The Love of My Youth_ A Novel - Mary Gordon [65]
She pours herself another glass of wine and, not asking Adam, refills his glass. She leans back, very satisfied with her storytelling. It’s been a long time since she’s indulged in this kind of play; when they were together, it was one of their favorite pastimes.
He unbuttons the cuffs of his oxford-cloth shirt and rolls his sleeves up six inches. Did he remember, she wonders, that she found that enormously arousing. That they had agreed that he would never wear short-sleeved shirts, and that any man who did was throwing away an incalculable advantage. Like the hair on his hands, the hair on his forearms has not grayed or coarsened.
He leans forward in his chair, resting his elbows on the table.
“Suppose your story is all wrong. Suppose she goes home to a family she hates, a shrewish mother who calls her a whore, a little brother who’s a meth addict. Her boyfriend’s getting ready to leave her, he doesn’t know she’s pregnant, no one knows, she hasn’t told anyone. She has to wait her turn for an abortion, which in Italy could take some time, so it might be quite a complicated operation. While she’s waiting for an abortion, she’s thinking, How ridiculous my life is, how ridiculous all of life is. I wouldn’t bring a child into the world. How ridiculous that I spend my days selling overpriced wine and chocolate.”
He is pleased about every aspect of the lunch; the meat, the wine, their conversation. Earlier, he had wished that he was here with Clare. Now he is glad that she’s not here, that he’s here with Miranda. It’s not that Clare has no humor, but it’s a humor based on irony, not story. She would never read stories to Lucy: she has very little taste for the unreal. She says she is a kind of narrative dyslexic. If Clare were here, if he were here with Clare and Lucy, and Miranda had started talking about the chocolate seller, she might have said, But how do you know, you’ve never met her? Blinking in that way that suggests that the light is too much for her eyes. And then he and Lucy would tease her, and she’d pretend to be engaged in the story to show that she is not a fool. It is one of her strengths: she never loses herself in the coil of stories. To her, life is not a story but a long interesting complicated joke. You get on with it as best you can. The joke is, most of the time you don’t. You are walking down the street, dressed to the nines, perfectly coiffed, and there is the banana peel. Landing flat on her back, Clare is quite capable of staying where she is, looking around her, making note of the configuration of the sidewalk. He thinks of his young wife, blinking. He looks over at Miranda, whose eyes are on the chocolate store. Her eyes are not on him. He wonders: Were they ever?
They have taken so long over their lunch that the chocolate seller has returned while they are still at the table. “No, you’re wrong, Adam, I know you’re wrong. Look at that lovely girl, and think of all the people walking out of the shop with those beautifully wrapped packages. I’m thinking of my friends and colleagues talking about avian flu. All my earnest and not-very-good-looking colleagues wanting to make the world a better place. And then there’s this lovely girl, handing beautifully wrapped packages of succulent chocolates to happy people, none of them saying, What is the meaning of life? Only, One hundred grams of truffles, please, or Today I’ll try the ones with almonds. I could only imagine the puzzled expression on the girl’s face if I were handing over my ten euros for the ginger covered in dark chocolate while I asked her, What do you think is the meaning of life? Maybe she’d point to the chocolates,