Nine Inches: Stories by Tom Perrotta.
Title: Nine Inches: Stories.
Author: Tom Perrotta.
Genre: Short stories.
Country: U.S.
Language: English.
Publication Date: 2013.
Summary: A book of 10 short stories. In Backrub, after not getting into any college and being left behind, a young man gets a delivery job and begins to have strange interactions with a local cop. In Grade My Teacher, a highschool teacher finds an unexpected connection with an overweight student in her class, when she meets her outside of school to discuss a horrible review the girl left her on a teacher's rating website. The Smile on Happy Chang's Face documents the unravelling of an umpire dad at a Little League game. In Kiddie Pool, while sneaking into his recently-deceased, once-best-friend-and-now-bitter-rival neighbour's yard at night to inflate his kiddie pool, Gus is shocked to discover a secret his own wife kept with their neighbour. In Nine Inches, two elementary-school teachers chaperoning a dance accidentally find out they inexplicably missed the greatest love story of their lives. In Senior Season, the author gently marks the points of connection between an injured and benched former football star, and an old woman neighbour. In One-Four-Five, a pediatrician who cheats on his wife and loses everything he's grown accustomed to tries to rebuild his life by learning to play guitar. In The Chosen Girl, an aging lonely mother begins to grow fascinated with a girl she watches out her window every morning that belongs to a mysterious religious cult that has become prominent in their town. In The Test-Taker, a high-school student earning income on the side by taking others' SAT tests makes an unwise decision to go out before a test, and runs into the young man whose place he is supposed to take the next morning. In The All-Night Party, a single mom pressured into volunteering at an overnight graduation event has an unexpected chance to re-examine her life, as well as her troubled relationship with a local police officer.
My rating: 7.5/10.
My review:
♥ "What's the hurry, son?"
"Just running late." I glanced at the insulated pouches stacked on the passenger seat, in case he'd missed the magnetic decal on my door: SUSTAINABLE PIZZA...FOR THE PLANET WE LOVE. "I got stuck at the railroad crossing. I was trying to make up for lost time."
That was the wrong answer.
"You need to be more careful, son. There's a lotta kids in this neighborhood."
"I know." I could feel my face getting warm. "It's just... I'm supposed to make the deliveries in thirty minutes or less."
"Try telling that to a dead kid's parents," he suggested. "Let me know how it goes over."
He was just messing with me, but for some reason I found it all too easy to picture the scene in my head-the child's fresh grave, the weeping mother and the broken father, the pathetic delivery driver explaining that the tips are better when the pizza's still hot. It seemed like a plausible version of my future.
♥ I got out with my hands on my head, like they told me to, and the next thing I knew I was lying facedown in the street, with my hands cuffed behind my back.
It's funny what goes through your head at a time like that. I didn't think about my parents, or about Eddie and Adam, or even about Karen. I didn't wonder about what kind of trouble I was in or consider how my life might have been different if I'd gone to Uganda. What I thought about while they searched the Prius was something I'd almost forgotten, a stupid thing I'd done while applying to college.
The applications were due on December 31, and I'd left my safeties to the last minute. I was just so sick of the whole process by then-it had consumed almost a year of my life-fed up with answering the same useless questions over and over, tailoring my responses to whoever was doing the asking. It was ten o'clock on New Year's Eve, and there I was, sitting at my desk, staring at the question Why Fairfield? and I guess I just lost it. Instead of repeating my usual bullshit about a liberal arts education, I went ahead and told the truth: You're my Safety School, motherfucker! And then I pressed SEND before I had a chance to stop myself. It felt so good I did the same thing for Roger Williams and Temple. I'd never told anyone about it, not even when people were scratching their heads, wondering how it was possible that an honor student like me had been rejected by all three of his safeties.
That's what I was thinking about when they found the weed. I was thinking about the kid who'd filled out those applications, remembering how cocky and obnoxious he'd been, so sure of his own worth, and the world's ability to recognize it. I was lying on the street with my cheek pressed against the blacktop, thinking about what an asshole he was, and how much I missed him.
~~Backrub.
♥ "I used to be really cute." Jessica laughed, but all Vicki heard was pain.
♥ Jessica slurped the last of her Frappuccino and studied Vicki with a look of anxious sympathy. "You think you're ever gonna meet someone else?"
