Look at Me: A Novel by Jennifer Egan

Look at Me: A Novel by Jennifer Egan

Author:Jennifer Egan
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Psychological, Religion, Fiction, Islam, General
ISBN: 9780385502764
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2009-12-23T08:00:00+00:00


In my apartment, I found a message on my machine from Anthony Halliday. I called him back without taking off my coat.

“I’m sorry,” I said, the instant I heard his voice.

“I’m supposed to say that,” he said. And then he did. “I’m worried I hurt you.”

“Impossible.”

“I mean your head. After your acci—”

“Didn’t even feel it.” I’d taken so much Advil in the first days after my encounter with the taxi window that I’d barely felt the clothes on my body.

“Nothing was—broken or anything?”

“The opposite. You worked out a kink in my neck,” came my spirited riposte, but each word was a tiny pain pellet breaking open inside me. “And you?”

“Intact.”

“Still reformed?” I asked, then cringed as the retort I myself would have made, despite your best efforts, jeered at me.

“Knock wood,” was all he said.

“I’m glad.” And I was glad. “Good luck.”

“And to you, Charlotte.”

Still in my coat, I lay down on my couch. Missed Opportunity/ Regret: That I’d wrecked my evening with Anthony Halliday before I’d managed to pull his zipper down, to see and feel him so that at the very least I could remember him now. I imagined it, the sound of the zipper (pulling down my own, meanwhile), reaching inside, his inadvertent shiver, like horseflesh. Then ripping off his shirt in the time-honored fashion, making every button pop.

Masturbation: a word with all the sensuality of suitcases tumbling from a closet shelf, another one falling just when you think the noise has stopped. A futile and lonely act, I’d always thought, but I’d missed the boat, I decided now, misunderstood the joys to be had from declining to introduce yet another human being into one’s life. New discoveries at thirty-five, or twenty-eight, whatever the hell I was, pulling that zipper down, the sound, the flinch—

Floating, waiting for my ringing ears to stop, I heard the telephone and reached for it dreamily, assuming it would be Halliday with a telephonic response to the telepathic delights I’d just administered.

“Hi, Charlotte. It’s Irene.”

“Oh!”

“You left me a message?”

“Yes! I did!” Feeling indecent with my pants around my knees, I wriggled to yank them back up and in the process dropped the phone, which bounced under the couch.

“Hello?” I heard her calling into the upholstery. “Charlotte?”

“Here I am!” I shouted. “Right here.” Pulling. Zipping. Smoothing my hair. I dropped to my belly and fished for the phone. “Hello,” I said breathlessly.

“You called me,” Irene said. “I’m calling you back.”

“Yes, I did call. Because I’ve reconsidered. I—I want to work with you on that story for the Post. And I really will cooperate.”

There was a long silence. “Gosh,” she finally said. “I’ve sort of moved on, actually.”

“You found another model?”

“No, I just—let it drop.”

“Oh, I see,” I said, relieved, somehow, that I hadn’t been replaced. “Because actually, there’s something else. But I’d rather explain it in person.”

“Explain what?” She sounded deeply wary.

“Well, it’s complicated,” I said. “Could we just … I’ll come to your office if you want, or you can come here?



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