The Age of Grief Read Free Page B

dewy. Florence is excited. She thinks she will penetrate the marriage mystery at last, then is ashamed of her unseemly curiosity. Still … She says, “Bryan and I saw Philip yesterday.” A lie.
    “How is Bryan, anyway? Are you in love yet?”
    “We’ve agreed not to say. He’s very compelling, though. Especially at six a.m., when I think he’s asleep, and he grabs my foot as I’m sneaking out of bed. I thought I was going to jump right out of my skin.”
    “Do you talk?”
    “Nonstop.”
    There is a pause here, where Frannie might mention her conversational history with Philip, but instead she rolls over and closes her eyes. Florence presses ahead. “I actually spoke to him, Philip I mean. I said hello, he said hello, Bryan said hello.” She looks at Frannie. Nothing. “He’s so boyish-looking. From a distance he looks about eighteen, and getting younger. That’s another thing about Bryan. Being prematurely grizzled makes him look very wise. Are you asleep?”
    Frannie shakes her head and slips her hand into the bowl. “Mmmmm,” she says.
    “Do you ever miss him?” This is so bold that Florence blushes.
    Frannie shrugs. “How’s Bryan’s work going?” Bryan’s work is to figure out how many ways the hospital can use the computer it has just purchased.
    “Terrifically,” says Florence. “Now they’re thinking of renting time to the county and making a profit on the purchase.”
    “But they bought it with county money.”
    “The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.” Florence sighs. “You know, you always turn the conversation over to me, and I always rise to the bait.”
    “More strawberries?” Frannie holds out the bowl, and Florence gives up. They talk about a movie Frannie wants to go to, then about the seven-pound twins Florence saw the previous week. Florence begins to think of Bryan and to wonder what time it is. The champagne in the bottom of the crystal bowl is flat. Just then Frannie says, “I hate the way Philip and I admired ourselves all the time.”
    Florence picks up the napkins and the champagne cork and the wrappings from the loaf of bread, and then it is time to depart.
    “Well, I don’t think life has passed
me
by.” Florence, in her bathrobe, strikes a pose on the stairs. Bryan looks up from his book, elaborately distracted. Florence lifts her chin. Lately, they have been debating whether life has passed Bryan by.
    “No, bitch,” he says, just containing a smile. “Life hasn’t passed you by.” Florence exhibits an ostentatious bit of calf. “You were standing in the road, and it ran you right over!” Florence laughs and runs up the steps. At the top, she hits the light switch, plunging Bryan into darkness, then she throws herself diagonally across the bed.
    When Bryan comes in, she is pretending to be asleep. He walks around the bed. “I’m so comfortable,” she groans. “You’ll have to sleep on the floor.” She stretches out her arms. “There’s no room.”
    “I see a spot,” he says. She can hear the smile in his voice, and she feels her body contract with the tension of imminent laughter. Then he launches himself diagonally across her. The weight of his body is delightful: for a moment they are still, and she seems to feel the muffled beat of his heart. Then they are laughing and floundering across one another. They have been laughing all evening, and this laughter, Florence knows, will bloom smoothly into lovemaking. “I love you,” he says. He has said it often lately.
    “Do you mind if I reciprocate at once?”
    “Not at all.”
    “I love you, too.”
    “Ah.” They snuggle down and pull up the covers.
    Just when Florence thinks it is about to begin, whenher skin seems to rise to meet the palm of his hand, he squeezes her closely and says, “Speaking of love.”
    “Please do.”
    “Your friend seems to have a new one.”
    “Which friend?” Florence’s eyes are closed, and she is trying to guess where his hands are,