Vicki wasn't surprised by the question. It was something she'd asked herself frequently in recent years. If she'd been honest, she would've said that she'd come to the conclusion that Mr. Turley had been her last shot, and that she'd pretty much resigned herself to spending the remainder of her life alone. But it was clear from the way Jessica was looking at her-hungrily, with the kind of focus Vicki rarely inspired in the classroom-that she was asking an entirely different question.
"Of course," Vicki told her. "Of course I'll meet someone. I just have to be patient."
♥ It was several months old, written by a student who called himself "Mr. Amazing":
All in all Ms. Wiggins is a pretty good math teacher, except she's pretty strict about stupid little things. Like she gave this one kid detention cause his cellphone rang in class. Ok he should have turned it off, but was it his fault that someone called him? But like I said she's not that bad. I don't care what anybody says there is no way she's more boring than Mr. Ferrone.
Vicki had read this post when it first appeared and had barely given it a second thought. It was actually pretty good as far as these things went-Mr. Amazing had given her a higher-than-average overall raring of 6.0-but right now it just seemed heartbreaking. Was this what she would be remembered for when all was said and done? That she gave some kid detention for a minor offense? That maybe-just maybe-she wasn't as mind-numbingly dull as Dennis Ferrone?
I have so much to offer. And no one even notices.
For a few seconds, she thought about approaching Jessica after class tomorrow, suggesting that she post a new, more generous review on the site just to set the record straight. But it was a lot to ask. And the thought of making such a request was embarrassing beyond words.
She wasn't sure why it mattered so much, but it did. It just did. Why wouldn't it? She was a good person, she worked had, and it seemed crazy-crazy and wrong-that these things went unacknowledged.
It turned out to be easier than she expected to resister on grademyteacher.com. You just typed in an e-mail address and checked a box that said I AM A STUDENT AT GIFFORD HIGH SCHOOL. She chose the username Frappuccinogrrrl and wrote the following in the comments box:
My math teacher Vicki Wiggins is really nice. She's pretty and really cares about us kids. Like if you were having a problem she'd meet you after school and try to make you feel better because she just wants everybody to be happy. And she knows a lot about math too.
There was more to say-much more-but space was limited and she decided to stop there. She checked her work, pressed SEND, and turned off her computer. There would be time enough in the morning to wake up and drink a cup of coffee, then maybe google herself before heading off to work. It would be nice, she thought, clicking on her own name and, just for once, finding something that felt like the truth.
~~Grade My Teacher.
♥ In response to the crisis, Tim had organized a workshop for Little League coaches and parents, trying to get them to focus on fun rather than competition, but it takes more than a two-hour seminar to change people's attitudes about something as basic as the difference between winning and losing.
♥ But if Happy Chang didn't love his daughter, how come he came to every game? For that matter, why did he let her play at all? My best guess-based on my own experience as a father-was that he simply didn't know what to make of her. In China, girls didn't play baseball. So what did it mean that Lori played the game as well or better than any American boy? Maybe he was divided in his mind between admiring her talent and seeing it as a kind of curse, a symbol of everything that separated him from his past. Maybe that was why he faithfully attended her games, but always saw scowling on the wrong side of the field, as if he were rooting for her opponents. Maybe his daughter was as unfathomable to him as my own son had been to me.
♥ I should have been watching the ball, but instead I was thinking about Happy Chang and everything he must have been going through at the police station, the fingerprinting, the mug shot, the tiny holding cell. But mainly it was the look on his face that haunted me, the proud and defiant smile of a man at peace with what he'd done and willing to accept the consequences.
The ball smacked into the catcher's mitt, waking me from my reverie. Mark hadn't swung. As far as I could determine after the fact, the pitch appeared to have crossed the plate near the outside corner, though possibly a bit on the high side.
I guess I could have lied. I could have called strike three and given the game to the Ravens, to Lori Chang and Ray Santelli. I could have sent Mark Diedrich sobbing back to the dugout, probably scarred for life. But instead I pulled off my mask.
"Jack?" Tim was standing between first and second with his palms open to the sky. "You gonna call it?"
"I can't," I told him. "I didn't see it."
There was a freedom in admitting it that I hadn't anticipated, and I dropped my mask on the ground. Then I slipped my arms through the straps of my chest protector and let that fall, too.
"What happened?" Mark Diedrich asked in a quavery voice. "Did I strike out?"
"I don't know," I told him.
