A Song in the Daylight. Paullina Simons

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СКАЧАТЬ the Great Schism. He was a linguist, a scholar, he loved movies and semiotics. He knew the differences between communism, socialism and collectivism, and could ask you fifteen questions about evolutionary theory for which you had no answer, not a single one. He could recite the Bill of Rights from the heart, knew the Declaration of Independence, and most of Shakespeare’s sonnets. By heart. His favorite writers were Dante and Donne. (“That’s because he hasn’t read past the Ds,” quipped Jared.) He thought Paradise Lost was the greatest work of literature in the English language. He spoke fluent French. No one could out-argue him. Ezra watched movies like Aronofsky’s Pi and said it was his favorite film of all time. To defy classification he also said Bachelor Party was his favorite film of all time. Larissa loved Ezra. He defied classification.

      Could this Ezra be bored?

      He looked slightly liquid, funny, completely engaged. “Yes,” he said cheerfully.

      “Oh, Ezra, just stop it,” said Maggie, laying down her letters. “You’re not bored in the slightest. All you do is stir up trouble. Stop it. It’s your turn. You’re losing, darling, you’re last at Scrabble, Professor Bored. You have 80 points, while your uneducated wife and her over-theatrical though under-ambitious best friend have 120 and 113 points respectively. It’s your turn, sweetheart, the great conversationalist.”

      Ezra put his letters down. Colloquy was his word. Bingo, plus 50 points, with Q on triple letter. Ezra was no longer last. Maggie snorted in derision and annoyance. Glancing sideways at a laughing Larissa, Ezra put his hand inside the letter bag. “All we think about is ourselves, Larissa. This breeds boredom. And unhappiness. We become like sharks, always needing to keep moving or we die.”

      “Ezra,” cut in Larissa, “but last week you told me and Evelyn and Malcolm that we needed to think more of ourselves, remember?”

      Ezra drew a blank look, and Maggie laughed. “I told you, Lar, he is nothing but a sophist,” she said. “Advocating only for the position you don’t happen to hold on this particular evening. Don’t listen to anything he says, darling.”

      “I can’t imagine myself saying this,” said a defensive Ezra. “Since I think we’re spilling out our own ears. We are stuffed to the gills with ourselves.”

      “Last week you said we were unknowable!”

      “Yes? And how is that incompatible with what I’m saying tonight?”

      “I’m not unknowable to myself,” bristled Larissa.

      “You sure about that, Lar?”

      “Positive.”

      “Describe yourself in five phrases.”

      “Fine. Um. I am a mother. I am a wife. I am a set decorator. I am a good cook. I am a lover of books.” She said the last one sheepishly.

      Ezra drew a laugh. “No, Larissa. Not who you are. What you are.”

      Less certainly she said, “I am neat. I am orderly. I am meticulous.”

      “Ah,” said Ezra. “Three different words to say the same tedious thing.”

      “I am motherly. And wiferly. I’m a planner.” She thought. “I am well-dressed.”

      He nodded. “One more. But make it a good one.”

      Larissa was still thinking. She was still thinking. It wasn’t fair. It was hard to describe yourself in five phrases.

      “But you just said you knew yourself better than you know anything,” Ezra said. “Why should it be hard at all? Just think of the five most important things about you. You can name five things about a lion, can’t you? Or a chimp?”

      Spending her days swirling red paint around on the sets of school plays. Larissa, the Jackson Pollock of high school productions of Guys and Dolls. Theater hadn’t even made the cut. How could that be? The children hadn’t made it. Love. Yearning. Contentment. None of it.

      “Get rid of one of the neat freak traits,” Ezra said, “and you’ll have more room for painting.”

      But Larissa felt it still wouldn’t get to the bottom of things. The bottom of who she was.

      Ezra clapped in delight. “It’s easier after ten minutes of nominal research to talk for an hour about anabolic metabolism than it is to talk with any degree of authority about yourself, even though you’ve been stuck with yourself your whole damn life. Clearly you’re not thinking enough about yourself, Larissa,” he concluded, stretching out his hand with the emptied Margarita glass. “See, you think you’re bored because your glass is overflowing,” he said, “but what if it had tipped over and is empty and you don’t even know it?”

8

       A Birthday Gift

      And then one night, Jared said to Larissa after dinner, with a big smile, “Whose birthday is coming up?”

      “What are you smiling about? I’m cancelling all birthdays this year.”

      “Just the opposite. We need to celebrate like we’re twenty.”

      “We’ll have to start early.” Larissa stabbed at her empty plate. “You’re asleep by ten. Did you always fall asleep by ten when you were twenty?”

      “Actually, yes. I don’t know if you’ve noticed after knowing me for twenty years, but I’m a morning person. But seriously, you want to hear what I’m thinking of for a present for one very good wife?”

      “Which part of cancelling the birthday didn’t we understand?”

      The kids had just dispersed, though loudly and not far, and husband and wife had a few precious minutes to themselves.

      Jared stared at her with his “are you finished” stare. She smiled. “I don’t need anything. I already have everything.”

      “And Ezra told us what he thinks of that,” Jared exclaimed happily. “He would prefer we had nothing—like in college. So what do you get a woman who has everything but who’s turning a very young 4–0?”

      “Diamonds?”

      “Nah, you have those. I was thinking more along the lines of,” said Jared, with a dramatic tone and expression, “a new car.”

      She stared at him dumbstruck. “A new what?”

      “A new car! Something snazzy. A sports thing. A two-seater. Not a mom car. A Larissa car.” He beamed. “A Beamer? A Merc?”

      “A Jaguar …?” she intoned dully.

      “Well … I was thinking more of something sturdy and German-made.”

      “Like a VW?”

      “No! Sturdy but snazzy. But sure, a Jag if you want.”

      “I СКАЧАТЬ