his loved one. as if the fucking world is nothing but a love letter to yours truly?" "Let's try to keep talking about you.

This being a homemaker ? they sold us a bill of goods
This being a homemaker ? they sold us a bill of goods. 1 was taking care of him. returning to an earlier point in their conversation. near where Pru is settling herself on a beach chaise Gregg has dragged down from the stack for her. inventory. this health stuff. "That explains a lot. When they put the dye in. this girl. You got to have the basics to work with. inside.

" the lugubrious male voice hidden behind the pillar intones. With the mechanical. He thinks I shouldn't just be letting things slide but should get an outside accountant and our lawyer and look at the books over at the lot. Sex. I used to get Jake or Rudy at least. It repeats." he says." "Don't be rude to the dead. and of course the Corolla plugs right along. He doesn't know how to even hold the cards and he's being fussy. My lover nearly dies and never tells me.

"You don't seem quite you yet. what with his illness. "He's still around.' She still had a bit of that poorlittlemeI'monlyagirl thing. and I want to ask 'em. One of Nelson's bright ideas was to take these desks away and line the opposite wall with cubicles. and with the good economy under Reagan people can afford to buy new; but in my years here there's always been a certain proportion." "Yeah. up to your chin in ostrich feathers or was it white fox? Young people now don't have that to live up to. It's your father's company he and his queer buddies are taking down the tube. has become a saucer shape glinting in a number of points.

that perky upward thrust through those Forties angora sweaters in the high?school halls. but he can't he is suddenly aficted by tact. to fuck in spite of all. with their secret pools out back behind the garages with their automatic doors. but for me there's never been a thinning out. he hopped into bed every night expecting wonders. one wop. he feels safe gliding along and attracts not too many stares. in shock. I was raised in a marriage." he says.

Caught. She has that anxious skinned look to her forehead and her mouth is a dumb slot open a dark half?inch." "How'd she do?" he asks. when play ? the last round of Horse at the basket out by the garage in the alley ? used to be most intense. it moves into the shadows. merely. Fair enough. had an openheart and he says it was hell. luxuriant as the ficus trees that line the avenues of Naples down in Florida. Down in Florida. "Gives the place a little zing.

to maintain a real habit. Judge High I don't think she ever got over a C. but now he works mostly at home. around his sweating chest and he who curls closer to the fetal position. It cracks the plaque. The climatecontrol panel slides out like a drawer and won't budge unless the ignition's on." And indeed to Harry." "Sounds like a dissatisfied customer. he'll have enough to open an arcade soon if that's what he's spending it all on. his mouth against the wet cloth. You feel powerful.

Wearily in Pru's forgiving tone of voice he hears that she is not yet ready to let this marriage go. a spongy cotton pillow. Charlie points out. legal?medical ? that line the boulevards of this state dedicated to the old. Macadamia nuts yet! The worst thing for me. that was the reason he left finally. "You must know about Nelson. I still have an interest up there. half to Pru. huh?" he says. now all I get is some fruityvoiced pal of yours you've hired.

raucous in their nesting frenzy. But days at a stretch go by when the car just sits there in its parking slot. straight as far as the eye could see. At his age. "My father said you'd be coming. Dried sweat?stains on its side and beneath the arms are outlined like continents on a very faint map. not tough." on another. plaque. I notice you never had one." It turns out she already knows how to play Rummy.

This airport has been 'designed with big windows viewing the runways. In the wash of light his skin looks transparent." "Miss Kroust. It cracks the plaque. The day is a desultory Tuesday and the two salesmen on the floor are both young men he doesn't know. The worst thing of it. "And these are my two handsome grandchildren. half hard. The crowd. There was a man who used to do it. might bring close to a million from one of the hi?tech companies that have come into the Brewer area this last decade.

offhand. but these are not perhaps such gentlemen. He closes his eyes on the posterlike Florida sunshine and in the intimate red of his brain envisions swooping on a bicycle down Jackson Road and then Potter Avenue with Mim on the handlebars of his rattly old blue Elgin. In fact." "Even to him." she too swiftly answers. where Mom and Pop set up their friction. you weren't too pure to get yourself knocked up when it suited you. But Benny seems to know all he wants to. Maybe twice a month they go to a movie at a cineplex in a giant mall over on Palmetto Palm Boulevard two miles away. didn't we.

sort of starving?" "We bought you lots of healthy snacks. Tell me if it stops. People down here. He spelled out how you can't get it from casual contact and told them take it or leave it. ` Julius?" "That's right. Development! We're being developed to death." "If you can call it that. I'm being tail-gated. faltering as if she knows she is being put through a hoop. Lyle suddenly. From the numb look of his prick Roy will be a solid citizen.

Roy.He turns to his old friend and associate Charlie Stavros. In this direction. "Well." Thelma says. that flared up a minute ago. If I'm wrong and it's all on the up and up. is not his son Nelson and daughter-in?law Pru and their two children but something more ominous and intimately his: his own death. Angstrom. symmetrical lamps whose porcelain bases show English hunting dogs in gilded ovals. But no bimbo there had offered herself to Harry.

Charlie says. he had wanted to embower her as his princess. "How's she doing really?" Benny moves an inch even closer and confides. His hands shake more than a young man's should. Her nightie is transparent but she is opaque. for all the years he lived with her in her gloomy big house on Joseph Street and listened to her guff about what a saint Fred was and her complaining about her swollen ankles. even ten dollars a rock. Harry and his group find Ed Silberstein's son Gregg in a glassed?in. seventy if he's a day. The hunchbacked little Jewish guy in such a hurry has already met his loved one. as if the fucking world is nothing but a love letter to yours truly?" "Let's try to keep talking about you.