Happy All the Time Read Free Page A

affairs that makes you lose weight and feel awful all the time.”
    There was nothing Guido could say to this. The first of many nights, she said. That phrase, in her cool, measured voice, undid him. And she was right to want everything normal. That sentiment moved him profoundly, as did everything else about her. For Guido was having one of those strung-out love affairs that made him lose weight and feel awful all the time.
    But she did put the crossword puzzle down, and locked her arms around Guido’s neck. It was clear she knew how tender and fragile men are in these matters.
    It was late in the afternoon when they again climbed out of bed. Guido felt that time had frozen into one solid block and he was losing his bearings. He felt swarmed by detail: her look, her hair, her body, those sheets, that French toast, the memory of that formal tea tray and naked Holly pouring tea into his flowered cup. He badly needed a change of context. He needed to get Holly on his turf, if only for a little while. He wanted to see Holly feel strange in his apartment in order to right the balance. The sight of Holly sitting in his chair would put the cap on the reality of her, once and for all.
    She took his arm as they walked and when it began to drizzle she nestled closer to him under the umbrella. She was talking about men’s apartments.
    â€œI’ve seen a few,” she said. “All you boys wear pressed shirts and have your shoes polished and behave like perfect gentlemen at the dinner table, but there’s hair all over the soap and none of the dishes are properly washed. Or, on the other hand, you look like wrecks and your apartments look like monks’ cells or a picture out of Boy’s Life with the bed made with camp blankets and the fishing rods stacked neatly in the corner. Then, of course, there’s the hunting print set. Big pictures of dead elks and club chairs and those footstools that have feet made out of tusks. Disgusting. I have never been in one of those apartments that didn’t have wedding invitations with ducal crests on the mantel.”
    Guido’s rooms were neat and orderly. There were no hunting prints and no tusks, and no wedding invitations with ducal crests. She admired his two framed drawings and the bronze panther that had been his grandfather’s paperweight. She ran her fingers over his walnut cigar box. Then she took off her coat and did something that made Guido’s heart turn over. She went through the kitchen cabinets, the icebox, picked glasses off the shelves and held them up to the light. In the bathroom she flipped back the shower curtain to inspect the hem and looked over the soap, to see if it had hair on it.
    â€œDo you mind me doing this?” she asked. Guido was speechless. It was the most open-ended gesture he had ever seen. He had no idea what was meant by it. Was she checking him out? Curious about his arrangements? Malicious? Solicitous? Making sure they were made for each other? Was this a joke, or was she establishing a rapport with his apartment?
    Suddenly, she turned on him.
    â€œEither you have a girlfriend, a cleaning woman, or you are entirely compulsive,” she said.
    â€œI’m very orderly,” Guido said. “Once in a while I get a kid in from the student agency to do some heavy cleaning. You’d be amazed how efficient budding sociologists and historians can be.”
    Holly sat down, as if at home. But, Guido wondered, would she be happy where there were no trays?
    They went out for dinner and she spent the night. Her clothes hung neatly over the back of his chair. Guido would have gladly slept with her clothes too. He wanted every bit of her that he could get. He had never wanted anything so ardently in his life. In the middle of the night, he woke to ponder his feeling of deprivation, even though his heart’s desire was closer than arm’s reach. Now it was his—or was it? Holly slept effortlessly. She had