Strong Motion. Jonathan Franzen

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      Eileen lived near Central Square in Cambridge. Her apartment was on the eighth floor of a modern high-rise, a tower of concrete that loomed above the ambient brick and clapboard like a thing that had failed to erode, with shops and a fish restaurant in the basement. She was at home making triple-fudge brownies one night at the end of March when Louis, whom she’d last seen reading a crime novel by the Christmas tree in Evanston, called her up and informed her that he’d moved from Houston to the town of Somerville, Cambridge’s budget-class neighbor to the north. She asked what had brought him to Somerville. Microchips, he said.

      The person who walked into her apartment a few days later, on a raw late-winter night, was effectively a stranger. At twenty-three, Louis was nearly bald on top, with just enough curls remaining to have captured sleet. His crude black oxfords squeaked on Eileen’s linoleum as he walked around her kitchen in a star-shaped path, slowly ricocheting off the counters. His cheeks and nose were red and his glasses were white with fog.

      “This is so contemporary,” he said, meaning the apartment.

      Eileen pressed her elbows to her sides and crossed her wrists on her chest. She had all four stove burners going full blast and a pot simmering on one of them. “Can’t keep it warm enough,” she said. She was wearing a bulky sweater, fluffy slippers, and a miniskirt. “I think they turn the furnace off on April first.”

      Her doorbell rang. She buzzed. “It’s Peter,” she said.

      “Peter.”

      “My boyfriend.”

      Soon there was a knock on the door, and she led the boyfriend, Peter Stoorhuys, into the kitchen. Peter’s lips were blue with cold, and his skin, which was suntanned, was a leaden gray. He hopped up and down, his hands in the pockets of his twills, while Eileen made introductions that he was evidently too frozen to pay attention to. “Shit,” he said, crouching by the stove. “It’s cold out there.”

      There was a tiredness to Peter’s face that no suntan could conceal. It was one of those urban faces that had been reconceived so many times that the skin, like a piece of paper smudged and abraded by multiple erasures, had lost its capacity to hold a clear image. Beneath the shadings of his current neo-Angeleno look were visible traces of a yuppie, a punk, a preppie, and a head. Repeated changes of style, like too much combing, had sapped his long blond hair of its resilience. For weather protection he was wearing a houndstooth jacket and a collarless shirt.

      “Peter and I were in St. Kitts last month,” Eileen explained to Louis. “We still haven’t readjusted.”

      Peter put his white-knuckled hands over two burners on the stove and toasted them, investing this warming process with such importance that there was little Eileen and Louis could do but look at him.

      “He looks like a total sillybird in hats,” Eileen said.

      “I find coats useful in this regard,” Louis said, dropping his fiberfill jacket in a corner. He was dressed in his uniform of the last eight years, a white shirt and black jeans.

      “You see, that’s the thing,” Eileen said. “His favorite coat is at the cleaner’s. Is that a silly place for it to be?”

      It was another five minutes before Peter was thawed enough to allow them all to retire to the living room. Eileen curled up on the sofa, pulling the hem of her sweater down over her bare knees and draping one arm over the back of the sofa just in time to receive the glass of whiskey Peter had poured her. Louis paced around the room, stopping to bring his face myopically close to books and other consumer goods. All of the apartment’s furnishings were new and most were combinations of white planes, black cylinders, and cherry-red plastic hardware.

      “So, Louis,” Peter said, joining Eileen with a whiskey. “Tell us a little about yourself.”

      Louis was examining the VCR’s remote-control box. In the big steamed windows the distant lights of Harvard Square formed halos the color of mother-of-pearl.

      “You’re in communications,” Peter prompted.

      “I work for a radio station,” Louis said in a very slow and very level voice. “It’s called WSNE …? News with a Twist …?”

      “Sure,” Peter said. “I’m familiar with it. Not that I ever listen, but I’ve dealt with them a couple times. In fact I understand they’re in some doo-doo, financially. Not to say that’s not the norm for a thousand-watt station. One thing I’d suggest is try to get paid at the end of every week, and whatever you do don’t let ‘em involve you in any kind of ownership scheme—”

      “Oh I won’t,” Louis said, so earnestly it would have made an observant person wary.

      “I mean, go ahead if you want,” Peter continued. “But, uh— a word to the wise.”

      “Peter sells ad space for Boston magazine,” Eileen said.

      “Among other things,” Peter said.

      “He’s thinking of applying to the business school in the fall. Not that he hardly even needs to. He knows so much stuff, Louis. He knows tons more than I do.”

      “Do you know how to listen?” Louis said suddenly.

      Peter’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

      “Do you know how to listen when you’ve asked somebody a question about themself?”

      Peter turned to Eileen to consult about this remark. He seemed to have some doubts concerning its purport. Eileen jumped to her feet. “He was just giving you some advice, Louis. We all have lots of time to listen to each other. We’re all very interested in—each other! I’m going to get some breadsticks.”

      As soon as she was out of the room, Louis sat down on the sofa and put his hand on Peter’s shoulder, his ruddy face right next to Peter’s ear. “Hey, friend,” he said. “I have some advice for you too.”

      Peter stared straight ahead, his eyes widening a little at the pressure of a swallowed smile. Louis leaned even closer. “Don’t you want to hear my advice?”

      “You’ve got some problem,” Peter observed.

      “Wear coats!”

      “Louis?” Eileen called from the kitchen. “Are you being strange to Peter?”

      Louis thumped Peter’s knee and went around behind the sofa. On the floor, on a folded-out newspaper, was a cage in which a gerbil was availing itself of an exercise wheel. The gerbil ran haltingly, pausing to stumble with its microscopic toenails on a crossbar, then galloping onward with its head high and its neck turned to one side. It didn’t seem to be enjoying itself.

      “You silly bird.” Eileen had returned from the kitchen with a faceted beer mug full of breadsticks. She handed them to Peter. “I keep telling Peter our whole family’s wacko. I’ve been warning him since the day we met not to take it personally.” With breathtaking suddenness and fluidity she dropped to her knees and, unlatching the door of the cage, extracted the gerbil by its tail. She raised it above her head and peered up at its twitching nose. Its front paws clawed the air ineffectually. “Isn’t that right, Milton Friedman?” She opened her mouth like a wolf, as if to bite its head off. Then she lowered it onto her upturned СКАЧАТЬ