The Geographer's Library

The Geographer’ s Library
She sighed and ran a cupped hand across her forehead, then flattened it
and ran it through her hair. “Of course I do. Of course. He was my friend,
not yours; he wasn’t just a stepping-stone to a new job for me.”
“Nor me, and that’s not fair. I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what you’re
so upset about. We’re trying to figure out what happened to Jaan. To your
friend. What’s wrong?”
“Paul . . . Look, I don’t want to talk about this anymore, okay? I’m going
home.” She put her coat on and unlocked the door.
“No, wait. Why?”
She just shook her head.
“I’ll call you later,” I said halfheartedly. Whoever thought that up as an
appropriate placative response?
“Do whatever you like,” she said softly, almost smiling at me. She shut the
door quietly behind her, and I heard her footsteps receding downstairs and
the outer door closing behind her.
What I would have liked to do was have a meal and a long night with Hannah.
I thought about running after her, but as odd as it sounds at this point
in the story, I do in fact have at least a modicum of pride. I had bought the
makings of a gourmet feast, planned the dinner as I drove back from Wickenden,
and savored the postdinner evening in a thousand delicious imagined
permutations.
My actual night, of course, accorded with none of my imaginings: dipping
uncooked ravioli into a plastic container of cold arrabiatta sauce and accompanying
this lachrymose meal with Montepulciano straight from the bottle, I
watched syndicated sitcoms that were never funny during their initial runs and
certainly weren’t now. Sometime during the seamless chain of smarmy yet
resilient families, dysfunctional adult-adolescents sharing an apartment and discussing
their failed relationships with other dysfunctional adult-adolescents,
and whiny narcissistic Manhattanites who spoke in declamatory catchphrases, I
fell asleep on my couch and awoke to a test pattern (the glory of small-market
stations), as red wine seeped into my shirt and stained my chest pink.
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