Embarrassment

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  By the time they got going again Vix was more interested in Trisha than the ocean, and wondered if she and Lamb had been doing those things to one another, those things she and Caitlin had read about, while they were inside the cabin of the boat. She didn’t think so because they weren’t gone that long, not that she had any idea how long it would take. The ocean was exactly as she’d imagined it, exactly the way she’d seen it in a million movies. The only surprise was the smell, salty and fresh, and the roar as the waves crashed against the shore. They followed Lamb and Trisha to a place sheltered by a high clay cliff, but even so the wind whipped their hair, and when they tried to talk, sand blew into their mouths. As soon as they dropped their bags on the beach Trisha started taking off her clothes. First she unbuttoned and slipped off her shirt, revealing humongous breasts, with nipples the size of vanilla wafers. Vix had never seen anything like them. She tried to look away but she couldn’t. Despite the wind, she felt her face grow hot. Trisha could tell from the expression on her face something wasn’t right. “Oh, honey …” she said, “is this going to be embarrassing for you … because I don’t have to undress.” She had to shout to make herself heard. She looked over at Lamb for guidance. “I think it would be better …” Lamb began. “Gotcha,” Trisha said, pulling on her shirt. “It’s a nude beach,” Caitlin told Vix, “but you don’t have to take off your clothes. I never do.” Only then did Vix shade her eyes and look around. It was true! Most of the people on the beach were totally naked. Lamb stepped out of his jeans and for a second Vix held her breath because no way did she want to see his Package, but it was okay, he was wearing a tiny Speedo, the kind Mark Spitz wore at the Olympics when he won all those medals, when she was just in second grade. She could not believe the way they were all acting, as if a beach full of nudists was no big deal. “So, Vix …” Lamb said, “what do you think?” “Think?” “Of the ocean.” “Oh, the ocean.” She tried to think of something interesting to say but the ocean wasn’t number one on her mind. When she didn’t respond, Lamb laughed. “Pretty overwhelming, huh, kiddo?” Then he and Trisha grabbed hands and headed for the waves. She imagined telling her mother that Lamb had taken her to a nude beach. Indecent , her mother would say. Lewd and indecent and I want you on the next boat out of there! Her parents did not walk around without their clothes. Her mother was, after all, a Lapsed Catholic.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  “Maybe,” Vix said. She wondered if the boys knew she had her period, if they’d noticed the bulge in her shorts when she’d stepped out of the car. “Just maybe?” Caitlin asked. “Probably. Is that better?” “Yes, definitely better.” That night they sat facing each other in the old claw-footed tub which had somehow escaped renovation. Caitlin had convinced Vix no menstrual blood would come out in the tub, but if it did she wouldn’t mind. “You’re really growing,” Caitlin said, focusing on Vix’s chest. Vix felt her face grow hot. “I know.” They hadn’t seen each other naked since last summer. Caitlin was still flat. “What’s it feel like?” Caitlin asked. “What’s what feel like?” “To have tits?” “I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like anything.” “Can I touch them?” “I guess.” Caitlin leaned over and cupped her hands around them. Vix had touched them herself but this was the first time anyone else had. It made her feel funny, as if she couldn’t breathe. “Do you still have The Power?” Caitlin asked. Vix nodded. “Do you use it?” “Sometimes. Do you?” “Sometimes.” Caitlin gave Vix a sly smile then slid underwater. Her hair fanned out and for a minute she looked dead. Vix had worried that Caitlin would find another summer sister, someone to replace her. It wasn’t until they’d boarded the plane at the end of last summer that Caitlin had broken the news. She was going to Mountain Day, a private school in Santa Fe. Vix had been completely crushed. “Cheer up!” Caitlin had told her. “For all we know we’ll die today. The plane might crash, anything could happen.” But the idea of losing Caitlin was even worse than having the plane

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  Sometimes you’ll sit down or go walking and your thoughts will be on one aspect of your work, or one idea you have for a small scene, or a general portrait of one of the characters you are working with, or you’ll just be completely blocked and hopeless and wondering why you shouldn’t just go into the kitchen and have a nice glass of warm gin straight out of the cat dish. And then, unbidden, seemingly out of nowhere, a thought or image arrives. Some will float into your head like goldfish, lovely, bright orange, and weightless, and you follow them like a child looking at an aquarium that was thought to be without fish. Others will step out of the shadows like Boo Radley and make you catch your breath or take a step backward. They’re often so rich, these unbidden thoughts, and so clear that they feel indelible. But I say write them all down anyway. Now, I have a number of writer friends who do not take notes out there in the world, who say it’s like not taking notes in class but listening instead. I think that if you have the kind of mind that retains important and creative thoughts—that is, if your mind still works—you’re very lucky and you should not be surprised if the rest of us do not want to be around you. I actually have one writer friend—whom I think I will probably be getting rid of soon—who said to me recently that if you don’t remember it when you get home, it probably wasn’t that important. And I felt eight years old again, with something important to say that had suddenly hopped down one of the rabbit holes in my mind, while an adult nearby was saying priggishly, “Well! It must not have been very important then.” So you have to decide how you feel about this. You may have a perfectly good memory and be able to remember three hours later what you came up with while walking on the mountain or waiting at the dentist’s. And then again, you may not. If it feels natural, if it helps you to remember, take notes. It’s not cheating. It doesn’t say anything about your character. If your mind is perhaps the merest bit disorganized, it probably just means that you’ve lost a little ground. It may be all those drugs you took when you were younger, all that nonhabitforming marijuana that you smoked on a daily basis for twenty years. It may be that you’ve had children. When a child comes out of your body, it arrives with about a fifth of your brain clutched in its little hand, like those babies born clutching IUDs. So for any number of reasons, it’s only fair to let yourself take notes. My index-card life is not efficient or well organized. Hostile, aggressive students insist on asking what I do with all my index cards.

