Jeremy Thrane by Kate Christensen

Author:Kate Christensen [Christensen, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780767908016
Publisher: Broadway
Published: 2001-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

13 | A RABBIT AS KING OF

THE GHOSTS

I had some time to kill before I was due uptown at my mother’s, but didn’t feel much like seeing Scott when he bounded in from his wonderful day, so I decided to walk around for a while to help digest my lunch. The streets were refreshingly frenetic. Traffic honked and roared and squealed, I was jostled and elbowed as I dodged oncoming people and wove my way past slower pedestrians, sped along empty stretches, bottlenecked in crowds, bobbed through stalled traffic. I threaded my way through Union Square, over and down to the East Village, up Broadway to Union Square again, and up Park Avenue South. This herky-jerky wandering lulled my mind into a meditative calm.

I was somewhat surprised when I found myself in Gramercy Park outside Ted’s house, staring up at the fourth-story windows that had once been mine. They were dark except for glinting reflections from the streetlamp below. Chelsea was just across the island from Gramercy, but my new neighborhood felt far, far removed from here, years and miles away instead of blocks and months. This was the first time I’d come back since I’d left. I was amazed to see the house again; it looked as if I’d never lived here. There was the heavy door, there were the mullioned windows, there was Dina Sandusky’s boring husband Cory on the couch in the house next door.

It was Thursday, the night Basia went to Astoria, where her fifty-year-old portly Greek gentleman friend wined and dined her and (I surmised, but of course didn’t know for sure, because she never would have told me) took her to bed in the house where he still lived with his ancient mother, and afterward paid for her homeward taxi. It was also the night Yoshi went God knew where, probably to some yoga center to pose ostentatiously in drawstring pants and a muscle shirt.

The blinds were pulled down in the library, but light showed around their edges, and after a moment I saw the silhouette of a man cross the room. Yoshi must have stayed home from the ashram to avail himself of my old haunt; no doubt he’d taken over the chair where I’d once spent so many pleasurable hours daydreaming by the fire, book on my knees, martini glass in one hand. Yoshi didn’t drink martinis or read, and as far as I knew, he didn’t daydream; what the hell did he think he was doing in there? Maybe he had moved up to the attic after my departure. I would have bet anything he’d slithered right up there the minute I’d cleared out. I’d left all my furniture, my bookshelves, even the cans of soup in the cupboards. At the thought of Yoshi using my stuff, hatred swept over me. I wanted to pee in his orange trees, poke him in the eye with his own chopstick.

But when the man crossed the room again, I recognized Ted’s erect bearing and the way his hair foofed up in front.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.