All Around Atlantis: Stories
Deborah Eisenberg
Language: English
Pages: 243
ISBN: 0374270872
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
softness of the fabric, the yoke of her blouse, where flowers and jungle animals—jaguars, monkeys, snakes—bloomed and sported in a heavy embroidered wreath. “I was noticing,” Mick said. “Made it herself,” Kimball said. Mick eyed the blouse sideways, then reached out and rubbed an edge of the fabric between his thumb and forefinger. “Family does great work,” Kimball said. “Great piece,” Mick said. “Yeah.” He stared at the girl smokily. Kimball leaned over to the girl and they spoke in low
discussing this, the concept, with Jamie, no doubt driving him nuts. Not for one second could even the dimmest person alive mistake Jamie’s attitude about the whole thing for enthusiasm. Poor Morgan. The blue sky and water lie seamlessly just outside the window, across from Rosie’s little scaffold. Sometimes Rosie takes a moment to rest her mind and her aching arm, and lets herself float out there until the whir of time going by in the room recalls her to her task. It’s warm enough now so that a
Laskey. “What does—” “Absolutely nothing, Alice,” Mr. Laskey said. “In this case.” “In lots of tribes the girls bleed and they go out to little—” “Not at the table, Jane,” Mrs. Laskey said. “Janey made it up?” Alice said. “No,” Mr. Laskey said. “Yes.” “They do,” Janey said. “They—” “You heard your mother,” Mr. Laskey said. “Not at the table.” He turned to Kyla. “And what about you? Did you do a report today, too?” “I did mine last week,” Kyla said. And then, because it looked like Janey
to be my husband) returned from a business trip to somewhere and mentioned that he’d happened to catch a glimpse, on some highbrow TV talk show, of a man—perhaps the man I’d mentioned at some time—who seemed possibly to have been something of an authority on my uncle, or my mother’s uncle, or whatever it was Sándor had been to me. Naturally, that sort of called you up for a bit, and then you sank back out of my thoughts again. But you know what, Peter? Yesterday at the service, I turned around
gratitude? Did it mean nothing to Lili that her life, too, was in some measure reclaimed? What did I wish for them—that they be eternally voiceless, adrift? Plus, where did I think my tuition came from, and how did I think I would have gotten into college in the first place, the way I’d been going on without you? All right, I give up, you win, thanks. But Sándor? A bastion against Communism? Oh, please, Peter. For shame. A paradox, as Sándor once said; a conundrum. If no one was listening, at