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  So we decided not even to bother with our parents’ handwriting on the outside of the brown paper lunch bag—how much it resembled a Turkish assassin’s and what that said about us. We decided to set aside the bag itself for a moment. For the time being we’d stick with the contents, and, to begin with, the sandwich. That was the one-inch picture frame we were going to look through. Your sandwich was the centerpiece, and there were strict guidelines. It almost goes without saying that store-bought white bread was the only acceptable bread. There were no exceptions. If your mother made the white bread for your sandwich, you could only hope that no one would notice. You certainly did not brag about it, any more than you would brag that she also made headcheese. And there were only a few things that your parents could put in between the two pieces of bread. Bologna was fine, salami and unaggressive cheese were fine, peanut butter and jelly were fine if your parents understood the jelly/jam issue . Grape jelly was best, by Jar, a nice slippery comforting sugary petroleum-product grape. Strawberry jam was second; everything else was iffy. Take raspberry, for instance— Now, see, I couldn’t remember, as I wrote in class, just exactly what it was about raspberry jam that was so disconcerting. So when I got home that night, I called a friend who is also a writer, very successful and maybe the most neurotic person I know. I said, Remember how in elementary school, grape jelly was best in your lunch, strawberry jam was Okay, but raspberry was real borderline? Can you talk to me about your experiences with these things? And my friend went into an impassioned, disoriented riff about how there was too much happening in raspberry jam, too many seeds per spoonful. It felt like there were all these tiny little pod people in it. It was Body-Snatcher jam. My friend then mentioned apricot jam, which was even worse than raspberry. I had not thought about this in thirty years, but now it all came back with horrible clarity. Apricot jam looked too much like glue, or mucilage. But you could count on having apricot jam when your father made the lunch. Fathers loved apricot jam; I don’t know why, but I’m sure Anna Freud could have a field day with it. I sat down that night and kept writing: In general, come to think of it, when fathers made lunches, things always turned out badly. Fathers were so oblivious back then. They were like foreigners.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  The porches were every bit as furnished as the insides of most houses, with rust-stained refrigerators, folding card tables, hook rugs, couches or car seats for serious porch-sitting, and maybe a battered armoire with a hole cut in the side so the cat would have a cozy place to sleep. We followed the road almost to the end, where Dad pointed up at our new house. “Well, kids, welcome to Ninety-three Little Hobart Street!” Mom said. “Welcome to home sweet home.” We all stared. The house was a dinky thing perched high up off the road on a hillside so steep that only the back of the house rested on the ground. The front, including a drooping porch, jutted precariously into the air, supported by tall, spindly cinder-block pillars. It had been painted white a long time ago, but the paint, where it hadn’t peeled off altogether, had turned a dismal gray. “It’s good we raised you young ’uns to be tough,” Dad said. “Because this is not a house for the faint of heart.” Dad led us up the lower steps, which were made of rocks slapped together with cement. Because of settling and erosion and downright slipshod construction, they tilted dangerously toward the street. Where the stone steps ended, a rickety set of stairs made from two-by-fours—more like a ladder than a staircase—took you up to the front porch. Inside were three rooms, each about ten feet by ten feet, facing onto the front porch. The house had no bathroom, but underneath it, behind one of the cinder-block pillars, was a closet-sized room with a toilet on a cement floor. The toilet wasn’t hooked up to any sewer or septic system. It just sat atop a hole about six feet deep. There was no running water indoors. A water spigot rose a few inches above the ground near the toilet, so you could get a bucket and tote water upstairs. While the house was wired for electricity, Dad confessed that we could not at the moment afford to have it turned on. On the upside, Dad said, the house had cost only a thousand dollars, and the owner had waived the down payment. We were supposed to pay him fifty dollars a month. If we could make the payments on time, we’d own the place outright in under two years. “Hard to believe that one day this will all be ours,” said Lori. She was developing what Mom called a bit of a sarcastic streak. “Count your blessings,” Mom said. “There are people in Ethiopia who would kill for a place like this.” She pointed out that the house did have some attractive features. For example, in the living room was a cast-iron potbellied coal stove for heating and cooking. It was big and handsome, with heavy bear-claw feet, and she was certain it was valuable, if you took it to a place where people appreciated antiques.

