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By Root 571 0

compact and neat, like his body. She’d loved the way the cloth of her husband’s shirts had fit tightly against his shoulders, the way he’d trimmed his beard, always a perfect sculpture. He’d worn Italian leather belts and custom trousers, and in Vincent this had not been vanity, but rather habit ingrained by immigrant parents anxious to have their child succeed in the new world. What might have been foppish in another was, in Vincent, routine and even elegant; Vincent, who did not believe in treading upon the innocent wishes of one’s parents; Vincent, who was often baffled by the generalized insolence of his children’s friends.

The bus stopped, and Linda was determined to hang back. She would simply find an empty seat in the restaurant and introduce herself to a stranger. But when she emerged from the bus, she saw that Thomas was hovering near the door, waiting for her.

He contrived, by small movements, to seat them apart from the others. It was a small bistro that was, possibly, authentically French. The festival participants had been put into a narrow room with two long tables and benches at the sides. Linda and Thomas sat at the end nearest the door, and this, too, seemed the gesture of the man she remembered, a man who had always favored easy exits. She noted that the paper tablecloth, stained already with half-moons of red wine, did not quite reach. Thomas was doodling with his pen. The acoustics of the room were terrible, and she felt as though she were drowning in a sea of voices, unintelligible words. It forced them to lean together, conspiratorially, to speak.

—It’s something of a resurgence, isn’t it? This interest in poetry?

—But not a renaissance, she answered after a moment.

—I’m told there are ten of us here. Out of a roster of sixty. That must be something of a record.

—They’re better about this abroad.

—Have you done that? Gone to festivals abroad?

—Occasionally.

—So you’ve been on the circuit for a while.

—Hardly. She resented the barb. She moved away from the conspiratorial bubble.

He leaned in closer and glanced up from his doodling. You try to do too much in your verse. You should tell your stories as stories. Your audience would like that.

—My audience?

—Your verse is popular. You must know your audience.

She was silent, stung by the implied criticism.

—I believe at heart you are a novelist, he said.

She turned her face away. The gall of him, she thought. She considered standing up to leave, but such a theatrical gesture would show her to be vulnerable, might remind him of other theatrical gestures.

—I’ve hurt you. To his credit, he looked repentant.

—Of course not, she lied.

—You don’t need me or anyone else to tell you your own worth.

—No, I don’t, in fact.

—You’re a wonderful writer in any form.

And he would believe the compliment. Indeed, would not even think of it as a compliment, which implied something better than the truth.

The food arrived on plates so large that adjustments had to be made all along the table. Linda tried to imagine the appliance that could manage the oversized dishes; and to what end, she wondered, since they only dwarfed the food: Indonesian chicken for herself and salmon with its grill marks for Thomas. Returning pink-eyed from the bar, Robert Seizek bumped the table, jostling water glasses and wine. Linda saw the furtive and bolder glances in her direction from the others. What prior claim did Linda Fallon have on Thomas Janes?

Thomas took a bite and wiped his lips, uninterested in his food, and in this she saw that he had not changed as well: in half an hour, he would not be able to remember what he had eaten.

—Are you still a Catholic? he asked, peering at the V of skin above her ivory blouse. It was a sort of uniform, the silk-like blouses, the narrow skirts. She had three of each in slippery folds inside her suitcase. You don’t wear the cross.

—I stopped years ago, she said, not adding, When my husband, who knew its meaning, asked me to take it off. She lifted her glass and drank, too late realizing that the wine would stain her teeth. One is