Boos and angry cries rose from the bleachers as I made my way toward the pitcher's mound. I wanted to tell Lori Chang that I envied her father, but I had fa feeling she wouldn't understand. She seemed relieved when I walked past her without saying a word. Mikey Fellner was out of the dugout and videotaping me as I walked past second base and onto the grass. He followed me all the way across centerfield, until I climbed the fence over the ad for the Prima Ballerina School of Dance and left the ballpark.
That's what I wanted my ex-wife and children to see-an umpire walking away from a baseball game, a man who had the courage to admit that he'd failed, who understood that there were times when you had no right to judge, had responsibilities you were no longer qualified to exercise. I hoped they might learn something new about me, something I hadn't been able to make clear to them in my letters and phone calls.
But of course I was disappointed. What's in your heart sometimes remains hidden, even when you most desperately want it to be revealed. I remembered my long walk across the outfield as a dignified, silent journey, but on TV I seem almost to be jogging. I look sweaty and confused, a little out of breath as I mumble a string of barely audible excuses and apologies for my strange behavior. If Jeanie and the kids had been watching, all they would have seen was an unhappy man they already knew too well, fleeing from the latest mess he'd made: just me, still trying to explain.
~~The Smile on Happy Chang's Face.
♥ Gus heard the branches of the oak groaning ominously in the breeze and couldn't help looking up into the dark canopy of leaves that hoovered over the garage like an enormous fist. Lonny had been deeply alarmed by the symphony of creaks and squeals produced by the massive limbs; he'd insisted to Gus that the whole tree was ready to come toppling over in the next big storm, trunk and all, as if it were no longer rooted to the ground.
But the tree's still here, Gus thought. It was Lonny who had fallen, brought down by a massive heart attack during an afternoon nap in the garage.
♥ Gus knew this because he and Martha had given Lonny the trick thermometer as a fiftieth-birthday gift, back in the days when everyone got along and the passage of time still seemed like cause for celebration.
♥ Lonny complained bitterly about Peggy-how she'd let herself go and lost her sense of fun, how critical she'd become of everyone they knew, as if she'd somehow been promoted to a higher station of life. On top of everything else, their sex life had gone down the tubes. She practically made him beg for it; he was lucky if they had relations once a week.
"I don't know what happened," he confessed. "She used to love it, used to put these little notes in my lunch box."
The notes weren't dirty, Lonny explained. I can't wait for bedtime, she'd write, or You are entitled to a free gift. Details at eleven. Just cute little things like that. But man, they sure got him going.
"Now I'm lucky if I get a sandwich," he said, grimly scrutinizing his cigar. Gus must have been thrown off by Lonny's candor; he must have felt obligated to confide a secret of his own. Or maybe he just needed to unburden himself. Whatever the reason, once he got started on the subject of Martha, it all came tumbling out. Her frustration with him with the fact that, intelligent as he was, he was never going to amount to anything more than shipping supervisor at Precisions Bearings. For years she'd been bugging him about going to night school, taking some courses in computers or accounting, but he always had some excuse. And now-it was as if both of them had woken up on the same gray morning and realized the same thing-it was too late. They'd turned a corner. Their lives were their lives. Nothing was going to change.
"It wasn't so bad when she was working," Gus explained. "But now that she's home all day, she broods about it."
After years of stoical silence, Martha had turned into a fountain of complaints. She wanted to travel, drive a nice car, to own a vacation house on the water, to look forward to a fun and prosperous retirement, but it wasn't gonna happen. Because of him-his passivity, his cowardice, his willingness to settle for second best. He could see the disappointment in her face every time she looked at him, and it had done something to his head. Well, not just his head.
"Between the sheets," he told Lonny. "You know. It's not working like it's supposed to."
"Ouch." Lonny gave a sympathetic wince. "That's a tough break."
And of course Martha held that against him, too. He didn't get it. She claimed to have lost respect for him as a man, but somehow still expected him to perform like one.
"At least she's still interest," Lonny pointed out.
"Lotta good it does me," muttered Gus.
All these years later, Gus wasn't quite clear why he and Lonny had stopped spending their nights together in the garage. All he remembered for sure was that Martha had gone back to work the following September-she found a secretarial position at Merck, a job she'd keep until retirement-and their marriage slowly returned to an even keel. She stopped complaining, lost interest in making him accept responsibility for her unhappiness. His "problem" had continued, but after they moved to separate bedrooms, it no longer seemed to upset her so much.