• From City of Night (1963)

  “Now a nice rest,” the man said. His voice shook slightly, as when he asked us to get “Comfortable.” We went into the bedroom, where there were twin beds. Pete lay in one, I lay in the other. The man came in with a chair, which he stations between the two beds. “Now take a long rest,” he said. Pete is looking at me steadily, as if to remind me to play along; winks—then pretends to fall asleep immediately. He even snored a couple of times. I lay in bed, my eyes supposedly closed, but I was glancing at the man: He sat on the chair, his chin propped on his hands: staring fixedly from one to the other; occasionally his face would brighten up benevolently like a mother watching over her adored children.... After about 15 minutes, he “woke” us, and we sat in the bedroom, on one bed, Pete and I, and played checkers, while the man watched us with the fascinated attention of a child enjoying a cartoon. Pete couldnt play checkers, and we sat there merely moving them back and forth. “We’ll have to go now, Mom,” Pete said finally. I looked at him startled. Had he called him “Mom”? Pete nods at me, indicating I must do the same. I couldnt bring myself to call him “Mom.” The old man looked at me with a hurt look. “Well have to go now, Mom,” Pete repeated. He gives me an exasperated look. “Oh, must you?” the man said. “Im so sorry you cant stay longer.” He removed the apron, rubbed his hands on it, folded it neatly, and he went into the kitchen. Pete follows, him. I can hear voices. Then Pete returns, hands me $5.00. “You fucked up, spote,” he told me, shaking his head. “You didnt call him Mom. Just five bucks. When hes real happy, he lays ten.” He shook his head regretfully. “But we can come again, and if youre cool we’ll score more. Why—didnya—call—him—Mom?”

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  —Sí, lo he visto —le aseguro, dejando caer mi mano—. Es solo que... no sé. Parece como algo superfluo. Pone los ojos en blanco, con su mirada en las piedras otra vez. —Son las pequeñas cosas las que añaden personalidad a una casa —me dice— . Un candelabro artístico, la alfombra correcta y la placa para salpicaduras. —Da vuelta a la hoja, mirándome y mostrándome—. Esto va contigo. Quedaría genial con lo que has hecho en la cocina. — Conmigo, ¿eh? —Dejo escapar una risita, mirándola a los ojos—. ¿Y qué soy? Su sonrisa cae y una mirada de sorpresa atraviesa sus ojos. Parpadeo. —No quise decir eso... de esa forma —le digo. No es lo que dije, sino cómo lo dije. Demasiado insinuante. Sin embargo, parece restarle importancia, girando la hoja y mirándola con aprecio nuevamente. —Me recuerda a una cueva —dice finalmente—. Eres como una cueva. No revelas todos tus secretos a la vez. Quién sabe qué tan profundo llegas, ¿cierto? Mis cejas se levantan. ¿Qué? ¿Qué tan profundo llego? ¿Acaba de...? Sus ojos repentinamente recorren el espacio y mueve su mirada rápidamente hacia mí, luciendo mortificada. —Quiero decir —dice apresuradamente—, como... en el... en el interior. Tu personalidad. —Un rubor cubre sus mejillas—. No quise decirlo como... ugh. —Sus hombros se hunden y vuelve a meter la hoja en la caja, rindiéndose—. Ahora iré a babear sobre los accesorios para el baño. Adiós. Y se aleja de mí rápidamente, desapareciendo por un pasillo. Mi boca se curva en una sonrisa y rompo en una risa silenciosa, mirándola. —Entonces, ¿qué piensa? —Un joven con un delantal naranja aparece por el rabillo de mi ojo. Sin embargo, no lo miro, sigo mirando el pasillo por el que ella acaba de desaparecer. —Comenzaremos con tres cajas de esto. —Señalo las baldosas en el estante—. Veremos cómo lucen... Se acerca y comienza a descargar las cajas. —Sabia elección. Esposa feliz, vida feliz, ¿cierto? Esposa feliz, vida… Lo miro sacar una caja y llevársela, y el pulso en mi cuello palpita repentinamente. ¿Piensa que es mi esposa? Una sonrisa tira de la esquina de mi boca y no estoy exactamente seguro de qué emoción está llenando mi pecho en este momento, pero se siente bien y hay mucho de eso. Más tarde esa noche, me recuesto en el sofá con el brazo metido detrás de la cabeza y una cerveza en la mano, mirando la televisión. He estado en un lúcido aturdimiento desde hace un rato, mientras un programa se ha convertido en cinco. Dejo mi cerveza y levanto el control remoto, finalmente apagando el HGTV y parpadeando, creo que por primera vez en tres horas. —Tiene razón —murmuro—. Están malditamente obsesionados con la placa para salpicaduras. En un momento de curiosidad, había sintonizado el canal después de llegar a casa de Home Depot y es como si me hubiera desmayado después de eso, solo despertando momentáneamente para hacer un sándwich e intentar hablar con Cole.

