The Imperfectionists Read Online Free Page B
God, it's incredible how much you look like my father. So strange to see him again. And I know you don't work. Four kids I've produced, and you're the only one who wants to talk to me anymore."
Jerome hasn't understood a word. Trembling with humiliation, he responds in French: "How am I supposed to know what you're saying? You're speaking so fast. This is ridiculous."
Lloyd reverts to French himself. "I wanted to tell you something. Ask you something. You know, I'm thinking of retiring," he says. "I must have done, what, an article a day since I was twenty-two. And now I can't rustle up a single new idea. Not a one. I don't know what in hell's going on anymore. Even the paper won't publish me. It was my last--my last string. Did you know that? No one prints my stuff anymore. I think I'm leaving my apartment, Jerome. I can't pay for it. I shouldn't be there. But I don't know. Nothing's settled yet. I'm asking, I guess--I'm trying to figure it out. Quite what's the thing to do. What would you say? What's your opinion on the matter?" He struggles to ask this. "What would you advise that I should do? Son?"
Jerome opens the door to the building. "Come in," he says. "You're staying with me."
1953. CAFFe GRECO, ROME
Betty rattled her highball glass and peered inside, seeking a last dribble of Campari under the ice cubes. Her husband, Leo, sat across the marble cafe tabletop, hidden behind an Italian newspaper. She reached over and knocked on his page, like the door to his study .
"Yaaahs, m'dear," he bellowed, the great wall of newsprint having rendered him insensible to the fact that he was in public and that shouted marital chitchat could be heard by all; after years in Rome, he still assumed no one overseas understood English .
"No sign of Ott," she said .
"True, true."
"Another drink?"
"Yaaahs, m'dear." In his cupped hand, he planted a kiss and lobbed it at her like a grenade, tracing with his eyes the parabola up and over the table, down onto her cheek.
"Direct hit," he declared, and disappeared behind the newspaper pages. "Everyone's so stupid!" he said, giddy at all the wonderful reports of chaos. "So amazingly stupid!"
Betty raised her arm to hail a waiter, then caught sight of Ott, just sitting there at the bar, watching them. Her hand drooped at the wrist and she cocked her head, mouthing "What are you doing over there?," small muscles tugging at the sides of her mouth, smile rising, then falling, then rising .
Ott observed Betty and Leo an instant longer, stood from his bar stool, and made for the seating area at the back .
He had last seen her twenty years earlier in New York. She was in her early forties now, a married woman, her black hair a little shorter, her green eyes softened.
Still, Ott glimpsed in the tilt of her head, in her hesitant smile, the woman he had known.
By fading, the past seemed only to sharpen before him. He had an impulse to reach across the table and touch her .
Instead, he took the extended hand of Betty's husband and gripped the man's shoulder, expressing toward Leo--whom Ott was meeting for the first time--the warmth he could not appropriately express toward his wife .
Ott sat beside Betty on the velvet banquette, tapped her arm by way ofgreeting, and slid athletically behind the adjacent table, agile still at fifty-four. He squeezed the back of his thick neck, ran a hand over his buzz-cut scalp, touched his wrinkled brow, from under which he considered them, his pale blue eyes shifting expressions, as if threatening to fight the whole room, to laugh, to give up altogether. He patted Leo's cheek. "I'm pleased to be here."
With these few words, Ott flooded them with gratification--Betty had forgotten what it was like to be around him .
Cyrus Ott had traveled here from his headquarters in Atlanta, leaving his businesses plus his wife and young son, solely for this meeting. On the passenger ship over, he had read their articles. Leo, the Rome correspondent for
Jerome hasn't understood a word. Trembling with humiliation, he responds in French: "How am I supposed to know what you're saying? You're speaking so fast. This is ridiculous."
Lloyd reverts to French himself. "I wanted to tell you something. Ask you something. You know, I'm thinking of retiring," he says. "I must have done, what, an article a day since I was twenty-two. And now I can't rustle up a single new idea. Not a one. I don't know what in hell's going on anymore. Even the paper won't publish me. It was my last--my last string. Did you know that? No one prints my stuff anymore. I think I'm leaving my apartment, Jerome. I can't pay for it. I shouldn't be there. But I don't know. Nothing's settled yet. I'm asking, I guess--I'm trying to figure it out. Quite what's the thing to do. What would you say? What's your opinion on the matter?" He struggles to ask this. "What would you advise that I should do? Son?"
Jerome opens the door to the building. "Come in," he says. "You're staying with me."
1953. CAFFe GRECO, ROME
Betty rattled her highball glass and peered inside, seeking a last dribble of Campari under the ice cubes. Her husband, Leo, sat across the marble cafe tabletop, hidden behind an Italian newspaper. She reached over and knocked on his page, like the door to his study .
"Yaaahs, m'dear," he bellowed, the great wall of newsprint having rendered him insensible to the fact that he was in public and that shouted marital chitchat could be heard by all; after years in Rome, he still assumed no one overseas understood English .
"No sign of Ott," she said .
"True, true."
"Another drink?"
"Yaaahs, m'dear." In his cupped hand, he planted a kiss and lobbed it at her like a grenade, tracing with his eyes the parabola up and over the table, down onto her cheek.
"Direct hit," he declared, and disappeared behind the newspaper pages. "Everyone's so stupid!" he said, giddy at all the wonderful reports of chaos. "So amazingly stupid!"
Betty raised her arm to hail a waiter, then caught sight of Ott, just sitting there at the bar, watching them. Her hand drooped at the wrist and she cocked her head, mouthing "What are you doing over there?," small muscles tugging at the sides of her mouth, smile rising, then falling, then rising .
Ott observed Betty and Leo an instant longer, stood from his bar stool, and made for the seating area at the back .
He had last seen her twenty years earlier in New York. She was in her early forties now, a married woman, her black hair a little shorter, her green eyes softened.
Still, Ott glimpsed in the tilt of her head, in her hesitant smile, the woman he had known.
By fading, the past seemed only to sharpen before him. He had an impulse to reach across the table and touch her .
Instead, he took the extended hand of Betty's husband and gripped the man's shoulder, expressing toward Leo--whom Ott was meeting for the first time--the warmth he could not appropriately express toward his wife .
Ott sat beside Betty on the velvet banquette, tapped her arm by way ofgreeting, and slid athletically behind the adjacent table, agile still at fifty-four. He squeezed the back of his thick neck, ran a hand over his buzz-cut scalp, touched his wrinkled brow, from under which he considered them, his pale blue eyes shifting expressions, as if threatening to fight the whole room, to laugh, to give up altogether. He patted Leo's cheek. "I'm pleased to be here."
With these few words, Ott flooded them with gratification--Betty had forgotten what it was like to be around him .
Cyrus Ott had traveled here from his headquarters in Atlanta, leaving his businesses plus his wife and young son, solely for this meeting. On the passenger ship over, he had read their articles. Leo, the Rome correspondent for
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