wants. What her people need. And right now her people need a lot. Hell, you know that better than I do. You see the effects of the federal budget cuts daily.”
She had actually met David the previous December, when the two of them had wound up walking beside each other in the candlelight parade that followed the BEDS vigil down Church Street. It had been one of those nights when it’s so cold the air stings, but the flickering line of candles stretched nearly two blocks, and when they reached City Hall the two of them had melted into a dark little restaurant for hot chocolate. “Well, if she doesn’t mind my focusing on Bobbie’s work, why should I?” Laurel asked. “Why should you?”
“I don’t mind. That would suggest I have more antipathy to the notion than I do. But I don’t believe for one moment that Katherine expects you to curate this show—research the pictures, restore the pictures, annotate the pictures—on BEDS time. You’ll be spending your nights and weekends in the darkroom, and when you’re not in the darkroom you’ll be at your computer trying to figure out who these people are.”
Laurel didn’t honestly believe this was a sudden burst of midlife male selfishness on David’s part. She understood that he wasn’t concerned the endeavor would take her away from him on those evenings when he wasn’t with his children. Nevertheless, there was a hint of condescension in his remarks, and it made her defensive. This wasn’t the first time he had tried to lord over her the wisdom that he thought came with age. And so she responded by telling him, “If you’re worried about me not being available when you want to play, don’t. It’s not like there’s some kind of deadline. I’d work on the photos when I felt like it, and only when I felt like it. It would give me something more to do when you’re with your girls.”
“Honest, Laurel, this isn’t about me. It’s about you. Once your initial enthusiasm for this elephant of a project wears off, I think you’ll find it profoundly frustrating to be printing and processing someone else’s work.”
“Then I’ll stop.”
He toyed deliberatively with the stem of his coffee cup, and she thought for a moment he was going to say something more about the subject. But David was a man who took great pride in the sheer equanimity of his personality with his family, with his friends, and with his young girlfriend. He saved his volatility and his righteous wrath for the politicians and the policymakers who offended him, and he unleashed it only in print—never in person. In the nine months Laurel had known him and the seven in which they had been lovers, she had never once heard him raise his voice; nor had they ever endured a serious fight. It could be
—he could be—
maddening.
Finally, he reached across the table and gently massaged her fingers. “All right, then,” he said. “I don’t mean to pressure you one way or the other. I have some incredibly decadent hot fudge sauce left over from my dinner the other night with the girls, and some vanilla ice cream in the freezer. Let’s go have dessert in bed. If we leave now, we can be naked in time for the last of the sunset over the lake.”
A moment after he released her hands, the young waiter arrived at their table. “So,” he said abstractedly, hoping to make a little small talk as he reached into the pocket of his apron to find the folder that contained their bill, “are you two in town looking at colleges?”
C HAPTER T HREE
T HE APARTMENT THAT Laurel and Talia shared was the same one they had begun renting together as students at the start of their senior year of college. It was two-thirds of the second floor of a beautiful Victorian in the hill section of Burlington, a mannered neighborhood of elegant Georgians and Victorians and even a few arts-and-crafts homes from the 1920s, only a few blocks from the university’s row of fraternity houses in one direction and the city
She had actually met David the previous December, when the two of them had wound up walking beside each other in the candlelight parade that followed the BEDS vigil down Church Street. It had been one of those nights when it’s so cold the air stings, but the flickering line of candles stretched nearly two blocks, and when they reached City Hall the two of them had melted into a dark little restaurant for hot chocolate. “Well, if she doesn’t mind my focusing on Bobbie’s work, why should I?” Laurel asked. “Why should you?”
“I don’t mind. That would suggest I have more antipathy to the notion than I do. But I don’t believe for one moment that Katherine expects you to curate this show—research the pictures, restore the pictures, annotate the pictures—on BEDS time. You’ll be spending your nights and weekends in the darkroom, and when you’re not in the darkroom you’ll be at your computer trying to figure out who these people are.”
Laurel didn’t honestly believe this was a sudden burst of midlife male selfishness on David’s part. She understood that he wasn’t concerned the endeavor would take her away from him on those evenings when he wasn’t with his children. Nevertheless, there was a hint of condescension in his remarks, and it made her defensive. This wasn’t the first time he had tried to lord over her the wisdom that he thought came with age. And so she responded by telling him, “If you’re worried about me not being available when you want to play, don’t. It’s not like there’s some kind of deadline. I’d work on the photos when I felt like it, and only when I felt like it. It would give me something more to do when you’re with your girls.”
“Honest, Laurel, this isn’t about me. It’s about you. Once your initial enthusiasm for this elephant of a project wears off, I think you’ll find it profoundly frustrating to be printing and processing someone else’s work.”
“Then I’ll stop.”
He toyed deliberatively with the stem of his coffee cup, and she thought for a moment he was going to say something more about the subject. But David was a man who took great pride in the sheer equanimity of his personality with his family, with his friends, and with his young girlfriend. He saved his volatility and his righteous wrath for the politicians and the policymakers who offended him, and he unleashed it only in print—never in person. In the nine months Laurel had known him and the seven in which they had been lovers, she had never once heard him raise his voice; nor had they ever endured a serious fight. It could be
—he could be—
maddening.
Finally, he reached across the table and gently massaged her fingers. “All right, then,” he said. “I don’t mean to pressure you one way or the other. I have some incredibly decadent hot fudge sauce left over from my dinner the other night with the girls, and some vanilla ice cream in the freezer. Let’s go have dessert in bed. If we leave now, we can be naked in time for the last of the sunset over the lake.”
A moment after he released her hands, the young waiter arrived at their table. “So,” he said abstractedly, hoping to make a little small talk as he reached into the pocket of his apron to find the folder that contained their bill, “are you two in town looking at colleges?”
C HAPTER T HREE
T HE APARTMENT THAT Laurel and Talia shared was the same one they had begun renting together as students at the start of their senior year of college. It was two-thirds of the second floor of a beautiful Victorian in the hill section of Burlington, a mannered neighborhood of elegant Georgians and Victorians and even a few arts-and-crafts homes from the 1920s, only a few blocks from the university’s row of fraternity houses in one direction and the city
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