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  I cleared my throat and toed the carpet and said, “No, I’m a writer.” She said, “Oh, wow! I read absolutely every thing. Tell me your name.” I knew I was in trouble. I knew I was going to get nailed, but my ego had become Nelson Rockefeller, and it felt like mingling. My wiser self knew I was already too far in to stop now. I said, “No, no, you won’t have heard of me, and it’ll make me feel terrible.” She stood firm. “Honest,” she said, “I read every thing.” Part of me believed I had become so famous that when I told her my name, she’d react as if Paul McCartney had just dropped into her store. The wiser part of me knew I was a goner for sure. I started to pray at that point, only I was praying to her: please, please don’t make me tell you my name. I smiled demurely, like we’d had our fun and I’d better go get Sam, who was hiding under a rack of dresses making rude noises. “Beth, Beth,” the shop owner called out suddenly. “Come here!” A young woman stepped out from the back room with an expectant look on her face. “Beth,” the owner said, “don’t I read everything? Tell her!” Beth said yes, yes, this is true, she reads every thing. Then the owner looked at me kindly, and said, “Now come on, what’s your name?” I sighed, smiled, and finally said, “Anne Lamott.” She stared at me with great concern. The room was very quiet, except for Sam under the dress rack. Then she pursed her lips and slowly shook her head. “No,” she said. “I guess not.” It took me about a week and a great deal of cheap chocolate to get over that. But then I remembered that whenever the world throws rose petals at you, which thrill and seduce the ego, beware. The cosmic banana peel is suddenly going to appear underfoot to make sure you don’t take it all too seriously, that you don’t fill up on junk food. All that I know about the relationship between publication and mental health was summed up in one line of the movie Cool Runnings , which is about the first Jamaican bobsled team. The coach is a four-hundred-pound man who had won a gold in Olympic bobsledding twenty years before but has been a complete loser ever since. The men on his team are desperate to win an Olympic medal, just as half the people in my classes are desperate to get published. But the coach says, “If you’re not enough before the gold medal, you won’t be enough with it.”

• From City of Night (1963)

  All this happened within perhaps a week. And more. More—forgotten... incidents stretching into a crowded but somehow vastly empty plain. Within that period there appeared a face which at the time had little significance but which I would remember later. Outside of Coffee Andy’s—a good pickup place if you can avoid the periodically rousting cops—a very young boy whom I recognize as a hustler asks me for a match. “Howre you making it?” he asked me. “Okay.” I distrusted him. “Made it today?” I hesitate. He said impatiently: “Oh, man, dig: You dont have to play square with me. Save it for the hicks. Im cool—Im making the same scene you are.” He was at the most 18. He looked like hundreds of other youngmen in Hollywood, not tall, almost thin—slouched; his pants, beltless, loose below the waist: a street-hood type with brown hair—not really handsome but of a type that scores find attractive. He has a look that may be meanness or a premature bitterness at the discovery of what life is really like. “Man,” hes saying, his eyes shifting scanning the street for a prospect, “you know what Im gonna do tonight? Im gonna find me a rich queer and clip him for every coin—I mean, Im gonna leave him pantless!... But, see, I aint been here too long—and I dont know the scene too good yet. So, see, what I’d dig: I’d dig finding some swinging cat wholl help me clip the queer—you know—take him to a dark street—or some cool pad youre Sure of....” I know what hes leading to, even before he says: “You wanna help me?... See, one of us picks him up. Both of us jump him—split the bread. You make it much better that way.” Typically, hes talking tough—impressing himself—but he needs someone to give him courage: another’s rashness spurring him on to the action.... I havent answered him. For some reason, I dislike him. “My name is Dean,” he was going on now, extending his hand, trying to be friends. “I just got into town a few days ago, like I say. I hitchhiked—that cocksucker that gave me a ride, he laid some bread on me,” he boasts, “and he told me all about this scene.” Despite the masculine street-hood exterior, the tough jive-sounds, there is something vaguely, subtly soft emerging about him. “But, shit, man,” he says, “you know what Im gonna do, man, when I really get to pinning this scene, man? Im gonna find me a real rich queer so I wont have to hassle it, man. Hell, man, I been sleeping sometimes in the flix, until they kick me out—and, man, I dont dig that scene. It’s hoomilating!... And, see, if that queer aint rich enough, man, I’ll meet another one through him....” He goes on Bigly like that Then: “Whattayasay, man? You wanna help me tumble a fruit?”

