Extraordinary Read Free Page B

felt out of his intellectual league if the conversation ever steered toward movies or even the Beatles. For some reason, he found them especially infuriating.”
    â€œThe Beatles?”
    â€œHe said the only reason they get to be the Beatles is that other people don’t get to be. Whatever the hell that means. Anyway, it annoyed him when I talked too much at parties. When I got excited. Excited because I was so hungry for talk that I’d drink too much sometimes and get very, very talkative. He’d sulk for days afterwards. That was my punishment.
    â€œAnyway, I married him. I looked out my bedroom window one afternoon and saw all those flat fields and thought, Why not? We had a wedding in a small country church with a graveyard you could see from the pews. Afterwards, we went to a party in town. You know why? Because someone told me they’d seen Terry Blanchard outside the hardware store and that maybe he’d be there. Isn’t that pathetic? God, what was I thinking? Going to a party on my wedding night because this other guy might be there! And here I’d thought I was over him.”
    â€œWas he there?”
    â€œNo, thank God. I couldn’t relax until I was sure. I kept peeking at the door every time someone came in. I suppose that’s how you know you’re with the wrong person—when you keep looking to see who’s coming in the door. It wasn’t a bad party, if you were drunk enough. Which I was.”
    â€œAnd did things get better?”
    â€œYour body always tells you where you belong—and where you don’t. Sometimes when I was having Sunday dinner with Bruce’s parents, who were perfectly decent people, by the way, salt-of-the-earth types, I’d feel this sensation in my body, a sensation that said simply,
You don’t belong here, these are not your people
.”
    â€œDid you ever find your people?”
    â€œYes, I did.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œYou. Among other people.”
    After a pause, I said, “Tell me you had a good life, Sally.”
    â€œI was lucky in a lot of ways. I just used up my luck early. But yes, I had a good life.”
    â€œWith happy moments?”
    â€œMany,” she said easily. “Everyone does.”
    â€œTell me one.”
    â€œLeaving my husband. I enjoyed that.”
    â€œWas it precipitous or gradual?” I said.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œYour decision to leave. It took a long time.”
    â€œYears. Are you sure you’re interested in this?”
    â€œVery.”
    â€œThere’s something numbing about disappointment. You have to act on it quickly or time begins to gallop,” she said.
    â€œYou’d like Chekhov,” I said.
    â€œCan you put a cube of ice in this? But no more vodka. I’ll be up peeing all night.”
    â€œHow are your legs?”
    â€œThe same. But only at night.”
    I came back in from the kitchen.
    â€œWill you turn the light out in there?” she said.
    I went back and did it.
    â€œWhere was I?” She had slipped off to other thoughts. “Oh yes. By now I had two kids, Chloe and Kyle. We had a narrow little house in Toronto. Nice place. I did the interior myself. It was my birthday, I was thirty-three. Yes, yes, I know what you’re going to say: the age that Christ was crucified. I didn’t see things quite so grandly. Although it turned out to be a big year indeed. The kids were old enough to look after themselves, and that night Bruce took me to an Italian restaurant, a new place I’d read about in a magazine.
    â€œOur table wasn’t ready, so they sat us in the bar. We had a martini and looked out over the restaurant, all the people eating in this lovely copper light, and suddenly, I could barely believe my eyes, there, facing me, sitting not ten feet away, was Terry Blanchard. I’d heard he was in the Middle East working for an oil company. But no, there he was. He was sitting