I Regret Everything Read Free Page A

convey with a mixture of insouciance and feigned impatience the strain her continued presence was going to be. At this I failed spectacularly. Of all of my bad qualities, vanity is perhaps the one of which I am least proud. So if someone wants to make “The Valley of Akbar”—the title of my poem—the center of attention, the experience has the voluptuous quality of a Roman orgy. Spaulding returned to her previous attitude on the sofa, and held me in regal regard. “Finish your thought,” I said.
    â€œI already did.”
    Was she going to make me interview her, to extract another morsel of a compliment? I had to finish dealing with Mrs. Vendler’s estate and prepare for a client meeting. There was no time to dither with Spaulding. “So you read
The Paris Review
?”
    â€œThey had it at my school. My English teacher subscribed and he knew who you were. He didn’t believe you worked with my father. And, yes, I read it. Why do you use a pseudonym? Don’t you want to be famous?”
    â€œNo one wants to hire a poet to do what I do. The stereotype persists. Clients want paragons of probity.”
    â€œThen you probably shouldn’t say ‘paragons of probity,’ since it sounds kind of poetic.”
    â€œIn the law, dullness is a virtue.”
    â€œA boring lawyer didn’t write that poem of yours. You slice a terrorist’s balls off and give him breast implants? All in
terza rima
? Pretty punk rock.”
    â€œIt was supposed to be about empathy.”
    â€œWeren’t you afraid the ayatollahs would get all
jihadi
with you?”
    â€œI don’t think they’re the
Paris Review
demographic.”
    She thought about this and nodded. It was not only unusual for me to have a spontaneous conversation with a reader who had responded to my work, it had never actually happened. And that she knew
terza rima
—the
a
,
b
,
a
rhyme scheme popularized by Dante in
The Divine Comedy
—was aphrodisiacal. Spaulding swung her feet to the floor, placed her elbows on her knees, and lit me with her eyes. “What else have you written?”
    â€œI’ve published poems in literary journals you’ve probably never heard of and I’m finishing a collection.”
    â€œFinishing?”
    Was that a skeptical brow furrow? Hard to tell. People think lawyers play fast and loose with the truth but this is not my modus operandi. The truth is easier to remember, and so it is what I habitually sling.
    â€œSoon.”
    â€œSo, Mr. Best.” I waited. Like a deer hesitating on the misty shoulder of the Taconic Parkway, she seemed to be deciding whether or not to proceed across. “I think Edward P. Simon­son is kind of busy today.” There was a brief pause in the conversation, then, “Want to take me to lunch?” Her voice was barely above a whisper, barely above a thought, really, and I wasn’t sure I had heard correctly. “Never mind, forget it.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThat was crazy.” She hesitated, then out flew, “If you took me to lunch you could tell me about the poetry collection you haven’t finished.”
    I laughed, which was something I rarely did at the office, and Spaulding’s cheeks flushed. There was some kind of interior struggle going on that made me root for her.
    â€œMuch as I’d savor your disdain, I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
    From somewhere there came an exasperated exhalation of breath and I looked up to see her father’s bulky form in the doorway. “Spaulding,” he said in a voice redolent of regattas and swizzle sticks, “What are you doing here?”
    â€œYou were in a meeting.”
    He told her to wait for him in his office. She rose languidly, said goodbye, and strolled past her father. Before departing she turned and mouthed, “I won’t tell him you’re a poet.” It was hard not to grin. When Ed apologized for his