Joy

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 The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  The priest being admonished the night before, as I might well perceive stood still and holding out his hand, thrust out the garland of roses into my mouth, I (trembling) devoured with a great affection: And as soone as I had eaten them, I was not deceived of the promise made unto me. For my deforme and Assie face abated, and first the rugged haire of my body fell off, my thick skin waxed soft and tender, the hooves of my feet changed into toes, my hands returned againe, my neck grew short, my head and mouth began round, my long eares were made little, my great and stonie teeth waxed lesse like the teeth of men, and my tayle which combred me most, appeared no where: then the people began to marvaile, and the religious honoured the goddesse, for so evident a miracle, they wondered at the visions which they saw in the night, and the facilitie of my reformation, whereby they rendered testimonie of so great a benefit which I received of the goddesse. When I saw my selfe in such estate, I stood still a good space and said nothing, for I could not tell what to say, nor what word I shoulde first speake, nor what thanks I should render to the goddesse, but the great Priest understanding all my fortune and miserie, by divine advertisement, commanded that one should give me garments to cover me: Howbeit as soone as I was transformed from an asse to my humane shape, I hid the privitie of my body with my hands as shame and necessity compelled mee. Then one of the company put off his upper robe and put it on my backe: which done, the Priest looked upon me, with a sweete and benigne voice, gan say in this sort: O my friend Lucius, after the endurance of so many labours, and the escape of so many tempests of fortune, thou art at length come to the port and haven of rest and mercy: neither did thy noble linage, thy dignity, thy doctrine, or any thing prevaile, but that thou hast endured so many servil pleasures, by a little folly of thy youthfullnes, whereby thou hast had a sinister reward for thy unprosperous curiositie, but howsoever the blindnes of fortune tormented thee in divers dangers: so it is, that now unwares to her, thou art come to this present felicitie: let fortune go, and fume with fury in another place, let her finde some other matter to execute her cruelty, for fortune hath no puissance against them which serve and honour our goddesse. For what availed the theeves: the beasts savage: thy great servitude: the ill and dangerous waits: the long passages: the feare of death every day?

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  O gets up with help from his and Rusty’s sons, and he and Rusty slow-dance. Their grandchildren circle around them. They end with a kiss and immediately the trio plays “A Kiss to Build a Dream On.” The other guests get up to dance, led by Miri and Andy. She’s felt closer to him since the trip to Elizabeth, more appreciative. If he’s noticed, he hasn’t said anything. He looks down at her and smiles. “Nice party.” Tears spring to her eyes. “Thank you.” “Love you,” he says. “Love you, too.” —NATALIE ASKS for time alone with Dr. O the next day. Can she be trusted not to upset him? Miri wonders. Not to accuse him? Is it any of her business? She checks with Rusty, who asks Dr. O, who says yes, whatever Natalie has up her sleeve he can take it. Twenty minutes later Natalie comes out of his room. Miri is waiting. “Thanks for encouraging me to come now,” she says. “I needed to apologize to him. Instead, he apologized to me.” Natalie hugs Rusty for the first time since she was a young girl. “Thank you for making my father happy.” Rusty breaks down. —CHRISTINA ARRANGES for the plane to fly Natalie and Ruby back to Santa Fe. At the airport Natalie looks hard at Miri, then hugs her. “So long, cowgirl,” she says softly. “I’ll see you in my dreams.” “Not if I see you first,” Miri whispers into Natalie’s hair. Natalie strides out to the plane with Ruby. She turns back once and waves. Miri returns her wave. “You okay?” Christina asks, as the plane takes off. “I’m good,” Miri says, then adds, as if the thought has just popped into her head, “I think I’ll take a leave from the paper.” Christina looks at her. “This is sudden.” “I’ll be able to spend more time with Andy, meet you for lunch.” “And…” Christina says. “Maybe I’ll write a book. I might have a story to tell.” “It’s about time,” Christina says. As they lock arms, starting back to the car, Miri begins to sing. “Somewhere there’s music, how faint the tune…” Christina joins in. “Somewhere there’s heaven, how high the moon…” “Or maybe we can put together a sister act,” Christina says. “I know a guy who knows a guy who owns a hotel with a lounge in Vegas.” Author’s NotesAlthough this book is a work of fiction, and the characters and events are products of my imagination, the three airplane crashes are real. I grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and was in eighth grade during the winter of 1951−1952 , a student at Hamilton Junior High, so I have firsthand memories of that time and place. I have tried to depict the crashes as accurately as possible and for that I have depended on reports in two now-defunct local newspapers, the Elizabeth Daily Journal and the Newark Evening News, to supplement the official investigative reports of the Civil Aeronautics Board.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  “What the heck,” Rusty said to Little Mary, who worked behind the counter, “it’s my birthday.” “Happy birthday, hon,” Little Mary said. “I’d give you a soda on the house but then I’d be fired.” The 12:30 show was a double feature. First, You Never Can Tell, with Dick Powell and Peggy Dow. A dog dies and is reincarnated into a private eye. Rusty loved screwball comedies. Miri preferred her movies torrid and dark. The feature attraction was Across the Wide Missouri, with Clark Gable. Halfway through Rusty leaned over and said, “Time to go. We have to change for dinner.” Now Miri would never find out what happened to Clark Gable or his Indian wife. RubyAt Newark Airport the Miami Airlines plane was delayed again with no explanation. No wonder Dana had tried to dissuade her from taking the non-scheduled flight to Tampa, then Miami. “Non-skeds are unreliable,” Dana said. Ruby argued how much cheaper this flight was than the others. Really, what was the difference? An airplane is an airplane. It gets you where you want to go. So non-skeds don’t have a regular schedule like a train or a bus. Who cares? Besides, she was impatient. The sooner she got to Florida, the better. She’d been dreaming of balmy beaches and soft moonlit nights. She couldn’t wait to get away from this awful weather. So