♥ He folded the liner as carefully as if it were a flag, then laid it back in its box, thinking as he did so that what really got to him wasn't that he'd been cheated on by his wife-that could happen to anyone. What really bothered him was that he could have spent so much time on earth-he was sixty-eight years old, for God's sake-and understood almost nothing about his own life and the lives of the people he was closest to. It was as if he were still a child, a little boy sitting at the big table, listening to the grown-ups talk in their loud voices, laughing whenever they did, without having the vaguest idea of what was supposed to be so funny.
♥ But the thought of doing that just then-of leaving the garage and trudging back across Lonny's yard in the pouring rain to have a conversation that was going to break his heart-suddenly seemed impossible, way beyond his strength. It was close to five in the morning, and he was just too tired.
♥ Everything would have been fine if it weren't for the oak tree rustling and scraping overhead, groaning as though in pain. A few times Gus thought he heard a distinct cracking sound, as if one of the big limbs were splitting off from the trunk, about to come crashing down through the roof. He pulled the sheet all the way over his head and began humming to drown out the noise. It wasn't a song, just a random succession of notes-hum dee dum dee dee dee do-and he couldn't help wondering if Lonny had done something similar near the end of his own life, on those nights he'd spent in the garage. Because he was an old man, and he was scared. Because he was alone out here, and no one was coming to comfort him.
~~Kiddie Pool.
♥ "Look at that." Rudy directed their attention to Allie Farley, a leggy seventh-grader teetering past them in high heels and an alarmingly short skirt. "That can't be legal."
Charlotte craned her neck for a better look. She was the chaperone in charge of dress-code enforcement.
"It wasn't that short when she came in. She must've hiked it up."
Allie was chasing after Ben Willis, a shaggy-haired, delicate-looking kid who was one of the alpha jocks of Daniel Webster. When she caught up, she spun him around and began lecturing him on what appeared to be a matter of extreme urgency, judging from the slightly deranged look on her face and the chopping gesture she kept making with her right hand. Similar conferences were taking place all over the cafeteria, agitated girls explaining to clueless boys the roles they'd been assigned in the evening's dramas.
For his part, Ben just stared up at her-she had at least half a foot on him-and gave an occasional awestruck nod, as if she were some supernatural being, rather than a classmate he'd known since kindergarten. Ethan sympathized; Allie had gone a little crazy with the eyeliner and lipstick, and he was having trouble connecting the fearsome young woman on the dance floor with the giggly, fresh-faced girl he taught in fourth-period social studies. She seemed to have undergone some profound, irreversible transformation.
♥ It was like she became another person the instant she started dancing, mature and self-assured, a pretty medical student just off work and out to have a good time. Ben hesitated a few seconds before joining her, his movements stiff and a bit clunky, eyes glued on his partner as dozens of classmates surged onto the floor, surrounding and absorbing them into a larger organism, a drifting, inward-looking mass of adolescent bodies.
Ethan wasn't sure why he found himself so riveted by the spectacle of his students dancing. Individually, most of the kids didn't look graceful or even particularly happy; they were far too anxious or self-conscious for that. Collectively, though-and this was the thing that intrigued him-they gave off an overwhelming impression of energy and joy. You could see it in their hips and shoulders, their flailing arms and goofy faces, the pleasure they took in the music and their bodies, the conviction that they occupied the absolute center of a benign universe, the certainty that there was no place else to be but right here, right now. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt like that.
♥ "Must've been seventh grade, with Jenny Wong. She was just a friend, a girl from down the block, but it was such an amazing feeling to have her pressed up against me like that, with all those people around. One of the highlights of my life."
"You're lucky," Charlotte said, sounding like she meant it. "When I was that age, I used to sit alone in my room and make out with my arm."
"Really?"
"It wasn't so bad." She glanced tenderly at the crook of her elbow. "I still do it sometimes. When nothing else is going on."
Ethan smiled. It felt good, being here with Charlotte. McNulty's had always been their bar of choice-they'd sat more than once at this very table-and he couldn't quite shake the feeling that the past five years had never happened, that they were right back where they'd left off. He had to make an effort not to blurt out something inappropriate, like how much he missed talking to her, how wrong it was that such a simple pleasure had vanished from his life.
♥ "I don't know if you heard," she said. "Rob and I are getting divorced."
"No, I hadn't. I'm sorry."
She shrugged. "We've been thinking about it for a while. At least I have."
