"I used to work with children," Anne says.

"Everybodys wife is named Carol. You ever notice that?"

A: German?

"Im ready."

"You think he wants to go back to Philadelphia?"

Q: That doesnt mean they wont come back.

On the street Simon and Anne gaze at a brand-new Honda, the paint a glittering candy red.

"Its okay."

"I didnt mean to pry."

"I dont mean it."

"You cant generalize, they were all different. Not every child feels the same thing at the same time. They were all different. For example, some of them were male."

"Cornell."

"He hasnt said yea or nay. I gather things werent so wonderful in Philadelphia."

"Not me."

Q: Youre not tired.

"When I was young I thought everything was very funny. I cracked up a lot. Dont do that anymore."

A: You feel better.

A: As a situation, as a domestic situation, it was not unstressful. There were, naturally, competing interests, people whose interests at any one time were not con?gruent --

"Guy she met at the laundromat," Anne says. "Hes a broker. Hes with Smith Barney."

"Thats the way it is in this world," says Tim. "What does he win if he wins?"

A: Mouth, 九九藏書mostly.

"Dont know."

Q: Using what means?

A: I assume you dont drink. Except in moderation.

Q: You must be tired. Fatigued.

"Before my time," she says.

"You had a place where you worked with them?"

"And I was going to take us for oysters at the Oyster Bar."

"A boxy little ragtop. Had all the power of a lawn-mower. Never had a car after that I liked as much."

"So what were the children like?"

"Yeah. Thats kind of what I was talking about. Some people cant stand prosperity."

"Id still like to think everything was funny."

"Simon!" Anne exclaims. "Youre being possessive!"

"Electrical engineering."

"I just worked with them. Ordinary children. The children need a lot of work. Theyre just like anybody else. They need a lot of work. Theyre not finished. We glued things to paper plates. I worked with them. Daily. On a daily basis."

Q: It wasnt aspirin it was Tylenol. Extra-Strength Tylenol.

Q: Remarkable.

"What did you study?"

Q: Yes its supposed to be quite good. The drug houses send people around, detail men, they leave me samples of all sorts of things, I give them to patients. Free.

"That must be fascinating.九_九_藏_書 The indeterminacy."

A: None of that. They were, most of the time, very good to one another.

"I worked with them. We worked together, me and the children."

"Youthful arrogance."

A: The aspirin did the job.

"Not much. I work at the car wash, remember?"

Q: Dutch.

"What did you do?"

"That one sucker is going to get the other sucker," she says. "Going to clean his clock for him."

"Can you be more specific?"

A: No Im not a bit tired.

"You getting on me?"

Q: How are the headaches?

"I think its a beautiful name," Dore says. "Very Scandinavian."

Q: Physically.

"You dont want me to be possessive."

"I didnt know that, no."

A: Thats extremely generous.

"No. Maybe kind of."

Simon makes a shaping gesture with his hand.

"Is that a good place for it?"

"Thag? Who is Thag?" Simon asks.

"Its fascinating."

Q: When I was first married, when I was twenty, I didnt know where the clitoris was. I didnt know there was such a thing. Shouldnt somebody have told me?

"I can see her in long red robes with a little red yarmulke on her head and a big gold cross on a chain around her neck and a ring thaｒead•9９cｓw•coｍt you have to kiss. Standing just to the left of the throne and whispering into the ear of the king."

"During which marriage was that?"

Q: Of course she was too shy. In those days people didnt go around saying, This is the clitoris and this is what its proper function is and this is what you can do to help out. I finally found it. In a book.

"Not more disturbed than any other children. Just ordinary children."

A: I thought so.

"I was thinking more of that guy who worked for Nixon."

A: Did the job.

"I dont like what Honda did with the front end this year," he says.

"Very wrong. Still --" He puts an arm around her. "The first car I ever bought was a Hillman Minx. Ever see one of those?"

A: Havent been having them.

"Oh. Whats she like?"

Anne nods.

"You think Simons been all right lately?"

"Where did you go to school?"

Q: I feel a little less stupid. So you were pretty much in hog heaven, there, with the three women, for all those months. . .

"Disturbed children?"

DORE sitting in the back of the house, watching a bird-fight. Two black birds are struggling in midair near the ailanthus.

Q: Also, Ive given up smoking. It was quite a battle. Thehttps://read.99csw.com second finger on my right hand used to be brown, a yellow-brown. Now its not.

"What does she think of you?"

Q: Well otherwise theyd just rot, wouldnt they? I mean I have buckets and buckets. All brightly colored.

"If hes a broker whats he doing at the laundro?mat?"

A: Perhaps your wife?

"Whats your wifes name?"

Q: Not laceration of the skin by fingernails, hair-tearing, bosom-bashing. . .

A: You mean mentally tired?

"I know. Thats the hell of it."

"That snout."

"Yeah, its insensitive."

VERONICA is missing. Not precisely missing, absent, rather. For several days nobody mentions the fact. Then on a Monday Anne says, "I wonder where the hell Veronica is."

Q: You mean they fought.

"Carol."

Q: All of that. . . activity must have left you a bit tired.

"What kind of a name is Thag?" Simon asks irrita?bly.

"A certain dryness sets in. The situation dries out, as it were."

A: They were sisterly most of the time. Once in a while they fought.

"By me everythings temporary. Good things and bad things."

"Yeah it was a kind of nursery. Painted greige. Gray-beige. The color is thought to have a bearing on how the children feel. Some places have a lot o九九藏書f bright colors, thats another theory, this was a soothing calm?ing color. Greige."

"Well if she doesnt get her ass back here pretty damn quick Im going to give her bed away."

"Is that Machiavelli?"

"Probably with Thag," Dore says.

A: No Im not tired. I feel fine.

"But thats only temporary."

At the Oyster Bar under Grand Central they sit at a table next to four men in business suits. One of the men has no arms and has removed his shoes. He has mittenlike socks on his feet and holds, between the big toe and the next of the right foot, what looks to Simon like a Gibson.

"Morose," she says. "I get a definite moroseness."

A: Yes I suppose you could think that.

"Probably having a great time. The time of her life," says Dore. "Theyre probably sitting there drinking Dom Perignon and buying and selling Carbide right now." Dore reads the financial pages of the newspapers carefully and has fifty shares in a concern that is mar?keting a corrective for dry eye, or the inability to tear, a painful and depressing condition that afflicts hundreds of thousands of Americans and countless foreigners, she says.

"Is she pretty?"

"So hes thrifty. She should have called, though."