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Her face was hidden, but I could see her hands - which were slender and rather pale - with peculiar clarity: they held a card or a pamphlet, which they flapped in the still, warm air like a fan. All of these figures were gathered around a table, upon which stood a jar of flaccid little daisies and the remains of an economical supper: tea and cocoa, cold meat and pickle, and a cake. Despite the long faces and forced smiles, there was something celebratory about the scene. It was, I supposed, a sort of house-warming party - though I could not fathom the relationship between the lady mandolinist and the poor, drab little family to whom she played. Nor was I sure about the other girl, with the pale hands; she, I thought, could have belonged in either camp. The tune changed, and I could sense the family growing restless. I lit a cigarette and studied the scene: it was as good a thing to watch, I thought, as any. At length the girl behind the curtain ceased her intermittent fanning and rose. Stepping carefully around the group, she approached the window: it, like my own, opened on to a little balcony, upon which she now stepped, and from which she surveyed, with a mild glance and a yawn, the quiet street beneath. There were not more than twelve yards between us, and we were almost level; but, as I had guessed , I was only another shadow against my own shadowy chamber, and she hadn’t noticed me. 1, for my part, had still not seen her face. The window and curtains framed her beautifully, but the light was all from behind. It streamed through her hair, which seemed curly as a corkscrew, and lent her a kind of flaming nimbus, such as a saint might have in the window of a church; her face, however, was left in darkness. I watched her. When the music stopped, and there was a self-conscious smattering of applause and then a bit of desultory chatter, still she kept her place on the balcony and didn’t look round. At last my cigarette burned down, almost to my fingers, and I cast it into the street below. She caught the gesture: gave a start, then squinted at me, then grew stiff. Her confusion - despite the darkness, I could see from the tips of her ears that she flushed - disconcerted me, till I recollected my gentleman’s costume. She took me for some insolent voyeur! The thought gave me an odd mixture of shame and embarrassment and also, I must confess, pleasure.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  drops her dress over her head, then she’s running ... running through clumps of beach plum and bayberry that scratch her legs ... running ... running, until she comes to the main road, where she hitches a ride with the first car to come along, two women on their way to the early morning ferry. Maybe she should keep going, just get on the ferry, get off this island. But they’d worry about her. Abby would say, Look, her bed wasn’t slept in. Something terrible has happened ... I know it. They’d call the police who would find her underwear in Bru’s truck or his bed or wherever she left it and accuse him of something even worse than the truth. The wedding would be postponed. “Is this close enough?” the driver asks at the sign pointing to the B&B. “Yes, thanks.” As Vix is walking the mile back she runs into Philippe— shit—who’s out for an early morning jog. Does he notice she’s still in last night’s clothes? “Ah, Veek-toria ... enjoying an early morning walk?” “Yes,” she tells him, picking up her pace. “I always walk before breakfast.” He eyes her up and down and she knows that he knows she didn’t sleep in her room. But he doesn’t have a clue about where she spent the night or with whom.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  I’m not here—” He was obviously confused and uncomfortable. “You were a Catholic as a child, right?” Koppel asked helpfully. “Yeah.” “So you know full well that those issues are questions of faith.” Miscavige wouldn’t accept the life raft that Koppel offered him. Scientology is sold as an entirely rational approach to understanding and mastering existence. “No, no,” Miscavige replied. “Talk about the Van Allen Belt or whatever, that forms no part of current Scientology, none whatsoever.” “But what did he mean when he was talking about it?” “Quite frankly, this tape here, he’s talking about the origins of the universe, and I think you’re going to find that in any, any, any religion, and I think you can make the same mockery of it. I think it’s offensive.” “I’m not mocking it, I’m asking you a question,” Koppel replied. “You turn it around and ask me about Catholicism. I say we’re talking about areas of faith.” “Well, it’s not even a matter of faith,” Miscavige insisted, “because Scientology is about you, yourself, and what you do. You’re bringing up something that isn’t part of current Scientology, that isn’t something that Scientologists study, that is part of some tape taken from, I have no idea, and asking me about it and asking me to put it in context, that I can’t do.” Later, Miscavige told Koppel that he had never heard the Hubbard tape before. (It was a part of a lecture Hubbard gave in 1963, in which he talked about the between-lives period, when thetans are transported to Venus to have their memories erased.) After the show, Miscavige returned to the greenroom, where Rinder, Rathbun, and Norman Starkey, another executive, were waiting. “How’d I do?” he asked. “Gee, sir, you kicked ass,” one of the men said. “It was a home run,” Rathbun assured him. “Really?” Miscavige asked doubtfully. “Jesus Christ, I was just there and I don’t know. The guy was pissing me off so much.” Koppel won an Emmy for that show. Miscavige took credit for it, saying, “I got Ted the Emmy.” He even had a replica of an Emmy made and placed in the Officers Lounge at Gold Base. But he never went on television again. THE TIME STORY WAS a turning point in the church’s history. The embarrassment for Scientology celebrities undercut the church’s strategy of making the religion appear to be a spiritual refuge for the show- business elite. One of the chief appeals of the religion to prospective recruits was the perceived network that Scientology provided its members, especially in Hollywood, awarding them an advantage in a ruthlessly competitive industry. With the Time article, affiliation with the church became an embarrassing liability. Tom Cruise was one of the stars who appeared to be backing away from Scientology.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  eye for faces and you and Lamb are dead ringers.” Caitlin neither confirmed nor denied. Vix felt a tightening in her chest that grew worse as Abby shouted at Lamb. “You think it’s enough to love them, but I don’t. They’re fifteen years old. They need guidance. It’s up to us to encourage them to act responsibly.” “Save the lecture for the kids, Ab.” “Dammit, Lamb! When is the last time you took a good look at your daughter? She’s not a little girl anymore. And neither is Vix ... in case you haven’t noticed.” Ohmygod! This was so embarrassing. Vix felt her face grow hot and she looked at the floor. “Caitlin’s right,” Abby said. “I don’t fit in. I’m never going to fit in. I don’t even know if I want to fit in.” “Don’t make this into something you’re going to regret,” Lamb told her. “I’m going to regret? You’d have plenty to regret if that man had driven into the woods with the girls. I don’t even want to think about what might have happened.” Vix prayed she’d never find out about their adventure with Tim Castellano. “You worry too much about things that are never going to happen!” “I’m glad you have some special god watching over you while the rest of us ...” “Are you getting your period, Ab? Is that it?” She must have thrown something at him then, a book or her purse, because they heard a thud, then Lamb calling, “Jesus!” “I’m not sure how much more I can take of this family,” Abby shouted, before she burst into tears. Daniel severed a head of lettuce with a chopping knife. Gus glanced over at Vix. She looked away, ashamed of having had any part in this. By then she’d grown so used to hitching it hadn’t seemed like a big thing. How else to get to all the beaches, to town to browse, to the construction site where they’d hang out, waiting for Von and Bru to take a break? “Come on, honey,” Lamb said, “let’s talk about it in the car. We’re already half an hour late.”