Ethan hesitated; the air between them seemed suddenly dense, charged with significance.
"To tell you the truth," he said, "I never understood why you went back to him."
Charlotte considered this for a moment. "I almost didn't. I was all set to leave him for good. That night I slept on your couch."
He didn't have to ask her to be more specific. She'd slept on his couch exactly once, and he remembered the occasion all too well. Her thirtieth birthday. He'd made lasagna and they'd killed a bottle of champagne. They both agreed she was too drunk to drive home.
"I waited for you all night," she told him. "You never came."
A harsh sound issued from his throat, not quite a laugh.
"I wanted to. But we had that long talk, remember? You said you still loved Rob and couldn't imagine being with anyone else."
"I was stupid." Charlotte tried to smile, but she seemed to have forgotten which muscles were involved. "I was so sure we were going to sleep together, I guess I overcompensated. Rob and I had been together since freshman year of college. I just wanted you to know what you were getting into."
"You've gotta be kidding." A bad taste flooded into Ethan's mouth, something sharp and bitter the whiskey couldn't wash away. "I was dying for you. That was the longest night of my life."
"I thought you'd abandoned me."
"But you said-"
"I was confused, Ethan. I needed you to help me."
"You went back to him two days later."
"I know." She sounded just as baffled as Ethan did. "I just couldn't bear to break his heart."
"So you broke mine instead."
Charlotte shook her head for a long time, ads if taking inventory of everything that might have been different if he'd just come out of his bedroom.
"I'm the one who lost out," she reminded him. "Everything worked out fine for you."
Ethan didn't argue. This didn't seem like the time to tell her about the weeks he'd spent on his couch after she went back to her husband, the way his world seemed to shrink and darken in her absence. He didn't go on a date for almost a year, and even after he met Donna-after he convinced himself that he loved her-he never lost the sense that there was a little asterisk next to her name, a tiny reminder that she was his second choice, the best he could do under the circumstances.
♥ "Oh, God, Ethan." Her glasses were askew, her face pink with shame. "What are we doing?"
"It's okay," he told her. "We're just having a good time."
She didn't seem to hear him. Her voice was barely audible. "I better go."
"Come on. You don't have to do that."
"I do."
She turned swiftly, heading for the exit. He followed her out to the parking lot, pleading with her to stay for one more drink, but nothing he said made any difference. She just kept muttering about his pregnant wife and child, and how sorry she was, all the while fumbling in her purse for her car keys.
"You have to forgive me," she said in a pleading voice. "I'm just going through a hard time. I'm really not the kind of person who-"
He grabbed her by the shoulders, forcing her to look at his face.
"I love you." The words just popped out of his mouth, but in that moment they felt true, undeniable. "Don't you understand that?"
She shook her head. The only thing in her eyes was pity.
"You need to go home, Ethan. Just forget this every happened. Please?"
Then she got in her car and drove off, her face ashen, her eyes fixed straight ahead. He thought about chasing after her, but he knew it would be useless. There was nothing to do but go home, just like she told him.
Now that he was here, though, he couldn't seem to get out of the car. Maybe in a minute or two he'd unbuckle his seat-belt and head inside, into the house where his wife and child were sleeping. In the meantime he was happy enough to stay right here and think about kissing Charlotte outside the men's room and the dreamy look on Amanda's face when he showed her the measuring tape and explained that she and Ben were dancing too close, the way she just smiled and closed her eyes and let her head fall back onto her partner's chest, as if the two of them were the only people who mattered in the world, as if they had no one to answer to but themselves.
~~Nine Inches.
♥ She's just lonely, my mother likes to remind me. She lost her husband and her kids moved away. And then my mother gives me one of her looks, like she hopes I'm filing that away for future reference.
I never paid much attention to Mrs. Scotto in the past. I was always busy and happy, and she was always just there, living her strange elderly life on the sidelines of my own.
♥ It's been coming for a while now. She was gone most of the summer, working at a camp in New Hampshire, and things have been weird between us ever since she came home, like she secretly resents me for ruining her senior year, like I'm some sad sack of shit she has to drag around while she's supposed to be having the time of her life.
I can't say I blame her for that.
What I do blame her for are those denim cutoffs, cuffed way up above what the dress code allows, and those teetery wedge sandals that make her muscly legs look longer and thinner than they really are. It just doesn't seem necessary, getting all dressed up like that to break my heart, a nice big Fuck you with a cherry on top.