what if she had to wait another hour or two? She took a seat in the departure lounge, adjusted her skirt and pulled the book she was reading from her oversize purse, glad she had a gripping mystery to distract her. She was aware of the glances coming her way, at the sight of a pretty girl reading I, the Jury, by Mickey Spillane, known for his racy language, but Ruby didn’t give a hoot. Let them look. Let them stare. It was nothing to her. Across from her an older couple were talking in voices loud enough for her to hear. The wife said, “You have a long drive. You should get going, and don’t forget to pick up my Voluptés from Irene Ammerman. You remember where she lives?” He said, “I’m not leaving until I see you on the plane.” “That’s sweet, Ben, but it doesn’t make sense.” “It makes sense to me.” She laughed. “You’re such a romantic.” “Me, you’re calling me a romantic?” “Maybe not every day but when it counts.” He laughed and kissed her. She said, “Ben, people can see…” “So? I’m not allowed to kiss my wife in public after thirty-five years?” Ruby smiled to herself. She couldn’t remember a time when her parents kidded around that way. “Excuse me,” a young man said, “but is anyone sitting here?” Ruby sighed and moved her bag, meant to discourage other passengers from sitting next to her. He sat down, hoping to start up a conversation, she could tell. “My mother thinks I’m driving to Florida,” he said, “either that or taking the train.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  I’m going to suggest a few teachers in New York.” “You told my mother?” “Yes, just after Thanksgiving.” Erma Rankin read the look on Natalie’s face. “Oops! I’ll bet she was saving that as a holiday surprise.” “Did you hear that?” Natalie asked Miri in the changing room. “Did you hear what she said?” Miri nodded. “Yes.” “Do you know what this means?” Natalie asked. “It means you have talent.” “Yes,” Natalie said. “But it’s Ruby’s talent. Don’t you see? She’s dancing through me now. She’s living inside me.” “But Miss Rankin said she told your mother at Thanksgiving.” “But she didn’t tell me until today. Because today I was so much better than I was at Thanksgiving.” Even though she swore she wouldn’t, Miri wondered again if she should tell someone about Natalie. But who would she tell and what would she say? She was still thinking about it at the pageant that night, and after, when Rusty took her to Schutt’s, the ice cream parlor on Morris Avenue, for a hot fudge sundae. [image "Elizabeth Daily Post" file=Image00009.jpg] [image "Elizabeth Daily Post" file=Image00009.jpg] THAT GIRLBy Henry AmmermanDEC. 19 — She was 22, with the longest legs he’d ever seen. “She could dance,” Jimmy Bower said. “She could really dance! That girl was going places.” That girl was Ruby Granik, on her way to dance at the Vag abond Club in Miami when she boarded the ill-fated Miami Airlines C-46 on a bitterly cold Sunday afternoon. The flight had already been delayed two hours and Ruby and the other passengers waited another three before they boarded. “I begged her to wait,” her best friend, Dana Lynley, said, “but she insisted on taking the non-sked. It was less money and money was tight. She hadn’t been paid yet for her last job and she needed to get to Miami. You didn’t win an argument with Ruby. Once she made up her mind there was no going back. That’s how she lived her life.” “I knew her since she was born,” Billy Morrison, owner of Billy’s Tavern and family friend, said. “I served her her first legal drink, a pink lady. I made it weak but it still made her tipsy. Her father was my best friend. There are no words,” he said, visibly shaken. “None.” Her uncle, Fire Captain Victor Szabo, of Elizabeth Engine Company #3, said, “I knew Ruby was on that plane. I knew it and yet when the call came in and my unit sped to the scene of the crash, I had to force myself not to think of her inside that broken pile in the Elizabeth River. I had to do my job. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. My wife and Ruby’s mother are sisters. My wife had gone out to Queens to keep Ruby’s parents company for a few days. We have no children so we thought of Ruby as our daughter, too.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  For the time references in the Paradiso, see Par. xxvii and Argument. C A N T O IPrologue. The Poets issue on the low-lying shore east of the Mount of Purgatory, and Dante’s eyes, which in Hell have shared the misery of his heart, becomes once more the instruments of delight, as he looks into the clear blue sky and sees Venus near the eastern horizon. The South Pole of the Heavens is well above the southern horizon, and all is bathed in the light of the glorious constellation never seen since man, at the Fall, was banished to the Northern Hemisphere. Turning north, the Poet perceives the venerable figure of Cato, his face illuminated by the four stars, typifying the four moral virtues. He challenges the Poets as though fugitives from Hell; but Virgil pleads the command of a Lady of Heaven, and explains that Dante still lives, and is seeking that liberty for love of which Cato himself had renounced his life. He further appeals to him, by his love of Marcia, to further their journey through his realm. Cato is untouched by the thought of Marcia, from whom he is now inwardly severed; but in reverence for the heavenly mandate he bids Virgil gird Dante with the rush of humility and cleanse his face with dew from the stains of Hell, that he may be ready to meet the ministers of Heaven. The sun, now rising, will teach them the ascent. The Poets seek the shore, as the sea ripples under the morning breeze; and Virgil follows Cato’s behest, cleansing Dante’s face with dew, and plucking the rush, which instantly springs up again miraculously renewed. [image file=image_rsrcA5N.jpg] TO COURSE o’er better waters now hoists sail the little bark of my wit, leaving behind her a sea so cruel. And I will sing of that second realm, where the human spirit is purged and becomes worthy to ascend to Heaven. But here let dead poesy rise up again, O holy Muses, since yours am I, and here let Calliope1 rise somewhat, accompanying my song with that strain whose stroke the wretched Pies felt so that they despaired of pardon. Sweet hue of orient sapphire which was gathering on the clear forehead of the sky, pure even to the first circle, to mine eyes restored delight, soon as I issued forth from the dead air which had afflicted eyes and heart. The fair planet which hearteneth to love2 was making the whole East to laugh, veiling the Fishes that were in her train. I turned me to the right hand, and set my mind on the other pole, and saw four stars3 never yet seen save by the first people. The heavens seemed to rejoice in their flames. O Northern widowed clime, since thou art bereft of beholding them! When I was parted from gazing at them, turning me a little to the other pole, there whence the Wain had already disappeared,4

