Asymmetry - Lisa Halliday Page 0,14
sorry. I’m embarrassing my husband, but I just had to tell you how much your books have meant to us.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ve got two of them on my nightstand right now.”
“Good.”
“And you,” said the woman, turning to Alice, “are very pretty.”
“Thank you,” said Alice.
When she’d left, they sat looking at each other, shyly. Ezra rested his elbows on the table. He massaged his hands.
“So, Mary-Alice, I’ve been thinking . . .” The waiter came with their drinks. “That maybe you would like to visit me out in the country this summer.”
“Really?”
“If you’d like to.”
“Of course I’d like to.”
He nodded. “You could take the train out to Greenport one Friday after work and then catch the ferry and Clete or I will pick you up.”
“Oh, I would love that. Thank you.”
“Or you could take a Friday off.”
“That sounds wonderful. I will.”
He nodded again, already seeming to weary of the idea. “But listen darling. We’ll be out there alone, for the most part, but there is Clete, and a few others who come around to mow the lawn and whatnot, so I suggest we take the precaution of giving you an alias.”
“What?”
“A different name.”
“I know what an alias is. But why?”
“Because everyone’s a gossip, you know? So we’ll call you something else while you’re there, and if anyone asks we’ll say you’re helping me with some research, and that way, if anyone talks, which of course they will, you won’t have to worry about it getting back to work.”
“Are you serious?”
“Deadly serious.”
“Um, okay. Did you have a name in mind?”
He leaned back and folded his hands on the table. “Samantha Bargeman.”
Alice laughed so suddenly she had to put down her wine. “And where,” she said, “did you get that name?”
“I made it up.” He wiped his hands on his napkin and pulled a business card from the pocket of his shirt:
SAMANTHA BARGEMAN
Editorial and Research Assistant to Ezra Blazer
“But there’s no number on it. What kind of a business card doesn’t have a number on it?”
“Sweetheart, you don’t want anyone to actually call you.”
“I know, but . . . for credibility’s sake. Who’s going to believe this is really my card?”
Unfazed, he sat back to make room for his spaghetti. He picked up his fork.
“Fine,” laughed Alice. “Did you . . . ? When were you . . . ?”
“Maybe in July. Maybe Fourth of July weekend. We’ll see.”
That night, in addition to the rest of the cards—two hundred cards, printed on butter-colored cardstock and packed tightly into a heather-gray box—he gave her:
Six green peaches.
A Vermont Country Store catalogue, from which he said she should order some Walnettos, plus whatever else she wanted, and charge it to his account.
Fifteen one-hundred-dollar bills wrapped in a notebook-lined piece of paper on which he’d written, in red marker: YOU KNOW WHERE TO GO WITH THIS.
• • •
“This week the United States Congress passed historic legislation to strengthen and modernize Medicare. Under the House and Senate bills, American seniors would for the first time in Medicare’s thirty-eight-year history receive prescription drug coverage. We’re taking action because Medicare has not kept up with the advances of modern medicine. The program was designed in the 1960s, a time when hospital stays were common and drug therapies were rare. Now drugs and other treatments can reduce hospital stays while dramatically improving the quality of care. Because Medicare does not provide coverage to pay for these drugs, many seniors have to pay for prescriptions out of pocket, which often forces them to make the difficult choice of paying for medicine or meeting other expenses. In January, I submitted to Congress a framework for Medicare reform that insisted on giving seniors access to prescription drug coverage, and offering more choices under Medicare. The centerpiece of this approach is choice. Seniors should be allowed to choose the health-care plans that suit their needs. When health-care plans compete for their business, seniors will have better, more affordable options for their health coverage. Members of Congress and other federal employees already have the ability to choose among health-care plans. If choice is good enough for lawmakers, it is good enough for American seniors—”
“Oh shut up,” muttered Alice, getting up to change the station before resuming cutting the tags off her new clothing from Searle.
At her door:
Shave and a haircut, two bits.
It was Anna, wearing a misbuttoned robe and tremulously extending a jar of sauerkraut. “Dear, can you open this?”
“. . . There you go.”
“Thank you. What’s your name?”
“Alice.”
“That’s a pretty name. Are you married?”
“Nope.”
“I thought I