百度搜索 Paradise 天涯 或 Paradise 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.
VERONICA is missing. Not precisely missing, absent, rather. For several days nobody mentions the fact. Then on a Monday Anne says, "I wonder where the hell Veronica is.""Probably with Thag," Dore says.
"Thag? Wh<u></u>o is Thag?" Simon asks.
"Guy she met at the laundromat," Anne says. "Hes a broker. Hes with Smith Barney."
"If hes a broker whats he doing at the laundro?mat?"
"So hes thr<df</dfn>ifty. She should have called, though."
"Probably having a great time. The time of he<bdi>.99ｌｉｂ.</bdi>r life," says Dore. "Theyre probably sitting there drinking Dom Perignon and buying and selling Carbide right now." Dore reads the financial pages of the neers carefully and has fifty shares in a that is mar?keting a corrective for dry eye, or the inability to tear, a painful and depressing dition that afflicts hundreds of thousands of Ameris and tless fners, she says.
"What kind of a name is Thag?" Simon asks irrita?bly.
"I think its a beautiful name," Dore says. "Very Sdinavian."
"Well if she does her ass back here pretty damn quick Im going to give her bed away."
"Simon!" Anne exclaims. "Youre being possessive!"
"I dont mean it."
"I know. Thats the hell of it."
"You dont wao be possessive."
Oreet Simon and Anne gaze at a brand-new Honda, the paint a glittering dy red.
"I dont like what Honda did with the frohis year," he says.
"Yeah, its iive."
Simon makes a shapiure with his hand.
"That snout."
Anne nods.
"Very wrong. Still --" He puts an arm around her. "The first car I ever bought was a Hillman Minx. Ever see one of those?"
"Before my time," she says.
"A boxy little ragtop. Had all the power of a lawn-mower. Never had a car after that I liked as much."
"During which marriage was that?"
"You getting on me?"
"Not me."
"And I was going to take us for oysters at the Oyster Bar."
"Im ready."
"A certain dryness sets in. The situation dries out, as it were."
"I dido pry."
"When I was young I thought everything was very funny. I cracked up a lot. Dont do that anymore."
"Youthful arrogance."
"Id still like to think everything was funny."
"I used to work with children," Anne says.
"Disturbed children?"
"Not more disturbed than any other children. Just ordinary children."
"What did you do?"
"I worked with them. We worked toget<big>９9ｌiｂ.</big>her, me and the children."
" you be more specific?"
"I just worked with them. Ordinary children. The children need a lot of work. Theyre just like anybody else. They need a lot of work. Theyre not finished. We glued things to paper plates. I worked with them. Daily. On a daily basis."
"You had a place where you worked with them?"
"Yeah it was a kind of nursery. Painted greige. Gray-beige. The color is thought to have a bearing on how the children feel. Some places have a lot ht colors, thats aheory, this was a soothing calm?ing creige."
"So what were the children like?"
"You t generalize, they were all different. Not every child feels the same thing at the same time. They were all different. For example, some of them were male."
At th<mark></mark>e Oyster Bar under Graral they sit at a table o four men in business suits. One of the men has no arms and has removed his shoes. He has mittenlike socks on his feet and holds, between the big toe and the of the right foot, what looks to Simon like a Gibson.
Q: You must be tired. Fatigued.
A: No Im not a bit tired.
Q: All of that. . . activity must have left you a bit tired.
A: Yes I suppose you could think that.
Q: Youre not tired.
A: You meaally tired?
Q: Physically.
A: No Im not tired. I feel fine.
Q: How are the headaches?
A: Havent been having them.
Q: That doeshey wont e back.
A: The aspirin did the job.
Q: It wasnt aspirin it was Tylenol. Extra-Strength Tylenol.
A: Did the job.
Q: Yes its supposed to be quite good. The drug houses send people around, detail men, they leave me samples of all sorts of things, I give them to patients. Free.
A: Thats extremely generous.
Q: Well otherwise theyd just rot, wouldnt they? I mean I have buckets and buckets. All brightly colored.
A: I assume you dont drink. Except in moderation.
Q: Also, Ive given up smoking. It was quite a battle. The sed finger on my right hand used to be brown, a yellow-brown. Now its not.
A: You feel better.
Q: I feel a little less stupid. So you were pretty mu hog heaven, there, with the three women, for all those months. . .
A: As a situation, as a domestic situation, it was not unstressful. There were, naturally, peting is, people whose is at any oime were not ?gruent --
Q: You mean they fought.
A: They were sisterly most of the time. On a while they fought.
Q: Using what means?
A: Mouth, mostly.
Q: Not laceration of the skin by fingernails, hair-tearing, bosom-bashing. . .
A: None of that. They were, most of the time, very good to one another.
Q: Remarkable.
A: I thought so.
Q: When I was first married, when I was twenty, I didnt know where the clitoris was. I didnt know there was such a thing. Shouldnt somebody have told me?
A: Perhaps your wife?
Q: Of course she was too shy. In those days people didnt go around saying, This is the clitoris and this is what its proper fun is and this is what you do to help out. I finally found it. In a book.
A: German?
Q: Dutch.
DORE sitting in the back of the house, watg a bird-fight. Two black birds are struggling in midair he ailanthus.
"That one sucker is going to get the other sucker," she says. "Going to his clock for him."
"Thats the way it is in this world," says Tim. "What does he win if he wins?"
"Dont know."
"You think Simons been all right lately?"
"Morose," she says. "I get a definite moroseness."
"Yeah. Thats kind of what I was talking about. Some people t stand prosperity."
"You think he wants to go back to Philadelphia?"
"He hasnt said yea or nay. I gather things werent so wonderful in Philadelphia."
"Where did you go to school?"
"ell."
"What did you study?"
"Electrical engineering."
"Is that a good place for it?"
"Its okay."
"Whats your wifes name?"
"Carol."
"Everybodys wife is named Carol. You ever notice that?"
"I didnt know that, no."
"Is she pretty?"
"No. Maybe kind of."
"Oh. Whats she like?"
"I see her in long red robes with a little red yarmulke on her head and a big gold cross on a around her ned a ring that you have to kiss. Standing just to the left of the throne and whispering into the ear of the king."
"Is that Machiavelli?"
"I was thinking more of that guy who worked for Nixon."
"What does she think of you?"
"Not much. I work at the car wash, remember?"
"But thats only temporary."
"By me everythings tempood things and bad things."
"That must be fasating. The ierminacy."
"Its fasating."
百度搜索 Paradise 天涯 或 Paradise 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.