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  This little speech enraged the Cook. He shook his head, he gnawed his lip, he stared hard at the Manciple. But he was too drunk to say anything. Words failed him. Then he fell off his horse. He lay helpless in the mud, as some of the pilgrims tried to lift him up. There was much shoving and pushing, much tugging and heaving, before they got him back into his saddle. He may have looked as pale as a ghost, but he was heavy enough. If only he had kept hold of his ladle, and never uncorked a bottle. He would have been a better horseman, that’s for sure. Harry Bailey came up to the Manciple. ‘You can see for yourself how drunk he is. He could no more tell a story than my horse. I don’t know whether he has been drinking wine or ale, but the effect is the same. He talks through his nose. And did you hear that sneeze? He has a bad cold as well. I don’t suppose he can keep on his saddle and talk at the same time. He can hardly ride a straight line. If he falls from his horse a second time, it will be very difficult to hoist him up again. So, sir, please take his place. Tell us a story. I must mention one thing, though, before you begin. I think you were unwise to criticize him so publicly. One of these days he may pay you back, and lay some small charge against you. He may find fault with your accounts, for example, or with your expenses. I know that he has dealings with you. Trifles can sometimes cause a lot of trouble.’ ‘God forbid that should happen. As you say, it is not difficult to point out small mistakes. I would rather pay for his horse than get into a legal tangle with him. I didn’t mean to upset him. Honestly. It was a joke. And do you know what? I know how to calm him down. Here in my satchel I have a flask of good Rhenish wine. Shall we have a bit of fun? Roger of Ware will gulp this down in a second. Just see if I’m wrong. He cannot refuse a drink.’ The Manciple was not wrong. The Cook took up the flask, and drained it in a moment. He really did not need the wine, of course. He had drunk more than enough already. Then he returned the flask and, as far as he was able, thanked the Manciple. ‘Thashwasgood.’

• From The Case for God (2009)

  In his treatise The Divine Names, Denys symbolically reproduced God’s descent from his exalted solitude into the material world, so he began by discussing the more elevated and lofty divine attributes. At first, each one sounds perfectly appropriate, but closer examination reveals it to be inherently unsatisfactory. It is true that God is One—but this term properly applies only to beings defined by numerical quantities. God is Trinity but that does not mean that the three personae add up to any kind of triad that is familiar to us. God is Nameless—yet he has a multiplicity of names. God must be Intelligible—and yet God is Unknowable; God is certainly not “good” like a “good” human being or a “good” meal. Gradually, we become aware that even the most exalted things we say about God are bound to be misleading.71 Then, following God’s descent into the depths of the material world, we consider the physical and obviously inadequate images of God in the Bible. These texts cannot, of course, be read literally, because they are full of “so many incredible or fictitious fairy tales.” From the very first chapter of Genesis, the Bible calls God a creator “as if he was a mere artisan” but goes on to say even more ludicrous things. Scripture supplies God with horses and chariots and thrones and provides delicately prepared banquets and depicts Him drinking and drunk, and drowsy and suffering from a hangover. And what about God’s fits of anger, His griefs, His various oaths, His moments of repentance, His curses, His wraths, the manifold and crooked reasons given for His failure to fulfil promises?72 But crass as this seems, it is valuable, because this gross theologia shocks us into an appreciation of the limitations of all theological language.73 We have to remember this when we speak about God, listen critically to ourselves, realize that we are babbling incoherently, and fall into an embarrassed silence. When we listen to the sacred text read aloud during Mass and apply this method to the readings, we start to understand that even though God has revealed these names to us, we have no idea what they can mean. So we have to deny them, one after the other, and in the process make a symbolic ascent from earthly modes of perception to the divine. It is easy to deny the physical names: God is plainly not a rock, a gentle breeze, a warrior, or a creator. But when we come to the more conceptual descriptions of God, we find that we have to deny these too. God is not Mind in any sense that we can understand; God is not Greatness, Power, Light, Life, Truth, Imagination, Conviction, Understanding, Goodness—or even Divinity.74 We cannot even say that God “exists” because our experience of existence is based solely on individual, finite beings whose mode of being bears no relation to being itself:

