The Age of Grief - Jane Smiley [20]
And, truthfully, by the time I was ready to consult you, I had made up my mind. You are a thoughtful man, even cautious. “But let’s talk about it,” you would have said. “Let’s wait a bit.” Perhaps then, “I think we’d better not.” Mine is the necessary affectionate nature, and I have plenty of money. The internal logic, the organic growth of my plan could possibly have been distorted. I wanted it to be perfect. Persons are not created lightly. Who can tell the lifelong effect of a cacophonous conception?
I eventually decided against alcohol and in favor of marijuana. The point was not to incapacitate you, but confuse you. I admit I was foraging about among a pastiche of high school and college experiences reconsidered. You were right to sense something odd in my insistence that dinner could not be put off an evening, though I know you work on Tuesdays. But when one has to deal with thirty hours, calculated rhythmically and astrologically, one is not interfered with by the trivialities of custom. You arrived punctually, considerate as always, three-piece-suited as always, bringing, as always, a bottle of St.-Emilion, though I hadn’t told you about the roast chicken. You were right to mistrust my mood. The tentatively seductive me you had not before seen, silk skirt and no underpants (mindful that we had once agreed on the aesthetic virtues of my buttocks), the knees never crossed, slipping unconsciously apart, the shirt unbuttoned between the breasts. All for my benefit, not yours. Indeed, you only subliminally noticed (we were discussing your mother, I believe, and you asked twice if somebody else was coming). How haltingly the conversation moved. I told you I was tired, unable to talk fluently, and you believed me. Actually, now that I had decided, had gone so far as to lay my snare in the brownies, I could not withhold my glance. I will never forget the pepper-and-salt trousers you wore, the way the material fanned away from each inseam and stretched smoothly around each thigh. Cuffs. Those pants had cuffs and you wore black socks with russet clocks and tan shoes.
Set aside your modesty and think carefully what sort of man you are. Review your life. Look in the mirror if need be. To begin with, forty long (a graceful size) and thick curly hair (indeed, ringlets). Look into your eyes, Jeffrey. In all honesty, how much bluer could they be? And how much thinner and more arched your nose? And disfigurement. Where are the large pores? Is there the thread of a varicose vein? I know you have never worn glasses, had a pimple, used an Ace bandage. Even the soles of your feet are warm, not shockingly cold (take it from me), in the middle of the night.
I wanted to hear about your new pipe, that calabash you got in the city. But though you carefully explained, I still don’t know what meerschaum is. I just know how you take out your pipe and put it back in, how the tip of your tongue flicks out to lick the mouthpiece, how you bite down on it and draw back your lips to keep talking, how unconscious and competent you are in lighting the match and watching the bowl and sucking in the air. And you take it out and put it back in, out of your mouth and in. Why had we never talked about cherries and briers and clays and corncobs before?
Our aperitif conversation augured well, I thought. After pipes, you