I Regret Everything Read Free

saltbox anyone might covet and I pictured myself cradled by a chaise with a book in my lap lounging on a buttery summer day. This was a stalling tactic because Spaulding’s presence required, strike that,
demanded
, attention. I had no intention of giving in so easily.
    Kevin Pratt strode past the office door with an armful of files. A sixth-year associate, he was a hale and fit former college squash player and looked like the kind of person who never suffered a head cold. Over six feet tall with a wide chest, he walked on the balls of his feet, which gave him the aspect of a faintly menacing rabbit. At Thatcher, Sturgess & Simonson he was the closest thing I had to a friend. Pratt glanced in and stopped when he saw Spaulding upholstered on my couch. I asked if he had met Ed Simonson’s daughter. He looked her over appraisingly and reported he had not.
    Spaulding possessed the sensor that tells a woman when someone is doing a sexual Dun & Bradstreet on her and gave a polite smile that Pratt, had he any sensors at all, would have read as an invitation to go away. My colleague was competitive when it came to women. In his state fair, Spaulding was a blue ribbon.
    â€œDo you want a tour of the office?” he asked.
    â€œMaybe later,” she said, in a way that meant never. “I’m having a private conversation with Mr. Best. Nice meeting you, Mr. Pratt.”
    Spaulding wielded the power inherent in being the managing partner’s daughter, while at the same time mocking that power. There was a captivating lightness to her manner, a sense that the entire scene was being staged for her enjoyment and she appreciated the effort everyone was making. Dismissed by the duchess, he departed.
    â€œI’ve got a lot to do,” I said.
    She rose from the couch and rounded my desk. Reflexively, I hit the key that returned my monitor to the screen saver, a color photograph of Lake Winnipesaukee surrounded by flaming autumn foliage selected for its banality. She stood behind and to the left of me, no more than a foot away. There was a pleasing scent. Her hair? I tried not to notice autumn and pine and the savory tang of fresh ginger cookies because it was June and humid and Spaulding.
    â€œThese are all poetry?” She had removed a delicate volume from the shelf:
Lord Weary’s Castle
by Robert Lowell, pub. 1946.
    â€œBe careful. They’re first editions.”
    Spaulding returned the book to its place. “Whose will are you working on?”
    It would have been a relief to have described my desire for Mrs. Vendler’s house, for a quiet place to write, somewhere to pursue my destiny away from the kingdom of her father, but what I said was, “I can’t talk about it, although nothing would give me more pleasure. Well, that’s an exaggeration.”
    The mellifluous laughter sounded like a cascade of pearls and caught me by surprise. Spaulding moved away from me, then turned and relaxed into the sofa.
    â€œI read your poem in
The Paris Review
,” she said. These are eight words guaranteed to freeze the blood of any poet while he awaits the follow-up. Whether the verdict is positive or negative, one develops an instant case of acute stress response, otherwise known as fight or flight, and further brain activity ceases until the situation is resolved.
I liked it
or
I hated it
doesn’t matter. What matters, and matters deeply, is the stating of some,
any,
opinion. It violates the laws of the universe to say
I read your poem
followed by nothing. This is to stare into the yawning void itself. “That’s why I came to talk to you, but if you’re really tied up, we’ll do it another time. Okay, so.”
    I waited. She placed her hands behind her neck and with an outward flick of fingers delicately fluffed her ambrosial curls.
    â€œIt was good.”
    I could have smoked a cigarette.
    Then she stood up to leave. “You can stay a minute,” I said, trying to