t supposed to cry when somebody moved out of the house, you were supposed to applaud or cheer or propose some variety of toast.So Sondra pushed her tears away with the heels of her hands, and rang her glass with a spoon with all the others in salute to Franklin’s achievement.After breakfast, when she and Jim had gone into the garden to work on their respective projects, Jim sat down next to her where she was kneeling and said, “I’d have to be a very sorry sort of chaplain to believe those were happy tears.”“But you’re not a chaplain anymore,” Sondra said, not looking up from her rhubarb.“Now you’re a novelist.Like Jackie Collins.”“Well, not exactly.”“Sure you are,” said Sondra, as she stabbed at the rhubarb with her shovel.Jim moved away a little, and turned his attention again to his book, trying to think about what to write next.A half hour or so passed before he said, “How are you doing over there?” He had been looking over at her intermittently and noticed that she had been still for a while.She stood up and stretched.“You know, I think it’s time for a nap.How long have we been out here? Six hours?”“More like one, I think,” Jim said.“Ugh.I’m going to go lie down.What are you going to do?” She winked at him.“I suppose I’ll probably lie down, too,” he said.“Well, all righty,” Sondra said.“Then I guess I’ll see you later.”Jim put his finger on his nose and smiled.He liked her winking, though he had agreed with Franklin that she did it too much—one couldn’t be merrily conspiratorial all the time.But they all had tics and gestures that were the habits of their respective times.Jim was still holding his fist out for bumps that would never come.Brenda stuck out her tongue and goggled her eyes in a Maori fright mask to signal her delight with something.Sondra winked because that was what funny ladies did back when she was learning to be a funny lady.He wondered if she would still wink, after she had her Debut, retaining the habit even after she abandoned her memories of Barbara Streisand and Goldie Hawn.He sighed and got back to his work, struggling for another half hour before he decided he ought to take a break and go minister to Sondra.He had written five new pages and felt a little lighter.Folly saw him in the upstairs hall and smiled knowingly.His late-morning visits to Sondra’s room were an open secret in the house.They all assumed Jim and Sondra spent their cloistered time together having sex, and Jim got the impression that everyone found their behavior both admirable, since it reflected a definite commitment to the Exalted Here and the Eternal Now, and quaint, since they could have just been fucking in the hot tub with everybody else.Fully dressed, Sondra was lying on top of her covers when he knocked.She patted a spot next to her.Jim took off his shoes and lay down.“So where were we?” she asked.“Anaheim,” he said.“In ’Seventy-six.”“Oh yes!” she said.“Disneyland on the Bicentennial! Joe was so crabby.”“But he wasn’t generally crabby, was he?”“Oh no,” she said.“He got crabby like other people got colds.A few times a year and mostly in winter.And most of the time I always felt like it had nothing to do with me.Or with us.He’d go in and come out of the mood all by himself.And that time, at Disneyland, he got himself out of the mood with a pair of damned mouse ears.He brought them up to the desk to get monogrammed and then put them on his head and walked out of the store without paying for them.When I asked him why he did it he said he was angry that Nixon got pardoned.I said, ‘Joe, that was two years ago, and that was Ford, and you just stole from Walt Disney.’ And he said, ‘Honey, sometimes the Man is the Man.’ What do you think about that?”“He sounds like a wonderfully complicated person,” Jim said.“He wasn’t complicated to me,” Sondra said, staring at the ceiling and looking thoughtful.She put an arm across her eyes and sighed.“You know what, darling,” she said.“I’m not sure I can get it up today.Why don’t you talk for a little while.”“All right,” Jim said, though he was really there for Sondra to talk.It was good for her, to elaborate all these memories, even though to anyone else in the house it would look like he was just indulging her nostalgia, since she wasn’t doing anything to contain the memories let alone destroy them, and in fact she told some of her stories over and over.They just burbled out of her, and then disappeared for a while from their conversations, until they came burbling out again.It was surely a first step for her, he thought.For him, it was like getting to be a chaplain again.That was a habit of his old life, he knew, something he wasn’t supposed to be holding on to.In fact, he had been forgetting his favorite patients all week long, and he knew it wouldn’t be too long before he forgot he had ever been a chaplain at all.But talking with Sondra right now helped him with his own work.It helped him to call up his own memories, to get them ready to go into his book.Often he’d take whatever he’d just told Sondra to his office, and if she asked him the next day to continue the story about (for instance) his grandfather’s candy store, Jim would have no idea what she was talking about.But lately, Sondra was mostly interested in hearing about Jane.He looked up at the ceiling and folded his hands on his belly.“Jane was always mistaking her emotions [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.“Something wonderful has happened!” he said to Sondra at breakfast, and showed her the sign he had made.He was intoxicated with happiness for Franklin, though still he ought to have anticipated that Sondra might be sad about it, and so he should have broken the news to her more gently.As soon as she understood, she started to cry.