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Pone los ojos en blanco y se da la vuelta, agarrando una caja de Bud Light y dejándola en mis brazos. La agarro justo a tiempo. Luego se estira para tomar una caja de Budweiser y toma la delantera para salir de la habitación, terminando con nuestra conversación. Pero la sigo, llevando la caja para ponerla sobre mi hombro. —No vas a trabajar en The Hook —le digo. —Y no eres mi papá. Casi le lanzo una mirada de odio detrás de su espalda, pero eso sería inmaduro. ¿Por qué arruinar el excelente ejemplo de un adulto sensato y responsable que he establecido desde que entró en mi casa? Deja su caja sobre la barra y se da vuelta, tomando también la caja que tengo yo. Abro la boca para tratar de decir algo, cualquier cosa, para suavizar cualquier daño que haya hecho de nuevo y aun así, intentar que se ponga algo de maldita ropa. Pero me interrumpe antes que pueda decir algo. —Necesito otra caja de Bud Light —me ordena por encima del hombro. Sacudo mi cabeza. Maldito sea su descaro. Me doy la vuelta y vuelvo al almacén de licor, tomando otra caja de cerveza. Después de dejarla en la barra, me dirijo a la mesa donde los chicos todavía están congregados y saco la misma botella de Busch Light que tenía antes. —¿Te quedas? —pregunta Dutch. Me encojo de hombros, mirando a cualquier parte menos a la barra. —Por un rato, supongo. Me bebo la botella en un minuto y no es mi cerveza favorita, pero de repente estoy demasiado avergonzado para ahora ir al bar y pedirle Corona. Debí haber pedido una cuando estuve allí. Sin embargo, una mesera se acerca y estoy a punto de llamar su atención, pero noto que ya se dirige hacia mí con una bandeja de tragos. Es linda con su minifalda negra y chaleco negro, pero no luce mucho más grande que Jordan. Sonríe. —Hola, chicos. —Y luego comienza a descargar su bandeja, acomodando una ronda de tragos frente a nosotros. Tienen rosa o naranja en el fondo con algún tipo de líquido amarillo en la parte superior. —¿Qué es esto? —pregunta Jason Bryant, uno de mis chicos. —Se llama Pastel Volteado de Piña —dice—. Va por cuenta de la casa. Jordan dice que son los favoritos de Pike. Una ronda de risas explota alrededor de la mesa ante el trago “elegante” que ahora todo el mundo cree que bebo y lanzo a Jordan una mirada en la barra. Sonríe, dándome su sonrisa más grande y orgullosa. Y ahora ya no estamos enojados el uno con el otro. Tomando el trago, lo bebo, el alcohol baja como un caramelo y aunque sabe bien, no estoy seguro de cuál es el punto. No puede haber suficiente alcohol para sentir algo. Aunque estoy seguro que será un chiste muy exitoso si alguna otra vez decido unirme a los chicos para tomar una copa.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  But to tell the truth, by then he couldn’t have cared less. I could have spit it onto the floor and he wouldn’t have noticed. That’s how out of it he was. You should try it ... that is, if you haven’t already.” Vix knew Caitlin was fishing but she wasn’t taking her bait. “Oh, now I’ve embarrassed you!” Caitlin said. “I’m not embarrassed.” “You are ... I can tell.” “Okay, fine. I’m embarrassed.” Caitlin laughed, squeezed Vix’s thigh, and sang all the way home. Sharkey SOMETHING’S GOING ON and he doesn’t like it. He follows them one night way the hell out to Menemsha Pond. Sees Vix climb into the back of a truck with some guy. What’s she doing with him? She could get herself in real trouble. And who knows what Caitlin’s up to with the other one? Should he say something to Lamb? If he does and they find out they’ll accuse him of being weird, of never having sex except by himself. The Portnoy of his generation. He can’t fall asleep without jerking off, imagining how it would be if they got into the back of his truck, his sister and her best friend. He can’t even look at them anymore without being scared he’ll get a hard-on. Lamb would kill him if he knew. But he’s never going to know. No one is.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  “We’re on our way out to Gay Head,” Lamb said. “Want to join us?” Vix had just found out that gay and head had meanings she hadn’t known about before, and hearing Lamb say those words aloud made her feel funny. “Be with you in two seconds,” Trisha said. “Just let me grab my stuff.” She jumped down onto her boat and ducked inside the cabin. Lamb followed. “They’re just friends,” Caitlin said, while she and Vix waited. “From the old days ... when Lamb lived up here. They might still have sex though. I’m almost sure they do. I wouldn’t mind if they got married. She’s a flake but she loves us.” They picked up lunch along the way—clam dogs and lobster rolls. Vix had never heard of either and ordered french fries with ketchup. By the time they got going again Vix was more interested in Trisha than the ocean, and wondered if she and Lamb had been doing those things to one another, those things she and Caitlin had read about, while they were inside the cabin of the boat. She didn’t think so because they weren’t gone that long, not that she had any idea how long it would take. The ocean was exactly as she’d imagined it, exactly the way she’d seen it in a million movies. The only surprise was the smell, salty and fresh, and the roar as the waves crashed against the shore. They followed Lamb and Trisha to a place sheltered by a high clay cliff, but even so the wind whipped their hair, and when they tried to talk, sand blew into their mouths. As soon as they dropped their bags on the beach Trisha started taking off her clothes. First she unbuttoned and slipped off her shirt, revealing humongous breasts, with nipples the size of vanilla wafers. Vix had never seen anything like them. She tried to look away but she couldn’t. Despite the wind, she felt her face grow hot. Trisha could tell from the expression on her face something wasn’t right. “Oh, honey ...” she said, “is this going to be embarrassing for you ... because I don’t have to undress.” She had to shout to make herself heard. She looked over at Lamb for guidance. “I think it would be better ...” Lamb began.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  God is Nameless —yet he has a multiplicity of names. God must be Intelligible—and yet God is Unknowable; God is certainly not “good” like a “good” human being or a “good” meal. Gradually, we become aware that even the most exalted things we say about God are bound to be misleading. 71 Then, following God’s descent into the depths of the material world, we consider the physical and obviously inadequate images of God in the Bible. These texts cannot, of course, be read literally, because they are full of “so many incredible or fictitious fairy tales.” From the very first chapter of Genesis, the Bible calls God a creator “as if he was a mere artisan” but goes on to say even more ludicrous things. Scripture supplies God with horses and chariots and thrones and provides delicately prepared banquets and depicts Him drinking and drunk, and drowsy and suffering from a hangover. And what about God’s fits of anger, His griefs, His various oaths, His moments of repentance, His curses, His wraths, the manifold and crooked reasons given for His failure to fulfil promises? 72 But crass as this seems, it is valuable, because this gross theologia shocks us into an appreciation of the limitations of all theological language. 73 We have to remember this when we speak about God, listen critically to ourselves, realize that we are babbling incoherently, and fall into an embarrassed silence. When we listen to the sacred text read aloud during Mass and apply this method to the readings, we start to understand that even though God has revealed these names to us, we have no idea what they can mean. So we have to deny them, one after the other, and in the process make a symbolic ascent from earthly modes of perception to the divine. It is easy to deny the physical names: God is plainly not a rock, a gentle breeze, a warrior, or a creator. But when we come to the more conceptual descriptions of God, we find that we have to deny these too. God is not Mind in any sense that we can understand; God is not Greatness, Power, Light, Life, Truth, Imagination, Conviction, Understanding, Goodness—or even Divinity. 74 We cannot even say that God “exists” because our experience of existence is based solely on individual, finite beings whose mode of being bears no relation to being itself: Therefore ...

