After You've Gone by Alice Adams

Author:Alice Adams [Adams, Alice]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780517055700
Publisher: Random House Value Publishing
Published: 1989-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Lunch, though, is no better than breakfast, conversationally, and in Phoebe’s judgment even the food is not entirely successful.

They are gathered again on the terrace above the river, joined at the too large round table—scattered around it.

However, partly because he knows that Phoebe is genuinely curious, as he is himself, Danny persists in asking about Maria’s time in jail. (Also, he is convinced that talking about it will help Maria.) “What does Pleasanton look like?” he asks her. “I can’t even imagine it.”

“Oh—” At first Maria’s vague, unfocused glance goes out to the river, as though for help, but then she seems to make an effort—for her guests. “It’s quite country-club-looking,” she tells them. “Very clean and bland.” In a tantalizing way, she adds, “It’s rather like the White House.”

“Really? How?” This has been a chorus, from Dan and Phoebe.

Maria sighs, and continues to try. “Well, externally it’s so clean, and behind the scenes there’s total corruption.” Having gone so far, though, she leans back into her chair and closes her eyes.

Dan looks at Phoebe. On her face he sees both blighted curiosity and genuine if momentary helplessness. He sees too her discomfort from the increasing heat. Her skin is so bright, dry, pink. The sultry air has curled her hair so tightly that it looks uncomfortable. At that moment Danny believes that he feels all Phoebe’s unvoiced, unspoken sensations; her feelings are his. And he further thinks, I am married to Phoebe permanently, for good.

And, looking at his wife, and at Maria, whom he has always known, Danny thinks how incredibly complex women are. How interesting they are.

“In Maine the air never felt exactly like this air,” Maria tells them, as though Maine had been under discussion—again. “A little like it, fresh and clean, but not exactly. It’s interesting. The difference, I mean. Though hard to describe,” she trails off.

“I know what you mean, though,” comments Phoebe. “In the same way that all the colors are different, but you can’t exactly say how.”

“Phoebe grew up in New Hampshire,” Danny tells Maria, wondering why this fact had not emerged earlier, or did it?

“Oh, did you really.” But Maria has returned to her own privacy, her thoughts. New Hampshire could be across the continent from Maine, for all of her.

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