was a good idea, forward-thinking.
Afterward, he stood in front of his bathroom sink with a towel wrapped around his waist. In the steamy mirror, his body appeared to be in a state of panic. His nipples were pink Os that the wiry hairs on his chest, pointing every which way, appeared to be riotously fleeing. He had developed a small paunch that protruded sullenly above the white towel. His eyebrows, thick and bushy like the hair on his head, were in need of a trim. Elisa had introduced him to the concept of eyebrow grooming, just as she’d introduced him to many other aesthetic innovations, such as socks that didn’t climb halfway up his calves. “Like tomatoes on a vine,” she’d said, frowning at the ring where his socks ended and his leg hair came bounding out, wild with gesticulative fervor.
In the mirror, Nate tightened his jaw and pressed his lips together. The expression was suggestive of a cable news pundit taking a moment to consider his response to a thorny question: When will Al Qaeda strike next? Does Iran have sufficient quantities of plutonium for a nuclear weapon? Although Nate had never ceased to consider his nose problematic (bulbous and peasantlike, like that of the dissipated monk in a farce), his literary agent, a brash, jolly doyenne of the industry, had told him he had a telegenic face: intelligent without being priggish, attractive but not, she told him cheerfully, so attractive as to undercut his credibility. This lastpoint Nate heard with slightly less good humor than she had delivered it with.
While getting dressed, he glanced at his laptop. He still hadn’t decided how to respond to Hannah. As he pulled on a pair of brown socks, he noticed that one had a dime-sized hole near the seam. He rotated the fabric so the hole wouldn’t catch his toe as he walked. Then it occurred to him: he was a man with a book deal. Recently, on the strength of that book deal, he’d even hired an accountant, a singular development in the life of a person who had for years come close to qualifying for the earned income tax credit. Other people, people like Jason and Peter, took for granted a much more exalted sense of what they deserved. Jason prized his well-being too highly to consign his foot to a hole-ridden sock. And Peter, struggling academic though he was, probably wore hand-sewn silk socks he special ordered from an aged Italian sock maker. Weren’t Nate’s feet entitled to the same consideration? Nate cast off the brown socks. He found another pair in his drawer.
Before leaving, he checked his e-mail one more time. Just mass mailings from various news outlets. Annoyed, he hid the mail program. In its place appeared the last Web site he had visited. A naked woman stood with her breasts pressed against a brick wall, her ass jutting out behind her as she tottered on tiptoes.
It had been a long time—nearly two months—since he’d slept with anyone. At a party the weekend before, he probably could have slept with, or at least fooled around with, a young editorial assistant, yet he’d decided at the last minute to cut out of there, to go home, by himself. Recently he had been undone by the mere dread of tears, female tears, theoretical future female tears that might never even come to pass. (Not every woman he hooked up with liked him!) In the midst of hooking up, all he needed was a moment’s fleeting sobriety for his mind to conjure up the fraught, awkward scene that might ensue after one night or two or three, when he tried to skip out of her apartment without committing himself to seeing her again, not meeting her eyes because he knewshe knew what he was doing. And then the call a few days later, when, in a studiously cheerful voice, willing herself to be optimistic, she’d casually suggest that they make plans to do something. Holding the phone next to his ear, Nate would feel not only bad but culpable. Had he led her on, acted just a tad more interested than he was out of some perverse
Afterward, he stood in front of his bathroom sink with a towel wrapped around his waist. In the steamy mirror, his body appeared to be in a state of panic. His nipples were pink Os that the wiry hairs on his chest, pointing every which way, appeared to be riotously fleeing. He had developed a small paunch that protruded sullenly above the white towel. His eyebrows, thick and bushy like the hair on his head, were in need of a trim. Elisa had introduced him to the concept of eyebrow grooming, just as she’d introduced him to many other aesthetic innovations, such as socks that didn’t climb halfway up his calves. “Like tomatoes on a vine,” she’d said, frowning at the ring where his socks ended and his leg hair came bounding out, wild with gesticulative fervor.
In the mirror, Nate tightened his jaw and pressed his lips together. The expression was suggestive of a cable news pundit taking a moment to consider his response to a thorny question: When will Al Qaeda strike next? Does Iran have sufficient quantities of plutonium for a nuclear weapon? Although Nate had never ceased to consider his nose problematic (bulbous and peasantlike, like that of the dissipated monk in a farce), his literary agent, a brash, jolly doyenne of the industry, had told him he had a telegenic face: intelligent without being priggish, attractive but not, she told him cheerfully, so attractive as to undercut his credibility. This lastpoint Nate heard with slightly less good humor than she had delivered it with.
While getting dressed, he glanced at his laptop. He still hadn’t decided how to respond to Hannah. As he pulled on a pair of brown socks, he noticed that one had a dime-sized hole near the seam. He rotated the fabric so the hole wouldn’t catch his toe as he walked. Then it occurred to him: he was a man with a book deal. Recently, on the strength of that book deal, he’d even hired an accountant, a singular development in the life of a person who had for years come close to qualifying for the earned income tax credit. Other people, people like Jason and Peter, took for granted a much more exalted sense of what they deserved. Jason prized his well-being too highly to consign his foot to a hole-ridden sock. And Peter, struggling academic though he was, probably wore hand-sewn silk socks he special ordered from an aged Italian sock maker. Weren’t Nate’s feet entitled to the same consideration? Nate cast off the brown socks. He found another pair in his drawer.
Before leaving, he checked his e-mail one more time. Just mass mailings from various news outlets. Annoyed, he hid the mail program. In its place appeared the last Web site he had visited. A naked woman stood with her breasts pressed against a brick wall, her ass jutting out behind her as she tottered on tiptoes.
It had been a long time—nearly two months—since he’d slept with anyone. At a party the weekend before, he probably could have slept with, or at least fooled around with, a young editorial assistant, yet he’d decided at the last minute to cut out of there, to go home, by himself. Recently he had been undone by the mere dread of tears, female tears, theoretical future female tears that might never even come to pass. (Not every woman he hooked up with liked him!) In the midst of hooking up, all he needed was a moment’s fleeting sobriety for his mind to conjure up the fraught, awkward scene that might ensue after one night or two or three, when he tried to skip out of her apartment without committing himself to seeing her again, not meeting her eyes because he knewshe knew what he was doing. And then the call a few days later, when, in a studiously cheerful voice, willing herself to be optimistic, she’d casually suggest that they make plans to do something. Holding the phone next to his ear, Nate would feel not only bad but culpable. Had he led her on, acted just a tad more interested than he was out of some perverse
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