“I’m just so happy for him,” Sondra said, but Jim could tell that was for the benefit of all the other faces around the table.You weren’t supposed to cry when somebody moved out of the house, you were supposed to applaud or cheer or propose some variety of toast.So Sondra pushed her tears away with the heels of her hands, and rang her glass with a spoon with all the others in salute to Franklin’s achievement.After breakfast, when she and Jim had gone into the garden to work on their respective projects, Jim sat down next to her where she was kneeling and said, “I’d have to be a very sorry sort of chaplain to believe those were happy tears.”“But you’re not a chaplain anymore,” Sondra said, not looking up from her rhubarb.“Now you’re a novelist.Like Jackie Collins.”“Well, not exactly.”“Sure you are,” said Sondra, as she stabbed at the rhubarb with her shovel.Jim moved away a little, and turned his attention again to his book, trying to think about what to write next.A half hour or so passed before he said, “How are you doing over there?” He had been looking over at her intermittently and noticed that she had been still for a while.She stood up and stretched.“You know, I think it’s time for a nap.How long have we been out here? Six hours?”“More like one, I think,” Jim said.“Ugh.I’m going to go lie down.What are you going to do?” She winked at him.“I suppose I’ll probably lie down, too,” he said.“Well, all righty,” Sondra said.“Then I guess I’ll see you later.”Jim put his finger on his nose and smiled.He liked her winking, though he had agreed with Franklin that she did it too much—one couldn’t be merrily conspiratorial all the time.But they all had tics and gestures that were the habits of their respective times.Jim was still holding his fist out for bumps that would never come.Brenda stuck out her tongue and goggled her eyes in a Maori fright mask to signal her delight with something.Sondra winked because that was what funny ladies did back when she was learning to be a funny lady.He wondered if she would still wink, after she had her Debut, retaining the habit even after she abandoned her memories of Barbara Streisand and Goldie Hawn.He sighed and got back to his work, struggling for another half hour before he decided he ought to take a break and go minister to Sondra.He had written five new pages and felt a little lighter.Folly saw him in the upstairs hall and smiled knowingly.His late-morning visits to Sondra’s room were an open secret in the house.They all assumed Jim and Sondra spent their cloistered time together having sex, and Jim got the impression that everyone found their behavior both admirable, since it reflected a definite commitment to the Exalted Here and the Eternal Now, and quaint, since they could have just been fucking in the hot tub with everybody else.Fully dressed, Sondra was lying on top of her covers when he knocked.She patted a spot next to her.Jim took off his shoes and lay down.“So where were we?” she asked.“Anaheim,” he said.“In ’Seventy-six.”“Oh yes!” she said.“Disneyland on the Bicentennial! Joe was so crabby.”“But he wasn’t generally crabby, was he?”“Oh no,” she said.“He got crabby like other people got colds.A few times a year and mostly in winter.And most of the time I always felt like it had nothing to do with me.Or with us.He’d go in and come out of the mood all by himself.And that time, at Disneyland, he got himself out of the mood with a pair of damned mouse ears.He brought them up to the desk to get monogrammed and then put them on his head and walked out of the store without paying for them.When I asked him why he did it he said he was angry that Nixon got pardoned.I said, ‘Joe, that was two years ago, and that was Ford, and you just stole from Walt Disney.’ And he said, ‘Honey, sometimes the Man is the Man.’ What do you think about that?”“He sounds like a wonderfully complicated person,” Jim said.“He wasn’t complicated to me,” Sondra said, staring at the ceiling and looking thoughtful.She put an arm across her eyes and sighed.“You know what, darling,” she said.“I’m not sure I can get it up today.Why don’t you talk for a little while.”“All right,” Jim said, though he was really there for Sondra to talk.It was good for her, to elaborate all these memories, even though to anyone else in the house it would look like he was just indulging her nostalgia, since she wasn’t doing anything to contain the memories let alone destroy them, and in fact she told some of her stories over and over.They just burbled out of her, and then disappeared for a while from their conversations, until they came burbling out again.It was surely a first step for her, he thought.For him, it was like getting to be a chaplain again.That was a habit of his old life, he knew, something he wasn’t supposed to be holding on to.In fact, he had been forgetting his favorite patients all week long, and he knew it wouldn’t be too long before he forgot he had ever been a chaplain at all.But talking with Sondra right now helped him with his own work.It helped him to call up his own memories, to get them ready to go into his book.Often he’d take whatever he’d just told Sondra to his office, and if she asked him the next day to continue the story about (for instance) his grandfather’s candy store, Jim would have no idea what she was talking about.But lately, Sondra was mostly interested in hearing about Jane.He looked up at the ceiling and folded his hands on his belly.“Jane was always mistaking her emotions [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]