“Did you just spit something?” he asked, sounding curious and amused … “Never would have pegged you as a spitter, Vivian.”Eyes suddenly wide, I sat straight up, almost levitating from the bed, then rallied. “Only when it’s something not worth swallowing.”Hello line, I believe I just crossed over you. I distinctly heard Clark choke on a sip of what I assumed was his Scotch.””
“She could not picture it. Herself riding on the subway or streetcar, caring for new horses, talking to new people, living among hordes of people every day who were not Clark.A life, a place, chosen for that specific reason––that it would not contain Clark.The strange and terrible thing coming clear to her about that world of the future, as she now pictured it, was that she would not exist there. She would only walk around, and open her mouth and speak, and do this and do that. She would not really be there. And what was strange about it was that she was doing all this, she was riding on this bus in the hope of recovering herself. As Mrs. Jamieson might say––and as she herself might with satisfaction have said––. With nobody glowering over her, nobody's mood infecting her with misery.But what would she care about? How would she know that she was alive?While she was running away from him––now––Clark still kept his place in her life. But when she was finished running away, when she just went on, what would she put in his place? What else––who else––could ever be so vivid a challenge?””
“I’m waiting for the magic word.” “Um, now?” “Really?” “Asshole?” “Come on.” “Clark!” “Vivian.” “Oh, fine. Please help me, Clark. Please, please, please?” I managed, gritting my teeth. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” he smiled, his face lighting up.””
“I was struck by how easy this was, how comfortable it was. There was no onion to peel here; Clark was an open book. Easy to read, easy to predict, he’d tell me anything I asked him. No holding back, no games, no bullshit.””
Alice ClarkAlice Clark was a pioneering British historian and social researcher whose work focused on the lives and labor of women in early modern England. Born in 1874, she dedicated her academic career to unco...
“The Keoughs were wonderful neighbors,” he said. “It’s true that occasionally Don would mention that, unlike me, he had a job, but the relationship was terrific. One time my wife, Susie, went over and did the proverbial Midwestern bit of asking to borrow a cup of sugar, and Don’s wife, Mickie, gave her a whole sack. When I heard about that, I decided to go over to the Keoughs’ that night myself. I said to Don, ‘Why don’t you give me twenty-five thousand dollars for the partnership to invest?’ And the Keough family stiffened a little bit at that point, and I was rejected. “I came back sometime later and asked for the ten thousand dollars Clarke referred to and got a similar result. But I wasn’t proud. So I returned at a later time and asked for five thousand dollars. And at that point, I got rejected again. “So one night, in the summer of 1962, I started heading over to the Keough house. I don’t know whether I would have dropped it to twenty-five hundred dollars or not, but by the time I got to the Keough household, the whole place was dark, silent. There wasn’t a thing to see. But I knew what was going on. I knew that Don and Mickie were hiding upstairs, so I didn’t leave. “I rang that doorbell. I knocked. Nothing happened. But Don and Mickie were upstairs, and it was pitch-black. “Too dark to read, and too early to go to sleep. And I remember that day as if it were yesterday. That was June twenty-first, 1962. “Clarke, when were you born?” “March twenty-first, 1963.” “It’s little things like that that history turns on. So you should be glad they didn’t give me the ten thousand dollars.””
“Hello,” he said. “Tom?” A whoop of joy. “Alice, where are you? Are you all right?” “Never better, Tom. And you?””
“You want to know if that’s the only reason I called, Vivian?” he asked finally, his voice octaves and octaves lower than Daytime Clark. Raspy, gruff, rough-and-tumble.””
“Clark Barrow. Historian. Archivist. Librarian.””
“Alice always had loved flowers.There was something about the blend of colors, the hidden roots, the twisting petals as they unfurled in the sun one by one. A symbol of femininity---how that which is delicate can also be strong. , as her aunt always said. Well, her aunt and Reese Witherspoon, but honestly, Aunt Charlotte had been saying that way back when Reese was still filming .Alice swept petals from the floor, beautiful yet fragmented evidence of the fullness the day had brought. She'd been running the Prickly Rose, a customizable bouquet shop on Magazine Street, alongside her aunt for several years now, and Valentine's Day always left plenty of cast-off remnants.””
“It's just motherhood, not rocket science, she reminds herself. The constant demands, the lack of sleep, the need for a well of patience deeper than the ocean itself. Every last bit of it is entirely normal.””
“Monsoon makes many things strange.””
“She's an ang moh, all right”