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  With wonder methinks I coloured me, whereat the shade smiled and drew back, and I, following it, flung me forward. Gently it bade me pause: then knew I who it was, and did pray him that he would stay a while to speak to me. He answered me: “Even as I loved thee in the mortal body so do I love thee freed; therefore I stay: but wherefore goest thou?” “Casella4 mine, to return here once again where I am, make I this journey,” said I, “but how hath so much time been taken from thee?” And he to me: “No wrong is done me, if he who bears away when and whom he pleases hath many times denied me this passage; for of a just will his will is made. Truly for three months5 past he hath taken, in all peace, whoso hath wished to enter. Wherefore I, who now was turned to the seashore where Tiber’s wave grows salt,6 kindly by him was garnered in. To that mouth now he hath set his wings, because evermore are gathered there, they who to Acheron sink not down.” And I: “If a new law take not from thee memory or skill in that song of love which was wont to calm my every desire, may it please thee therewith to solace awhile my soul, that, with its mortal form journeying here, is sore distressed.” “Love that in my mind discourseth to me,” began he then so sweetly, that the sweetness yet within me sounds. My Master and I and that people who were with him, seemed so glad as if to aught else the mind of no one of them gave heed. We were all fixed and intent upon his notes; and lo the old man venerable, crying: “What is this, ye laggard spirits? what negligence, what tarrying is this? Haste to the mount and strip you of the slough, that lets not God be manifest to you.” As doves when gathering wheat or tares, all assembled at their repast, quiet and showing not their wonted pride, if aught be seen whereof they have fear, straightway let stay their food, because they are assailed by greater care; so saw I that new company leave the singing, and go towards the hillside, like one who goes, but knoweth not where he may come forth; nor was our parting less quick.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  When I heard these divine commandements, I greatly rejoyced: and arose before day to speake with the great Priest, whom I fortuned to espie comming out of his chamber: Then I saluted him, and thought with my selfe to aske and demand his counsell with a bold courage, but as soone as he perceived me, he began first to say: O Lucius now know I well that thou art most happy and blessed, whom the divine goddesse doth so greatly accept with mercy, why dost thou delay? Behold the day which thou desiredst when as thou shalt receive at my hands the order of religion, and know the most pure secrets of the gods, whereupon the old man tooke me by the hand, and lead me to the gate of the great temple, where at the first entrie he made a solempne celebration, and after morning sacrifice ended, brought out of the secret place of the temple books, partly written with unknown characters, and partly painted with figures of beasts declaring briefly every sentence, with tops and tailes, turning in fashion of a wheele, which were strange and impossible to be read of the prophane people: There he interpreted to me such things as were necessary to the use and preparation of mine order. This done, I gave charge to certaine of my companions to buy liberally, whatsoever was needfull and convenient, then he brought me to the next bains accompanied with all the religious sort, and demanding pardon of the goddesse, washed me and purified my body, according to custome. After this, when noone approached, he brought me backe againe to the temple, presented me before the face of the goddesse, giving a charge of certaine secret things unlawfull to be uttered, and commanding me, and generally all the rest, to fast by the space of ten continuall daies, without eating of any beast, or drinking any wine, which thing I observed with a marvellous continencie. Then behold the day approached, when as the sacrifice should be done, and when night came there arrived on every coast, a great multitude of Priests, who according to their order offered me many presents and gifts: then was all the Laity and prophane people commanded to depart, and when they had put on my back a linnen robe, they brought me to the most secret and sacred place of all the temple. You would peradventure demand (you studious reader) what was said and done there, verely I would tell you if it were lawfull for me to tell, you should know if it were convenient for you to heare, but both thy eares, and my tongue shall incur the like paine of rash curiositie: Howbeit, I will content thy mind for this present time, which peradventure is somewhat religious and given to some devotion, listen therefore and beleeve it to be true: Thou shalt understand that I approached neere unto Hell, even to the gates of Proserpina, and after that, I was ravished throughout all the Element, I returned to my proper place: About midnight I saw the Sun shine, I saw likewise the gods celestiall and gods infernall, before whom I presented my selfe, and worshipped them: Behold now have I told thee, which although thou hast heard, yet it is necessarie thou conceale it; this have I declared without offence, for the understanding of the prophane.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  They lived in a little white house near her grandmother’s place. “You’ll be able to wave to me,” she told her young nieces, “the way I used to wave to the planes.” “Will you wave back?” one of the girls asked. “Of course I will.” Gaby chose National Airlines, in part because she’d read that American received 20,000 applications the year before, for just 347 stewardess positions. Not that she doubted her qualifications, not for a minute, but Gaby went for National anyway, and was accepted, the only applicant out of 29 being interviewed on the same day. She was jubilant. Hard work and a positive attitude paid off. She’d been careful about dating after high school, not wanting to get serious with some local boy who’d expect her to give up her dreams for his, produce two babies, preferably one of each sex, wear an apron over her shirtwaist dress and have dinner on the table every night at 6 p.m. No thank you. There was a young doctor at the hospital but he was almost as dangerous as the others. If she confided her dream to him he’d drop her like a hot potato. Still, she went out with him, not that he had much time off, but she never told her mother. And sometimes, when their