♥ Megan switches the radio from my hip-hop to KISS 108, the only station a self-respecting cheerleader will listen to. It's their tribal music, the soundtrack of high school popularity. Within seconds she's bobbing her head and singing along, doing that seated dance that girls do in cars, all hands and hair and puckered lips.
"I love this song."
"You love every song."
♥ Coach Z. asked if I wanted to stay on the roster, which would have allowed me to travel on the team bus to away games and stand on the sidelines in my Cougars jersey. He said maybe I could do something useful-hold a clipboard, keep track of offensive formations, make sure there were enough paper cups for the Gatorade-but I told him no thanks, that I'd just watch from the bleachers like everybody else.
So that's what I do. I line up with the civilians, show my ID, punk down three bucks for a ticket. Then I make my way to the student section and take my place with the rowdy senior guys. I know a lot of them-varsity soccer and lacrosse players mostly, hard players, loudmouths who like to give the refs and opposing players a hard time-and I do my best to blend in, show a little spirit. I clap my hands and join the chants, pumping my fist like I'm not dying inside every time the ball gets snapped and the bodies crash together without me.
♥ I'd torn my ACL freshman year and had spent the whole spring recuperating, so I understood what it meant to be patient, to give my body the time it needed to heal. But when you hurt your knee, you know exactly what's wrong and so does everybody else. You get the surgery, you get the crutches and the brace, you do the PT. You get a lot of sympathy from your buddies and attention from girls. When you hurt your brain, you don't really know what's going on, and nobody else does, either. One day you feel pretty decent, the next you're a wreck. Some headaches come and go; others stick around and get comfortable.
"It's a software problem," Dr. Koh explained. "There's a glitch in your operating system."
♥ That wasn't what I was expecting. My dad loves football just as much as I do, maybe even more. It's our thing, the glue that held us together through the divorce and all the weirdness that came after, when he moved out of town and started a whole new family without me. Ina ll the years I played, he never missed a single game, not even the one that took place twelve hours after the twins were born. My stepmother still hasn't forgiven him for that.
"I'm sorry, Clay."
He put his arm around my shoulder and left it there. I knew he still loved me, but I couldn't help wondering what we were gonna talk about for the rest of our lives.
♥ It'll be over soon. That's what I remind myself when I can't sleep, when I'm just lying there in the dark, feeling cheated. Just a few more games and it'll be over for everyone.
♥ After the clocks change, the cold gets under your clothes. Dead leaves are everywhere, like scraps torn from a huge pile of brown paper bags.
♥ One of the things I learned last year is that it helps sometimes to project yourself into the future, to allow your mind to turn the present into the past. That's what I try to do on the way home from Bobby's.
A year from now, I tell myself, none of what I'm feeling right now will even matter.
~~Senior Season.
♥ Something wasn't right, so he turned to the Web for assistance, discovering a treasure trove of helpful links: tablature sites, free lessons on YouTube, and a vast archive of live-performance videos, not just King and Clapton and Hendrix tearing it up, but a bunch of random dudes playing along with the record in their bedroom or basement. Some of these amateurs were dishearteningly good, but others could barely play a note. It was like some weird form of masochism, the way they flaunted their ineptitude, inviting the cruelty of anonymous commentators..
..Sims hated to admit it, but he took a shameful pleasure in the abuse, watching the poor saps take their punishment. Better you than me, brother. It was a tough world out there, and you were a fool to reveal your weakness. He wondered if maybe these losers were so desperate for human contact that insults from total strangers seemed like a step in the right direction, an upgrade from complete invisibility. In any case, it was oddly encouraging to see the whole spectrum of human talent laid out like that, to discover that, even now, rusty as he was, he was nowhere near being the worst guitar player in the world.
♥ Just a few weeks earlier, Sims had been an enviable man, a proverbial pillar of the community-husband, father, homeowner, soccer coach, churchgoer, Audi driver, pediatrician. And now he was something else-an outcast, an adulterer, an absentee dad, the costar of a sordid workplace scandal. It didn't seem to matter that he'd devoted his entire life to constructing the first identity; it had been erased overnight, on account of a single, inexplicable transgression. He wanted to say it wasn't fair, but he'd stopped believing in fairness a long time ago. As far as he could tell, it didn't matter who deserved what: people got what they got and they pretty much had to take it.
