Don't I Know You? Read Online Free Page A

room. There were two live-animation, stop-motion films called Neighbours and A Chairy Tale by Norman McLaren—little comic parables about the childishness of human conflict. Like the love poems they made a deep impression on me about what is possible in art. I didn’t think playfulness and humor were allowed.
    We found some records on the basement shelves too, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, and Ravel’s Bolero . L’Orren and the novelist danced around the Ping-Pong table to the orgasmic pulse of Bolero , eyes closed, waving their arms like seaweed, a sight that mortified the rest of us.
    Earlier that day L’Orren had spent a good two hours with John, going through her narrative cycle of poems about an Inuit woman who wants to become a hunter like the men, but is stoned to death by her relatives instead. For some reason the two of them met in the greenhouse. I could see them both from my perch on a window seat in the dorm. I was working on my assignment that day, a descriptive scene about nature using no figures of speech. This I found challenging, as I believed similes and metaphors to be the sine qua non of fine writing.
    I had a good view of her facing John, braiding and unbraiding her hair. Through the streaky glass I could see him, occasionally laughing, tipping back in his chair. After a long time L’Orren left the greenhouse and strode toward the house, hugging her binder with a hopeful, preoccupied air.
    I had moved over to my bed by the time she came into the dorm.
    â€œHow was your meeting?” I asked.
    â€œA-mazing. He wrote his thesis on Robert Herrick and I have this whole sonnet cycle about the metaphysicals.”
    I worked all afternoon and sat at the opposite end of the table from John at dinner. He looked tired and bored. The war widow was sitting next to him, talking steadily, sometimes tapping the back of his hand. I felt sorry for him, stuck with all these amateurs. I left the table before dessert was served and in the hall I heard his chair scrape back.
    He caught up to me by the big newel post at the bottom of the stairs.
    â€œMiss McEwan. Feel like an excursion later on?”
    I shrugged. “Maybe. If I get my work done.”
    â€œWork now, then meet me at the greenhouse at ten. Wear something warm.”
    L’Orren came into the hallway and gave us a look.
    â€œPrepare to lose!” said John, and he headed downstairs to play Ping-Pong with her and Axel, the claymation man. But instead of finishing my story I left the house and walked down to the bridge to watch the swollen river run. Then I came back to the house to use the communal phone in the hall to call Larry.
    He was working in his dad’s car dealership for the summer and he missed me tons, he said. “There’s a brand-new 1961 LeSabre here with room in the back for both of us,” he said.
    â€œI miss you too,” I said wanly, although it wasn’t the least bit true. This is how you marry the wrong person, I told myself.
    â€œI have to go now, Larry, I’ve got work to do.”
    â€œBye, doll,” he said. “Be good, and if you can’t be good, be careful.”
    *   *   *
    â€œYou’re not going to read late again are you?” said the war widow, who slept in the bed next to me. It was almost ten p.m. She had her hair up in pink brush rollers and wore a quilted blue housecoat and sock-slippers with leather soles.
    â€œActually, I think I’ll read downstairs for a while. I’ll just take a blanket.”
    â€œYou won’t need insect repellant in the parlor,” she observed. I had my sneakers on and a roll-up stick of 6-12 in my hand.
    â€œThe screen door has holes in it,” I said, and gently closed the door. I almost flew down the stairs; I was about to write my first love poem, my first Best Canadian Short Story. The narrative of the night, rich with similes and metaphors, raced ahead of me. All I had to do was