Passion and Affect Read Free

cloth.
    They walked away from the museum past a line of trees. Damp leaves printed the sidewalks.
    â€œI live quite close by,” Mary said. “Would you like to come and have coffee?”
    â€œI don’t think so,” Roddy said. “I’ve got lots of work to do.”
    Mary lived in a brownstone with a wide oak door. Her apartment looked over a garden in whose center a cement Cupid with a broken-off right arm was standing in a pool of watery dead leaves. The pictures on the wall were old-fashioned watercolors of flowers. She had a small prayer rug and a Peruvian wall hanging. Her furniture was plain and comfortable. There was an oak desk, an oak table, a gray sofa, and two blue armchairs.
    From the window Roddy could see the spires of the museum and the edge of the park. In the corner of the garden grew a catalpa tree, whose dried pods hung like snakeskins amid green emerging buds.
    Mary appeared and put a tray of coffee and cups on the table.
    â€œIt’s bliss here,” Roddy said. “How can you like the finch room so much if you have this?”
    â€œI’m glad you decided to come up after all,” Mary said. “Come have coffee.”
    â€œWait a minute,” Roddy said. He took her by the shoulders and pointed her into the afternoon light. Her eyes were level and serious. Then she grinned and he kissed her.
    â€œThank you,” she said.
    â€œThank me?”
    â€œI was hoping you’d kiss me, but I didn’t know how I could arrange it. I’m shy.”
    â€œYou don’t seem very shy,” said Roddy.
    â€œI am, but not in usual ways,” she said. She bent toward the coffeepot, but he caught her arm and kissed her again. They stood at the window with their hands interlocked, and she scanned his face as if she were memorizing it.
    â€œI’m married,” he said.
    â€œYou shouldn’t have kissed me, then.”
    â€œI mean, I’m getting a divorce. I’m in the process of it. I’m not telling you that so you’ll think I’m available or anything.” He let go of her hand and sat down.
    â€œRaiford,” Mary said.
    â€œRoddy,” said Roddy.
    â€œRoddy. How old are you?”
    â€œThirty-one.”
    â€œYou’re very silly for thirty-one.”
    â€œI don’t like this conversation,” said Roddy. He drank his coffee and looked out the window. “You have no idea how nice it is here. Why am I silly for thirty-one?”
    â€œBecause first of all you kiss me, then you say you’re married, then you say you’re not married, and then you tell me not to think you’re available. How do you know I’m available? How do you know I’m not married?”
    â€œAre you?” Roddy said. “I saw the picture of that guy on your mantelpiece. Is he someone in your life?”
    â€œHe used to be my fiancé,” Mary said. “We were going to get married last July, but we broke it off. He’s in India now, but we write to each other. We’re still friends.”
    â€œYou are?”
    â€œWe started out friends,” Mary said. “You can stop being lovers, but you can’t cancel out friendship. Maybe it’s different if you’re getting a divorce—harder to know if you and your wife are still friends.”
    â€œI don’t know what we were,” said Roddy. “We had a kid, but it didn’t seem to help much.”
    Mary looked at him sadly. He was sitting in a dark corner of the sofa; his head was lowered, hidden in a shadow. When she turned a lamp on, he looked up and the glow hit him full in the face. She sat on her side of the sofa watching him. The light played over his face like expression, and when he finally turned to her the slight lines around his eyes softened.
    â€œThis is the first time I’ve felt comfortable in months,” Roddy said. “You have no idea how nice you are.”
    On Sunday evening, Roddy sat in his