breaks coincided, they’d get into his car and kiss until the windows steamed up. She’d stop him when he tried to get his hand under her skirt. “Please,” he begged. “Just this once. I’m a doctor. Doesn’t that count for something?” Ha! Gaby had a goal, and no doctor or anyone else was going to dissuade her. She knew there would be plenty of nurses for him to flirt with once she was out of the picture. Nurses who would let him get under their skirts. She couldn’t worry about that. If some other nurse got him to put a ring on her finger while Gaby was flying, well, so be it. “Oh, Gabrielle,” her mother cried as she’d packed her bag to head for training in Newark. “I’d hoped you’d meet a handsome doctor at the hospital and give up this crazy idea of flying.” Now, eighteen months later, she had no regrets about leaving Dayton or young Dr. Larsen. She loved her job. As far as she was concerned it was the best job in the world. In the stewardesses’ dressing room at Newark Airport Gaby applied her makeup as she’d been taught in her program. A good base over the face and throat. Heavy enough to hide imperfections in the skin but light enough to look almost natural, a hint of color to the cheeks, brows penciled in, mascara to upper lashes only, no more high school lipstick. This month she was using Revlon’s Love That Red.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  The sun burned hotter and hotter, as if someone were holding a magnifying glass over me. I took off my T-shirt and felt the sweat flow down my sides to my stomach as I bent over to pick blueberries from low bushes. The ground was wet. A huge bee hung buzzing, motionless, in the air. I was so happy alone and in the woods, away from the dangers posed by other people. At first I wanted to tell someone else how happy I was; I needed a witness. But as the great day revolved slowly above me, as the scarlet tanager flew overhead on his black wings to the distant high trees, as an owl, hidden and remote, sounded a hoot as melancholy as winter, as the leaves, ruffled by the wind, tossed the sun about as though they were princesses at play with a golden ball, as the smell of sweet clover, of bruised sassasfras leaves, of the mulch of last year’s duff flowed over me, as I crushed the hot, sweet blueberries between my teeth and then chewed on an astringent needle from a balsam, as I sensed the descent of the sun and the slow decline of summer—oh, I was free and whole, safe from everyone, as happy as with my books. For I could thrive in the expressive, inhuman realm of nature or the expressive, human realm of books—both worlds so exalted, so guileless—but I felt imperiled by the hidden designs other people were drawing around me. The tender white bells of the flower by the rotting stump, the throbbing distillation of blue in the fringed gentian, the small, bright-green cone of the Scots pine—these were confidences nature placed in me, wordless but as trusting as a dog’s eyes. Or the pure, always comprehensible and sharply delineated thoughts and emotions of characters in fiction—these, too, were signs I could read, as one might read a marionette’s face. But the vague menace of Ralph with his increasingly haggard face, this boy at once pitiable and dangerous, who had already been caught twice this summer attempting to “hypnotize” younger campers and was now in danger of expulsion, who studied me at meals not with curiosity, much less with sympathy, but with crude speculation (Can I get him to do it? Can he relieve me?)—this menace was becoming more and more intense. After the other campers appeared and the summer’s activities had been under way for a week, I understood that I’d been betrayed. There wouldn’t be any plays for me to put on, and I had exhausted myself for no good reason with all-night fantasies of the rehearsals, the performances, the triumphs. My mother’s promises had just been a way of getting me out of the house for the summer. A few miles away my sister—shy to the point of invisibility in the winter, unpopular, pasty, overweight—had emerged once again into her estival beauty.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  The fruit is the summum bonum, peace with God, as opposed to the many false ideals of men on earth. Cf. Par. xi and Conv. iv. 12.12. Note that Virgil’s mission is over when he has brought Dante to the Earthly Paradise, which is the immediate goal of the souls in Purgatory. Some difficulty has been found in the last lines of the canto, because it is said that Virgil cannot make Dante bishop as well as king of himself; but we learn from the De Mon. iii. 5, that in Dante’s opinion man would not have needed the Church, as an organized institution, any more than the Empire, had he not fallen from the state of innocence. Accordingly, when he recovers that state he is absolved from the spiritual as well as from the temporal rule. The institutions of the Empire and the Church are, of course, to be distinguished from the human and divine reason, or Philosophy and Revelation, of which they ought to be guardians and exponents. The concluding chapter of the De Mon. shows us very clearly the distinction between the essential means of temporal and spiritual blessedness (human reason as developed by the philosophers, and Revelation as declared by the writers of Scripture) on the one hand, and the external institutions or regimens on the other, founded to check the perversity which perpetually drives mankind out of the true path thus indicated.C A N T O X X V I I IDante enters the Garden of Eden from the west, facing the rising sun, and meeting a sweet breeze laden with the odours of Paradise and full of the song of birds to which the leaves of the divine forest murmur a pedal bass. On the opposing bank of a stream that flows pure under the forest shade, he perceives a lady gathering flowers and singing, as enamoured. It is Matilda, the genius of Eden; and in answer to Dante’s petition she approaches the stream with downcast eyes, the song on her lips growing ever more articulate. Then, her hands still busy with the flowers, she flings upon him the blaze of her laughing eyes. As a responsive rapture awakes in Dante’s heart, she initiates him into the frank and innocent love and joy of Eden, and proffers all further service he may desire. In answer to his question she confirms what Statius had already said as to the higher regions of the mount above the gate being unaffected by meteorological phenomena. The stream and the breeze, therefore, are not such as those on earth. The breeze is caused by the sweep of the atmospheric envelope of the earth, from east to west, with the primum mobile; and it bears with it germs from the divine forest; which may explain the seeming spontaneous generation of wondrous plants on earth.

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  “Good,” he said, fondling my knee. So instead, he proceeded to tell me about the other women he’d fucked. Some bargain. First there was May Pei, the Chinese girl Bennett reminded him of. “She may pay and then she may not pay,” I said. “Don’t think that wasn’t thought of.” “I’m sure it was. But the question is—did she pay?” “Well, I did. She fucked me up for years after that.” “You mean, after she stopped seeing you, she still fucked you. Some trick. The phantom fuck. You could patent that, you know. Arrange to get people fucked by famous figures of the past: Napoleon, Charles II, Louis XIV…sort of like Dr. Faustus fucking Helen of Troy….” I loved being silly with him. “Shut up, cunt—and let me finish about May…” and then, turning to me amid a screeching of brakes: “God—you’re beautiful….” “Keep your fucking eyes on the road,” I said, delighted. — My conversations with Adrian always seemed like quotes from Through the Looking Glass. Like: Me: “We seem to be going around in circles.” Adrian: “That’s just the point.” or: Me: “Will you carry my briefcase?” Adrian: “As long as you agree not to carry anything for me just yet.” or: Me: “I divorced my first husband principally because he was crazy.” Adrian (furrowing his Laingian brows): “That would seem to me to be a good reason to marry someone, not divorce him.” Me: “But he watched television every night.” Adrian: “Oh, then I see why you divorced him.” — Why had May Pei fucked up Adrian’s life? “She left me in the lurch and went back to Singapore. She had a child there living with its father and the child was in a car crash. She had to go back, but she could have at least written. For months I walked around feeling that the world was made up of mechanical people. I’ve never been so depressed. The bitch finally married the pediatrician who took care of her kid—an American bloke.” “So why didn’t you go after her if you cared so much?” He looked at me as if I were crazy, as if such a thing had never occurred to him. “Go after her? Why?” (He burned rubber around a corner, taking another wrong turn.) “Because you loved her.” “I never used that word.” “But if you felt that way, why didn’t you go?” “My work is like keeping chickens,” he said. “Someone’s got to be there to shovel the shit and spread the corn.” “Bullshit,” I said. “Doctors always use their work as an excuse for not being human. I know that routine.” “Not bullshit, ducks, chickenshit.” “Not very funny,” I said, laughing. After May Pei there was a whole UN Assembly of girls from Thailand, Indonesia, Nepal. There was an African girl from Botswana and a couple of French psychoanalysts, and a French actress who’d “spent time in a bin.” “A what?” “A bin—you know, a madhouse. In a mental hospital, I mean.”

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  Peter stumbled out of his clothes, which he left in a puddle on the floor. His shoulders were bony, his waist tiny, his penis a pale blue snail peeping up out of its rounded shell. He mumbled something about the cold sheets and turned his face to the wall. Kevin and I, at either end of the long, narrow room, undressed more deliberately, said nothing and scarcely looked at each other. Lights out. Then the long wait for Peter’s breathing to slow and thicken. The silence was thoughtful, like a pulse heard in an ear pressed to the mattress. Peter said, “Because I don’t want to … squirrel … yeah, but you …” and was gone. Still Kevin waited, and I feared he too had gone to sleep. But no, here he was, floating toward me, the ghost T-shirt on his torso browner from today’s sun. With the Vaseline jar in hand. The cold jelly with its light medicinal odor, which warms quickly to body temperature. As I went in him, he said straight out, as clear as a bell, “That feels really great.” It had never occurrred to me before that sex between two men can please both of them at the same time. The next afternoon my father, painfully patient but haggard from these unusual daytime hours, took us kids water-skiing. Again I walked on the lacquered deck, pushing us away from the dock with the long pole, my movements stiff, almost arthritic with fright. Again my father shouted orders that betrayed his own anxiety: “Kids, I smell something burning. The engine’s on fire! Goddamn it, quick, young fellow, open those doors.” “Nothing, sir, everything’s fine.” “You sure?” “Yes sir. Positive.” “Sure?” “Yes.” I was clinging to the windshield with claws of fear—and I caught a glimpse of Kevin and Peter smirking at each other. They thought my father and I were fools. Skiing off the boat wasn’t simple. The velocity of such a massive, powerful vessel almost pulled your arms out of your sockets. The wake fanning out on either side of you once you were aloft seemed mountainous and to jump over it foolhardy, if not suicidal. Kevin, of course, handled it all beautifully, though he’d never skied before. Soon he was clowning around and lifting first one ski and then the other, and he raced over the wake from side to side with great speed. I was in the bucket seat watching him. If we lost him I was supposed to signal Peter up ahead, who was to relay the message to the captain—but Kevin fell only once. We went past the diving raft and its company of teenage swimmers; I was pleased that our boat was pulling someone as athletic as Kevin. In our family the virtues were all invisible to a stranger’s eye. My stepmother’s social eminence, my dad’s dough—they couldn’t be seen.

• From The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us (2023)

  Up until this point, she’s spent a lot of time around Michael’s older sister, but she hasn’t met his parents or even been to the family home. Michael describes his mom and dad as “a little stuffier” than Katherine’s, but “basically they’re good guys.” Still, she’s hesitant to come over, even though Michael assures her that his parents will be out until midnight. “We don’t have to do anything… we can just go there and talk,” Michael tells her. This time though, the charade has been dropped and Katherine isn’t even pretending to fall for it. “I think I’ve heard that before!” she jokes. Once she’s through the door, Katherine is fascinated by what she sees. The furniture downstairs is “big, heavy and dark.” She has fun inspecting Michael’s bedroom, where he displays his team pennants and trophies. She even goes through his medicine cabinet, laughing that he “use[s] more junk” than she does and has “at least six different kinds of aftershave.” They banter back and forth about it until Katherine raises the stakes. “Do you ever put it on your balls?” she asks. Michael says no, and then wonders if she would like to do it for him. Katherine accepts the challenge, then boldly inspects Ralph in the light of the bathroom. They have sex right there, though Katherine remains unsatisfied. But an hour later, they try again, this time in Michael’s bed. For the first time, he’s able to last a little longer, giving Katherine a chance to get into it. “I grabbed his backside with both hands, trying to push him deeper and deeper into me,” Katherine says. “I spread my legs as far as I could—and I raised my hips off the bed—and I moved with him, again and again and again—and at last, I came.” Katherine isn’t ashamed. Far from it—she’s celebratory. “I actually came,” she tells Michael afterward. “I’ve never felt so close to you before.” Then, “Can we do it again?” Michael says he needs to rest. They go out for hamburgers and Michael brings her home, where they sit in the den for a while. “I thought how nice it would be if we could go upstairs, to bed, together,” Katherine says. “I was hoping we’d make love again but Michael said he was kind of exhausted.” By this point, Katherine’s sexuality has been fully awakened. In the logic of the novel she’s done everything right, and her reward is getting to enjoy her intimate experiences. The next time they have sex, after Michael’s high school graduation, she doesn’t just let herself go—she actively pursues pleasure. Back in the den, Michael notes that she’s being “aggressive” as she kisses him all over his body. She straddles him and asks if it’s okay to do it “this way,” with her on top. “Any way you want,” Michael answers. Katherine describes finding the rhythm between their bodies and savoring every moment. “I couldn’t control myself anymore,” she says. “I came before he did.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  We were under way. The speedboat lunged forward with so much force that we were pressed back against our seats. Peter, Kevin’s seven-year-old brother, was in the rumble seat, his hair streaming under the rippling flag, his mouth open to scream with delighted fear, though the sound was lost behind gales of wind. He waved a skinny arm and with his other hand clutched a chromium grip beside him; even so, he was posting high as we spanked over someone else’s wake. Our own was thrown back from the prow. The night, intent seamstress, fed the fabric of water under the needle of our hull, steadily, firmly, except the boat wasn’t stitching the water together but ripping it apart into long white shreds. Along the shore a few house lights here and there peered through the pines, as fleeting as stars glimpsed through the moving clouds above. We shot past an anchored boat of fishermen and their single kerosene lamp; one of them shook his fist at us. The lake narrowed. Over to the right lay the nine-hole golf course (I knew it was there, though I couldn’t see it) with its ramshackle clubhouse and wicker armchairs painted green, its porch swing on creaking chains. Once a month we showed up there late for Sunday supper, our clothes not right, our talk too distant and forthright, the cigar a foul smudge pot set out to ward off the incoming social frost. Now Dad’s cigar had gone out and he stopped the boat to relight it. From our high windy perch we drifted down, engine cut to a mild churning. When the exhaust pipe dipped above water level, it blatted rudely. “Boy, I’m soaked!” Peter was screaming in his soprano. “I’m freezing. Gee, you sure let me have it!” “Too much for you, young fellow?” my father asked, chuckling. He winked at me. The children of visitors (and sometimes their fathers) were usually called “young fellow,” since Dad could never remember their names. Old Boy, who had been squinting into the wind, his head stuck out beyond and around the windshield, was now prancing happily across the cushions to receive a pat from his master. Kevin, sitting just behind my father, said, “Those fishermen were mad as hell. I’d’ve been, too, if some guy in a big fat-ass powerboat scared off my fish.” My father winced, then grumbled something about how they had no business … He was hurt.

• From On Beauty (2005)

  By ten, the intoxication of all this bon vivant business had reached Howard’s petite ears, which were quite red with joy. It seemed to him an especially successful little party. In truth it was a typical Wellington affair: always threatening to fill up but never quite doing so. The Black Studies Department’s graduate crowd were out in force, mostly because Erskine was well loved by them and they were, anyway, by the far the most socialized people at Wellington, priding themselves on their reputation for being the closest replicas on campus to normal human beings. Along with large talk they had small talk; they had a Black Music Library in their department; they knew, and could speak eloquently of, the latest trash television. They were invited to all the parties and came to all of them too. But the English Department was less well represented tonight: only Claire, that Marxist Joe, Smith and a few female Cult of Claire groupies who, Howard was amused to see, were throwing themselves at Warren, one after another, like lemmings. Warren had clearly joined the list of things of which Claire approved – therefore they wanted him. A circle of strange young anthropologists Howard didn’t think he knew remained in the kitchen all night, hovering by the food, fearful of going anywhere where there was not an abundance of props – glasses, bottles, canapeś – with which to fiddle. Howard left them to it and adjourned to the garden. He walked the rim of the pool, happily holding on to his empty glass, as the summer moon passed behind blushing clouds and all about rose the agreeable animal sound of outdoor conversation. ‘Strange date for it, though,’ he heard somebody say. And then the usual response: ‘Oh, I think it’s a wonderful date for a party. You know it’s their actual anniversary, so . . . And if we don’t reclaim the day, you know . . . then it’s like they’ve won. It’s a reclaiming, absolutely.’ This was the most popular conversation of the night. Howard had had it himself at least four times since the clock struck ten and the wine really kicked in. Before that no one liked to mention it. Every twenty seconds or so, Howard admired a pair of feet as they thrust up through the skin of the water; the curved back that  On Beauty followed, and then the slim brown form in the water doing another speedy, almost silent lap. Levi had evidently decided that if he must stay at this party, he might as well get a work-out. Howard could not figure out exactly how long Levi’d been in the pool, but, as his own speech had ended and the applause faded, everyone had noticed at the same time that there was a lone swimmer, and then almost everyone had asked their neighbour whether they recalled Cheever’s story. Academics lack range.

• From On Beauty (2005)

  answered the door and said that Mrs Kipps had just left for the Amherst house and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow. In a bit of a panic Kiki jogged as best she could to the bus stop; gave up on the bus, walked to the crossroads and managed to hail a cab. At the station she found Carlene buying a hot chocolate and preparing to board the train. ‘Kiki!’ ‘I want to come – I’d love to – if you’ll still have me.’ Carlene put one gloved hand to Kiki’s hot cheek in a manner that unexpectedly made her want to weep. ‘You’ll stay over. We’ll eat in town and spend all tomorrow in the house. You’re such a funny woman. What a thing to do!’ They were just walking arm in arm up the platform when they heard Carlene’s name cried out several times: ‘Mum! Hey, Mum!’ ‘Vee! Michael! But this is . . . hello, my darlings! Monty!’ ‘Carlene, what on earth are you doing here? Come here, let me kiss you, you silly old thing – what about this! So you’re feeling better, then.’ Here Carlene nodded like a happy child. ‘Hello,’ said Monty to Kiki, frowning as he did so, and shaking her hand briefly before turning back to his wife. ‘We had a New York nightmare – the incompetent running that church – it’s either incompetence or criminality – anyway, we’re back early, and very pleased about it – not a chance Michael’s getting married in that place, I can tell you that – not a chance – but what are you – ’ ‘I was heading up to Eleanor’s house,’ said Carlene, beaming, accepting hugs on either side from her two children, one of whom, Victoria, was looking over at Kiki like a jealous lover. Another young girl, plainly dressed, with a blue polo neck and pearls at her throat, held Michael’s spare arm. His fianceé, Kiki assumed. ‘Kiki, I think we shall have to postpone our trip.’ ‘The man claimed to know nothing – nothing – of the last four letters we sent him about the school in Trinidad. He’d washed his hands of it! Shame he didn’t tell anyone at our end.’ ‘And his accounts were so dodgy. I went through them. Something was definitely not right there,’ added Michael. Kiki smiled. ‘Sure thing,’ she said. ‘Rain check – another day.’  the anatomy lesson ‘Do you need a lift?’ Monty asked Kiki gruffly, as the family turned to go. ‘Oh – thank you, no . . . there’s four of you, and a cab wouldn’t . . .’ The happy clan bustled away back down the platform, laughing and speaking over each other, as the Amherst train pulled away and Kiki stood with Carlene’s hot chocolate in her hand. on beauty and being wrong When I say I hate time, Paul says how else could we find depth of character, or grow souls? Mark Doty 

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  “I didn’t want to go.” “So now you won’t have to leave me because I’m going, too.” He hugged her. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Irene was right—some things were bashert, meant to be. Out of all the places in the world, she and Mason were going to wind up in Las Vegas together. She started to laugh. “But are you sure Jack is going?” “Everything depends on Dr. O. If he goes, then Christina is going, and if Christina goes, Jack will go, and if Jack goes…” He lifted her off the ground and swung her around. Then he turned serious. “So long as Jack doesn’t get called up. He says if he does, he could try to claim me as a dependent but he’s not sure if that’ll work or not. Christina wants him to try. We’d have to go to court.” “You mean Jack might have to go to Korea?” Mason nodded. “He’s 1-A.” “But Eisenhower says if he’s elected he’ll end the war.” “That’s only if he wins. We don’t even know if he’s running yet. The election’s not until November. He’s not sworn in until January. And it could be somebody else. Joey Pol says it could be Adlai Stevenson.” “Joey Pol?” “The guy from the bowling alley. Joey Politics. He says Stevenson’s an egghead. Who knows what he’d do?” “Uncle Henry says Stevenson is brilliant.” “Don’t take this wrong, but your family leans to the left.” “Are you calling my family Communists?” “Nothing like that. They’re the best family I know.” “Then please take that back, about leaning to the left.” “Okay. I take it back.” They were interrupted by a little boy who ran at Mason, grabbing hold of his leg. “Come see new house.” “I will,” Mason told him. “Later.” “No, now!” “Later, Stash. Okay?” The door to the apartment house opened, and Polina came out, holding Fred on a leash. “Sorry so late,” she told Mason. Her lipstick was bright red and her dress didn’t leave much to the imagination, as if she were trying to look like Marilyn Monroe on the recent cover of Life magazine, beauty mark and all, one she didn’t have when she was making pancakes for the kids at Janet. “We are very happy here,” Polina said. “A beautiful place.” “You should thank Miri,” Mason said. “It’s because of her you got the apartment.” “Mr. Ben’s granddaughter?” Polina asked. “I’m not exactly his granddaughter.” “But close to it,” Mason said. “Thank you and thank Mr. Ben,” she said to Miri, right before she threw her arms around Mason. “Oh, this wonderful boy. I don’t want to lose. I’ll miss too much. Maybe we should go, too. What you think, Stash? Should we go with Mason, far away?” She knew, too? Stash said, “No, Mama. I like it here.” “He loves new apartment.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  She assured him it would grow quickly, an inch a month, she’d heard, and just to be sure she’d already started to gently tug it, the way she did a pair of dungarees that had shrunk in the wash. She expected to be halfway there by summer, by the time of Henry and Leah’s wedding. She was waiting until invitations went out to ask if she could invite Mason to be her date. Mason pointed to a barrel-chested man, bowling in the next lane. “Joey Politics,” he said. “He knows everybody and everything.” The girls looked over for a minute but really, what did they care about somebody called Joey Politics. She told Mason about meeting Polina at Dr. O’s office. “My mother’s going to ask Ben Sapphire if he can find her and Stash a place to live.” “That’d be good.” And just like that, he leaned in and kissed her, the first time they’d kissed in public, in front of Suzanne, Eleanor, Robo and Natalie. Then he kissed her again, until his boss called, “Enough, lover boy. You got a line waiting for shoes and I need a pin boy in lane six.” The girls teased her, humming the wedding march. “Have you set the date yet?” Robo asked. “Stop!” Miri shouted, louder than she’d meant to, and they laughed, all but Natalie. “It’s freezing in here,” Natalie said, wrapping a wool scarf around her neck. She was swathed in sweaters, and had her coat draped over her shoulders. “If you bowled you’d be boiling,” Suzanne told her, stripping down to a cotton shirt with her name embroidered across the pocket, like the ladies who played in leagues. Miri threw her first strike that night, which she took as a sign that every day something good can happen. And today was a bonanza—new shoes, Mason’s kisses and a strike. Later, before Eleanor’s father picked them up, Natalie took her aside. “Come to my house tomorrow morning. I have something to show you.” “Is it the surprise your father talked about?” “He told you about the surprise?” “Only that you have one. So what is it?” “If I tell you it won’t be a surprise. And don’t say anything to the other girls, okay? I’m not ready to tell them yet.” Miri remembered the last time she’d gone to Natalie’s, just her, and it turned out to be the worst day of her life. —THE SURPRISE WAS the finished basement. It had been transformed into a dance studio, with a mirrored wall, a barre and a wood floor. The jukebox still stood in the corner but instead of Nat King Cole and Patti Page, it held the kind of music you hear in movie musicals. Blue skies smilin’ at me… “Isn’t it fabulous?” Natalie asked. “The floor is genuine maple, the best for tap.” She hummed and did a couple of warm-up steps, then stopped and looked at Miri.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  One drop of rare honey, however, that Thursday did hold in its acorn cup. Haze was to drive her to the camp in the early morning. Upon sundry sounds of departure reaching me, I rolled out of bed and leaned out of the window. Under the poplars, the car was already athrob. On the sidewalk, Louise stood shading her eyes with her hand, as if the little traveler were already riding into the low morning sun. The gesture proved to be premature. “Hurry up!” shouted Haze. My Lolita, who was half in and about to slam the car door, wind down the glass, wave to Louise and the poplars (whom and which she was never to see again), interrupted the motion of fate: she looked up—and dashed back into the house (Haze furiously calling after her). A moment later I heard my sweetheart running up the stairs. My heart expanded with such force that it almost blotted me out. I hitched up the pants of my pajamas, flung the door open: and simultaneously Lolita arrived, in her Sunday frock, stamping, panting, and then she was in my arms, her innocent mouth melting under the ferocious pressure of dark male jaws, my palpitating darling! The next instant I heard her—alive, unraped—clatter downstairs. The motion of fate was resumed. The blond leg was pulled in, the car door was slammed—was re-slammed—and driver Haze at the violent wheel, rubber-red lips writhing in angry, inaudible speech, swung my darling away, while unnoticed by them or Louise, old Miss Opposite, an invalid, feebly but rhythmically waved from her vined veranda. 16The hollow of my hand was still ivory-full of Lolita—full of the feel of her pre-adolescently incurved back, that ivory-smooth, sliding sensation of her skin through the thin frock that I had worked up and down while I held her. I marched into her tumbled room, threw open the door of the closet and plunged into a heap of crumpled things that had touched her. There was particularly one pink texture, sleazy, torn, with a faintly acrid odor in the seam. I wrapped in it Humbert’s huge engorged heart. A poignant chaos was ’welling within me—but I had to drop those things and hurriedly regain my composure, as I became aware of the maid’s velvety voice calling me softly from the stairs. She had a message for me, she said; and, topping my automatic thanks with a kindly “you’re welcome,” good Louise left an unstamped, curiously clean-looking letter in my shaking hand.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  “I’m Mason.” His voice was gravelly, as if maybe he had a sore throat. “Mason.” She tried it out. She’d never known anyone named Mason. “Mason McKittrick.” McKittrick. Miri tried to hide her disappointment. He wasn’t Jewish. Irene wouldn’t approve. Okay, she wouldn’t tell her. She wouldn’t tell anyone. He would be another of her secrets. She was beginning to enjoy having secrets from her family. While Natalie danced to every song with Winky Herkovitz, the best dancer in ninth grade, who dipped her, flipped her from knee to knee and twirled her, while Suzanne, the shiksa the Jewish boys loved, danced to every song with a different partner, while Eleanor, who still had braces on her teeth and refused to smile for photos, had a deep conversation with a chaperone, a teacher Uncle Henry’s age and Robo, well developed and athletic, made out in the cloakroom with Pete Wolf, who believed in Martians, Miri danced only with Mason. After a while he led her outside so he could have a smoke. She’d been right. He did smoke, and his brand was Luckies. Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco. He offered one to her. She shook her head. She’d tried it once and had almost choked to death. Almost vomited in front of everyone. But she liked the way he held the cigarette between his teeth. When he’d had enough he tossed it to the ground and stepped on it, crushing it like a bug. He kissed her then, outside the Y in the freezing-cold December night air, with neither of them wearing a coat. Her teeth were chattering but she wasn’t going to suggest they go back inside, not as long as he was holding her that way, not as long as he was kissing her that way and she was kissing him back. They kissed a second time and her legs turned to jelly. She’d heard that expression a million times, but until now she hadn’t understood it. She’d never been kissed by a boy like Mason. No sloppy tongue shoved halfway down her throat, no washing out her ear. Just perfect kisses. Two, three, four—she lost count. If she died then she was sure she’d die happy. They went back inside for the last dance. The lights had been dimmed and she and Mason danced cheek to cheek, thanks to her mother’s heels, their arms wrapped around one another. In the meadow we can build a snowman… She was glad it wasn’t “Goodnight, Irene,” often the last song at a dance. She loved her grandmother but she didn’t want to think about her tonight. “Can I walk you home?” Mason asked while they, and everyone else, scrambled for their coats. Miri nodded. “I just have to tell my friends.” Outside, Robo’s father was waiting for them. The girls had already piled into the car. “I’m walking home with Mason,” she told them. “Who’s Mason?” Natalie asked.