Here's - HarperCollins Publishers

unless
I should be getting on my way, I said. My parking meter. A
lunch date. A long drive home.
I understand you and your family live in a lovely old house
near Orangetown . . .
And then, slyly: I understand one of your daughters now lives
in Toronto and . . .
I’ve been here before. There is something about having an
established family, a long-lasting spousal arrangement, three
daughters in their teens, a house in the country, a suggestion of
impermeability, that draws the curiosity of others so that they
can, as Tom says, probe with probity.
But no, this man across the table will not be feeding on my
flesh, nor will his colleagues—though one can tell that he has no
colleagues; there is no possibility of colleagues. He has no context
for friends or co-workers, though there are the kids and there’s
the wife; he’s referred to her three times now. Nicola. She has her
professional life, too, he tells me, as though the matter were in
dispute.
I can’t resist. “Does Nicola—is she a journalist too?”
“Journalist?”
“Like you, I mean.”
His hand jumps, and for a moment I think he’s going to turn
the tape recorder on again. But no, he’s reaching into his pocket
and now he’s releasing two coins onto the table. The tip. They lie
there, moist from his hand. Two dimes. I focus on them with
what I hope is a cool, censorious gaze.
But he’s not looking at me. He’s looking across the room
where a silver-haired man is seating himself gracefully at a table.
“I’m not sure, but I think that’s Gore Vidal,” my interviewer whispers
in a hungry voice. “He’s here for the writers’ festival, you
know.”
I rise and exit, as though led by a brass quintet.
The charming Mrs. Winters slips on her comfortable beige raincoat
. . .
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