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Respiro hondo, alejando la preocupación por esta noche. Muchas personas de mi edad luchan por dinero, no pueden pagar facturas, y tienen que conseguir aventones. Sé que es demasiado esperar que a estas alturas ya tuviera todo resuelto, pero sigue siendo embarazoso. Odio parecer incapaz. Y tampoco puedo culpar a Cole. Fue mi decisión utilizar lo que quedaba del dinero de mi préstamo estudiantil para ayudarlo a arreglar su auto. Él también ha estado allí para mí. En un momento, fuimos lo único que teníamos. Girando, Shel deja la cerveza en la barra frente a Grady, uno de los clientes habituales, y toma su dinero, lanzándome otra mirada mientras introduce la venta en la caja registradora. —No tienes un buen auto —afirma—. Y está oscuro afuera. No puedes caminar al teatro. Los traficantes sexuales solo buscan chicas sexys y jóvenes con cabello rubio y esa mierda. Resoplo. —Tienes que dejar de ver películas de Lifetime. Puede que estemos a poca distancia de algunas ciudades más grandes, y Chicago está a solo unas pocas horas, pero todavía estamos en medio de la nada. Levanto la partición y salgo de detrás de la barra. —El teatro está a la vuelta de la esquina —indico—. Llegaré en diez segundos si corro como si estuviera siendo entrenada en la milicia. Le doy una palmadita en la espalda a Grady mientras me voy, el cabello gris de su cola de caballo se mece mientras se gira para guiñarme un ojo. —Adiós, niña —se despide. —Buenas noches. —Jordan, espera —grita Shel sobre la máquina de discos, y giro mi cabeza para mirarla. Observo mientras saca una caja del refrigerador junto con una caja de vino de una sola botella y las empuja sobre la barra hacia mí. —Feliz cumpleaños —dice, sonriéndome como si supiera que pude haber pensado que se olvidó. Esbozo una sonrisa, levanto la pequeña caja de Krispy Kreme y veo media docena de donas. —Fue todo lo que pude recoger a toda prisa —explica. Oye, es pastel. Más o menos. No me estoy quejando. Cierro la caja y levanto la solapa de mi bolsa de cuero, escondiendo mi botín, vino y todo. Por supuesto, no esperaba que alguien me diera algo, pero aun así es agradable ser recordado. Cam, mi hermana, sin duda me sorprenderá con una linda camisa o sexy par de pendientes, mañana cuando la vea, y mi padre probablemente me llame en algún momento de esta semana. Sin embargo, Shel sabe cómo hacerme reír. Tengo edad suficiente para trabajar en un bar, pero no tengo edad para beber. Darme un poco de vino que pueda disfrutar fuera del local será mi pequeña aventura de esta noche. —Gracias —contesto y salto sobre la barra, plantando un beso en su mejilla. —Cuídate —dice. Asiento y me doy vuelta, saliendo por la puerta de madera y hacia la acera.