Sadness

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

  She started carrying around a green-gray three-ring binder, which she used to take notes in class and scribble down any new ideas that came to her. On the inside cover Judy wrote down her address, as well as a phrase indicating the item’s growing significance: Reward if found. Between her lectures on everything from craft to writing strong cover letters to go with manuscript submissions, Wyndham consistently gave Judy warm, positive feedback. She was frank with the aspiring author, telling her that realistic writing, as opposed to fantasy, was her strength. Wyndham likely empathized with Judy; she also didn’t start her professional career until after she had a family. When the class ended, Judy signed up to take it again. She had already started working on a full-length manuscript, about a young white girl whose sense of injustice is inflamed by her community’s racist response to a Black family moving into town. As Judy wrote, she was also sending out her stories. The first rejection stung. “I went in the closet—I didn’t want the kids to see me,” