The Narrow Door Read Online Free Page B

even though she often doesn’t let me get a word in. I love the slouchy white chair, the Picasso print of a hand clutching flowers, the low humming light of the lamps on the table—how the hell does she ever see? Beyond the bathroom door, I see the impeccable bedroom, where the deep-blue spread is pulled tight across the mattress, the pillows propped up against the white headboard, fresh yellow tulips on the nightstand. It is clearly the most important room in the house, waiting for its next guest. It is far from the safety of my family home, and I like that about it. I’m deep inside the realm of adult drama, of romance and betrayal and fucking: life transpiring in front of me.
    Now Denise is walking back and forth across the living room. She is holding her cup of coffee between two hands. She puts it down, lights up a cigarette, inhales from the cigarette, reaches for the cup of coffee again. She is talking about her former teacher, Famous Writer, the writer who writes big, fat, funny-sad novels with violent accidents in them. She has corresponded with him for years. He has written to her; she has a stack of his letters to her in which he’d given her every reason to think that his marriage, a marriage to a woman he still loves, is over. Nothing could be so wrong about ripping each other’s clothes off, as she puts it, and spending the night together.
    “Why doesn’t he love me?” she laughs, in a voice that knows it’s the dumbest question ever asked.
    She holds up the cover of the issue of Time on which he appears in a red T-shirt under a tan blazer. His face looks tired, gruff, unshaven, hurt, horny. It’s the face of someone who thinks his suffering is more meaningful than yours. I like his books, especially the one in which the son loses his eye on the stick shift, but I’m troubled by his hold on her. It might be the case that Denise wants to be him more than she wants to be with him, but I believe she’ll figure that out in due time.
    I wish she’d stop. I wish she’d talk again about Franny and Zooey or Good Deeds or the professors and TAs and any of the other grad students we know in common. Instead, she’s filling up the space with Famous Writer—or more precisely, Famous Writing. She is going on for hours with it. My eyes are grainy, my tongue thick with listening to her. And yet there’s a high buzz of excitement in the air. Outside, on the sidewalk, is Philadelphia—hear the four Archbishop Wood students cursing at some drunken girl across the street? But inside? We are characters in an Almodóvar film yet to be made. Coffee makes sluicing sounds inside the coffee maker. A cigarette burns in the ashtray socket. Joni’s Wild Things Run Fast is playing on her cassette deck. And now we’re sitting together on the sofa at 1 a.m. on a Saturday night, waiting for the damn kitchen phone to ring.
    Just like that, it does ring.
    Denise leaps. She looks at me, lets the phone ring one more time before she picks it up. And as a hello comes out of her mouth, a dial tone.
    “See?”
    We stay in our respective positions until the process repeats itself all over again. Another hang-up, then another.
    “You think it’s him?” I say, a little wary.
    “Of course it’s him,” she says, her smile getting bigger, her voice half thrilled, half hurt. Does she show me a log? I picture it on a legal pad, marked with the exact times of the hang-ups, as well as the number of rings and the length of seconds before the connection clicks off.
    “He’s afraid. Men like him— men,” she says, drawing out the word, frowning at me.
    “Always afraid. Cowards.” She picks up her cup again and puts it down a little too hard on the tabletop. A little coffee slops over the rim. “What’s wrong with men? What’s wrong? You.”
    “What?”
    “Man. Man—”
    “Me?” My collar feels tighter around my neck.
    “Pauly,” she says, her voice softening, her features softening, going pretty again. “Do you think I