♥ Sims took a seat in the last row of folding chairs, relieved to see that the little white coffin was closed. It appeared to be floating on a bed of flowers and stuffed animals; a framed photo of Kayla was resting on the lid, taken before she got sick, a little girl smiling sweetly at the world, waiting in vain for the world to smile back.
♥ Sims's phone buzzed, delivering yet another text from his wife asking when he planned on coming home. Soon, he responded for the third time, grateful for the elasticity of the word, the way it renewed its promise with each passing moment, even as the thought of actually going home grew more and more oppressive. He could picture his arrival, the humiliating interrogation at the door, the way he'd have to account for his whereabouts and grovel for forgiveness, like a teenager who'd broke curfew. It was just too boring to contemplate, such a soul-killing exercise, and it made him wonder if Jackie felt as trapped as he did, as if they'd been cast in a bad play they'd never even auditioned for.
♥ Sims experienced a powerful moment of euphoria in the run-up to his orgasm-it was almost as if his soul had levitated from his body-but it passed too quickly and he returned to himself with a thud, as if he'd fallen from the sky. He thought suddenly of Jackie-Oh, shit!-and then of Heather, standing in front of her daughter's coffin. Really fucking awesome, Dr. Sims. When he came, it felt like a rush of sorrow, as if he were pumping molten sadness into Olga's mouth, though she later remarked that it tasted pretty good, a little sweeter than average.
♥ It was a sunny afternoon in early April; a fresh, blustery wind swept across the parking lot like a promise of better things to come.
♥ "It's good to have a hobby."
Sims hated that word-hobby. Music wasn't a hobby. It was a basic human activity, as essential as language or religion, though he didn't imagine that Jackie saw it like that. Music had never meant much to her, not even when she was young. As far as Sims knew, she'd never had a favorite band, only went to concerts when she was dragged along by school friends or guys she was dating. It had been a rift between them, the fact that he had a musical life and she didn't.
♥ On the whole, Sims was proud and hopeful-he thought they'd done an excellent job with the song-but there was a faint current of dread running beneath his optimism, because good things turned to shit all the time, and you couldn't always see it coming.
~~One-Four-Five.
♥ Her feet are cold and she's not wearing a coat, but she can't bring herself to turn around and go back inside. The snow's coming down hard, falling in clumpy flakes that cling to her eyelashes and have to be blinked away like tears.
I'm alone, she thinks, staring down at the gaudy corpse of the tree, the candy-cane ornament she got at Woolworth's, the little train she picked at a yard sale, the gingerbread man who's been around so long he doesn't have any buttons left. Her mouth is open, her breathing fast and shallow. No more Christmas for me.
A stiff wind kicks up, but she barely notices. She's thinking of her mother at the end, sitting with an attendant in the TV room of the nursing home, watching a program in Spanish. She's thinking of Pat putting down his newspaper, telling her his chest feels funny. She's thinking of her last visit to California, the inhuman bulges beneath Ellen's tight blouse, the pride and tenderness with which Russell offered her up for inspection.
"Don't they look great?" he asked. "We should have done this years ago."
~~The Chosen Girl.
♥ "Gratitude is an aphrodisiac, dude-remember that when you get to college."
♥ And it wasn't like I'd come down with a sudden attack of conscience, either. I honestly didn't mind cheating for strangers. If somebody wanted to pay me to help them get into a good college, I didn't see any problem with that. It wasn't all that different from hiring an expensive tutor, or getting a doctor to diagnose a learning disability so you could buy yourself some extra time. That was just the way system worked. If you had the money, you got special treatment.
My only problem was the client. Jake Harlowe didn't seem like the kind of kid who needed to cheat. I always figured that everything came easily to him, the grades as well as the girls and the games, and it troubled me to discover that this wasn't true. I felt like I'd been peering through his bedroom window and seen something I shouldn't have, a shameful secret I wished he'd kept to himself.
♥ I knew I'd never be her boyfriend, never take her to the movies or walk down the hall with my arm around her shoulder, and I was okay with that. I just wanted to be the wrong person she made out with at a party, a mistake she could confess to her friends on Monday morning, and I had a feeling this was the best chance I'd ever get.
I'll be right there, I texted back. Don't start without me.
♥ "I should've gone to more parties," Iris said. "I used to act like they were stupid, but that was bullshit. I pretty much wasted the last four years pretending I was above it all. But the joke was on me, you know?"
