Veronica-Mary Gaitskill
"I don't think you love yourself. You need to learn to love yourself."
Veronica was silent for a long moment. Then she said, "I think love is overrated. My parents loved me. And it didn't do any good." (9)
Her smile is like an open door, and I enter for a second. (10)
And through them, a world of people and feelings that had ended too abruptly and that had nothing to do with where he was now. He wasn't searching for memories; he already had them. He wanted the physical feel of sitting next to his brother or looking into his eyes, and he was searching for it in the voices of strangers that had sung to them both a long time ago. (31)
He moves like he's being yelled at by invisible people whom he hates but whom he basically agrees with. (37)
It was late November and light moved from room to room with the active silence of a live thing. (57)
Being torn open felt like love to me. (72)
In these rooms, each madness and stupidity will be unfolded from its knot and smoothed with loving hands until the true thing inside it lies revealed. (90)
I loved the song I was living in, and he was the singer. (90)
Ten years from now, I will be a kiss in a great field of faceless kisses, a sweet patch of forgotten territory in her inner country. (95)
But at night, heaven came in the cracks. I would want Alain, and want his cruelty, too. I would long for those cabinets of rich food and plates of drugs, for nights of sitting alone in the dark, eating marzipan until I was sick. (103)
...the pretty boys and girls dating like minnows... (111)
"No. Yes. Who knows if anybody's serious? But I can imagine Dorothea Atcheson would appreciate you."
Her voice on appreciate was like the rough tongue of a cat absently licking a kitten on the head. I could not help raising my head to meet it. (127)
It sometimes takes a while for people to notice that borrowed things don't quite fit, and so for the moment they do. (196)
She said she was sorry. It didn't sound like politeness. It sounded like her grief was big enough to take in my lesser grief.
(...)
But I still remember her. For a long time, the memory confused me. I would recall the soft feeling between us as something precious-and then I would see it as worthless. My feeling had not helped Mrs. Lowry, and her feeling had not helped me (...) But still I remember the feeling, like a trickle of water in a dry riverbed. (227)
I want to know who she was, but I can't because I didn't look in time. (239)
With self-righteousness and also a wish that he might know me, I talked to my father about Veronica. I could tell immediately that he didn't want to hear what I said but that, because he respected death, he would suffer it. (246)
Veronica was silent for a long moment. Then she said, "I think love is overrated. My parents loved me. And it didn't do any good." (9)
Her smile is like an open door, and I enter for a second. (10)
And through them, a world of people and feelings that had ended too abruptly and that had nothing to do with where he was now. He wasn't searching for memories; he already had them. He wanted the physical feel of sitting next to his brother or looking into his eyes, and he was searching for it in the voices of strangers that had sung to them both a long time ago. (31)
He moves like he's being yelled at by invisible people whom he hates but whom he basically agrees with. (37)
It was late November and light moved from room to room with the active silence of a live thing. (57)
Being torn open felt like love to me. (72)
In these rooms, each madness and stupidity will be unfolded from its knot and smoothed with loving hands until the true thing inside it lies revealed. (90)
I loved the song I was living in, and he was the singer. (90)
Ten years from now, I will be a kiss in a great field of faceless kisses, a sweet patch of forgotten territory in her inner country. (95)
But at night, heaven came in the cracks. I would want Alain, and want his cruelty, too. I would long for those cabinets of rich food and plates of drugs, for nights of sitting alone in the dark, eating marzipan until I was sick. (103)
...the pretty boys and girls dating like minnows... (111)
"No. Yes. Who knows if anybody's serious? But I can imagine Dorothea Atcheson would appreciate you."
Her voice on appreciate was like the rough tongue of a cat absently licking a kitten on the head. I could not help raising my head to meet it. (127)
It sometimes takes a while for people to notice that borrowed things don't quite fit, and so for the moment they do. (196)
She said she was sorry. It didn't sound like politeness. It sounded like her grief was big enough to take in my lesser grief.
(...)
But I still remember her. For a long time, the memory confused me. I would recall the soft feeling between us as something precious-and then I would see it as worthless. My feeling had not helped Mrs. Lowry, and her feeling had not helped me (...) But still I remember the feeling, like a trickle of water in a dry riverbed. (227)
I want to know who she was, but I can't because I didn't look in time. (239)
With self-righteousness and also a wish that he might know me, I talked to my father about Veronica. I could tell immediately that he didn't want to hear what I said but that, because he respected death, he would suffer it. (246)