The Secret History - Donna Tartt [269]
“Henry’s dead.”
“I can’t help it. I still love him.”
“I loved him, too,” I said.
For just a moment, I thought I felt her waver. But then she looked away.
“I know you did,” she said. “But it’s not enough.”
The rain stayed with me all the way back to California. An abrupt departure, I knew, would be too much; if I was to leave the East at all, I could do so only gradually and so I rented a car, and drove and drove until finally the landscape changed, and I was in the Midwest, and the rain was all I had left of Camilla’s goodbye kiss. Raindrops on the windshield, radio stations fading in and out. Cornfields bleak in all those gray, wide-open reaches. I had said goodbye to her once before, but it took everything I had to say goodbye to her then, again, for the last time, like poor Orpheus turning for a last backward glance at the ghost of his only love and in the same heartbeat losing her forever: hinc illae lacrimae, hence those tears.
I suppose nothing remains now but to tell you what happened, as far as I know, to the rest of the players in our story.
Cloke Rayburn, amazingly, ended up going to law school. He is now an associate in mergers and acquisitions at Milbank Tweed in New York, where, interestingly, Hugh Corcoran was just made partner. Word is Hugh got him the job. This might or might not be true, but I tend to think it is, as Cloke almost certainly did not distinguish himself wherever it was that he happened to matriculate. He lives not far from Francis and Priscilla, on Lexington and Eighty-first (Francis, by the way, is supposed to have an incredible apartment; Priscilla’s dad, who’s in real estate, gave it to them for a wedding present) and Francis, who still has trouble sleeping, says he runs into him every now and then in the wee hours of the morning at the Korean deli where they both buy their cigarettes.
Judy Poovey is now something of a minor celebrity. A certified Aerobics instructor, she appears regularly—with a bevy of other muscle-toned beauties—on an exercise program, “Power Moves!” on cable TV.
After school, Frank and Jud went in together and bought the Farmer’s Inn, which has become the preferred Hampden hangout. Supposedly they’re doing a great business. They have a lot of old Hampdenians working for them, including Jack Teitelbaum and Rooney Wynne, according to a feature article not long ago in the alumni magazine.
Somebody told me that Bram Guernsey was in the Green Berets, though I tend to think this is untrue.
Georges Laforgue is still on the Literature and Languages faculty at Hampden, where his enemies have still not managed to supplant him.
Dr. Roland is retired from active teaching. He lives in Hampden town, and has published a book of photographs of the college through the years, which has made him much sought-after as an after-dinner speaker at the various clubs in town. He was almost the cause of my not being admitted to graduate school by writing me a recommendation which—though it was a glowing one—repeatedly referred to me as “Jerry.”
The feral cat that Charles found turned out, surprisingly, to be a rather good pet. He took up with Francis’s cousin Mildred over the summer and in the fall made the move with her to Boston, where he now lives, quite contentedly, in a ten-room apartment on Exeter Street under the name of “Princess.”
Marion is married now, to Brady Corcoran. They live in Tarrytown, New York—an easy commute for Brady into the city—and the two of them have a baby now, a girl. She has the distinction of being the first female born into the Corcoran clan for no one even knows how many generations. According to Francis, Mr. Corcoran is absolutely wild about her, to the exclusion of all his other children, grandchildren, and pets. She was christened Mary Katherine, a name which has fallen more and more into disuse, as—for reasons best known to themselves—the Corcorans have chosen to give her the nickname “Bunny.”
Sophie I hear from now and again. She injured her leg and was out of commission with the dance company for a while,