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21 " Willa said, “What…?” Then she said, “You’re starting your job this June, though.” “Right.” “You want to get married in two months?” “Or it could be three, if you need more time to plan the wedding,” he said. “You mean before I finish school?” “You can finish in California.” “But at Kinney I have a full scholarship!” “So? You could get a scholarship in California, too. "
― Anne Tyler , Clock Dance
22 " Next fall I’m taking his honors course in linguistic anthropology.” “You think they don’t teach foreign languages in San Diego?” he asked. "
23 " Also, she didn’t see swimming as a social activity. Here she’d given so much thought to her clothes—slim silk pants, peach-colored tunic, Mexican huaraches—and now she was supposed to struggle into a swimsuit in somebody’s cramped cabana and dunk her carefully straightened pageboy in liquid chlorine. More to the point, though, they were having a little crisis at home and she really felt she should be there. Ian, their sixteen-year-old, was insisting that he needed a year off from high school. "
24 " Derek glanced over at her. Then he closed his magazine, leaving a finger inside as a marker, and undid his seat belt and stood up. “Trade places with me,” he said. Willa gazed up at him imploringly. “Come on. Move.” She fumbled for her seat belt. She undid the buckle, holding her breath, and then she clutched her purse and sat forward, wincing as she braced for the slam of the bullet. Nothing happened. "
25 " He had been forty-three years old—too young to think of making funeral plans. So all of that was left to Willa, "
26 " He didn’t talk about Derek at all and he avoided any contact with Willa or his brother, instead spending his evenings shut away in his room twiddling tunelessly on his guitar. Sean was the opposite: he followed Willa around pestering her for every detail of his father’s death. "
27 " Nobody would ever again focus his whole attention on her. Nobody would take on that watchful, appreciative look when she walked into a room. "
28 " Oh, sounds were what brought the past alive most clearly! "
29 " You did mess them up!’ And she had her hairbrush in her hand because I guess she’d been doing her hair and she started hitting me in the head with it, slam on one side of my head, slam on the other side, and I was ducking away and shielding my head—” “Yes, well,” Willa said, “it’s true she could be—” “You know what’s the saddest thing about kids whose mothers are mean to them? It’s that even so, their "
30 " mothers are the ones they hold their arms out to afterward for comfort. Isn’t that pathetic?” “Elaine. Just move on,” Willa said. "
31 " She felt guilty about Derek’s death, too, because she should have known better than to bring up the sensitive subject of Ian while Derek was driving. "
32 " said, ‘Many of your fellow members probably don’t believe, either, but at least in church you put yourself in position for belief. Otherwise you reduce the possibility.’ ” “Good point,” Willa said thoughtfully. “Yes, it was a good point. But I’d given it sixty-some years by then and I figured any further developments were unlikely. "
33 " When she was a child she used to imagine that her mother might painlessly die somehow and her father would marry a lovely, serene woman who would sit at Willa’s bedside when she had a bad dream and lay a cool palm on her forehead. "
34 " I broke my days into separate moments,” he said. “See, it’s true I didn’t have any more to look forward to. But on the other hand, there were these individual moments that I could still appreciate. Like drinking that first cup of coffee in the morning. Working on something fine in my workshop. Watching a baseball game on TV. "
35 " I’m Carl Dexter,” he said. "
36 " Oh, I know!” Willa said. “Who’s going to believe a couple would bother divorcing if they’ve only developed different hobbies or something? "
37 " At night she still woke up, she still mulled and worried and reflected and regretted, but after an hour or so now she would drift back into sleep, and by morning she felt well rested. She felt more or less normal, in fact. "
38 " Peter glanced up from his laptop, which he was working on now. “Have you lost your mind?” he asked her. “What?” “You’re going to walk the dog alone in the dark where somebody just got shot? "
39 " And Saturday night they come over and he’s polite as can be all evening. And Sunday morning he walks out, and him and her move in together. "
40 " I didn’t quite understand about last night,” he said. “What was that? Can we talk about it?” His voice was meek but pushy, Willa thought, and she didn’t feel like answering him, but she knew he would keep on pressing her until she did. So she shrugged again and said, “I was just overtired, I guess. "