"You didn't waste it," I told her. "You worked your ass off and got into a great college. I bet you're gonna love it at Northwestern.
"I'm gonna go to more parties, that's for sure."
♥ "Just so you know," she said in this melancholy, thoughtful voice. "I don't hate you anymore."
I laughed, though it didn't sound like she was joking.
"Why would you hate me?"
"Why wouldn't I? You came to my house, you fucked me, and then you left. You never said anything nice, never took me out, never called to ask how I was doing. You acted like it was your job or something."
"That's not fair," I said. "That was your idea. You wanted to keep it casual."
"I know." She nodded for a long time, accepting her responsibility. "But you weren't even grateful."
Drunk as I was, I knew she was right, knew that I owed her an apology. But for some reason I was looking at Jake again, watching as he accepted his birthday shot from Casey with an attitude of reluctant surrender, a good guy defeated by peer pressure. Smiling sheepishly, he toasted the onlookers and tossed it back to widespread applause.
"He really shouldn't be doing that," I said, but Iris was already slipping past me, shaking her head in disgust as she veered toward the hallway.
♥ I'd known that fifth shot was a mistake even as I was bringing it to my lips, but by then I didn't care. I'd already realized what was happening between Jake and Sarabeth, seen the way she'd chosen him, the way she pressed her body against his arm and whispered in his ear, the way he laughed at whatever it was she told him. All I could do was watch from across the room, my face burning with a rage that felt like shame, or a shame that felt like rage.
Fuck my life, I thought, and I swallowed that last gulp of poison.
~~The Test-Taker.
♥ Sally was a patent lawyer who somehow managed to work full-time, raise three kids, serve on the School Board and Friends of Gifford Soccer, and run at least two marathons a year. Of course, she had a husband who loved her, so that made things a little easier. Or maybe a lot easier. Liz had no way of knowing how much of a difference something like that might make.
♥ She could hear music and voices from the other end of the building, the sound of young people having fun, and it struck her almost like a taunt, a reminder of everything she was missing, not just tonight but every night, the void that had become her life.
♥ Liz didn't recognize any of them from the soccer field; she figured they were denizens of the art room and the dance studio, editors of the literary magazine, officers of the Gay/Straight Alliance, members of the Performing Arts Club. Some of them were cute, but mostly not in a way that a high school boy would appreciate-not that all of them would be equally interested in eliciting the approval of high school boys-and they seemed collectively resigned to their wallflower status at the All-Night Party. Liz's heart went out to them; she wanted to hug each and every one, to let them know they'd be happier in college, that the world was about to become much larger and more forgiving, at least for a little while.
♥ "What about your boyfriend?" Liz asked. "Was he drinking, too?"
Jenna wobbled a bit, using the wall for balance.
"I don't have a boyfriend."
"Come on," Liz said. "I saw you with him. When you snuck in?"
"Who, Quinn?" Jenna made a hocking sound in her throat, then swirled her studded tongue around her lips. She didn't look too happy about the taste in her mouth. "He's not my boyfriend."
"All right, whatever. I'm just trying to-"
Jenna leaned closer to Liz, as if sharing a secret.
"You know who his girlfriend is?" There was an odd sort of pride in her voice. "Mandy Gleason. Can you believe that? Quinn's fucking Mandy Gleason. They're dancing together right now."
Liz had never seen Mandy Gleason, but she'd heard of her. Her beauty was common knowledge, the gold standard for Gifford girls. She was smart and athletic, too, captain of the tennis team, headed for Dartmouth in the fall. Lots of people said Dana reminded them of Mandy.
"Oh," Liz said. "So you and Quinn aren't..."
"She's his girlfriend," Jenna explained matter-of-factly. "I just suck his dick."
She made a brave attempt at a smile, as if to say, That's how it is and I'm cool with it, but it didn't work and she burst into tears. Liz held her while she sobbed, wishing there were something she could say to salvage the girl's graduation night, a little adult wisdom that would take the edge off her pain, maybe put things in perspective. But when she did finally manage to speak, she found that she was crying, too.
"It hurts," she heard herself whisper. "It just hurts so much."
♥ She had to explain that it was just a brain freeze, the kind of thing that happens when you've been up all night. You're in the middle of a conversation, and you check out for a few seconds, like somebody flipped a switch. For a little while, it's like the world just stops, and there's nothing you can do but sit tight and wait for it to start moving again.
~~The All-Night Party.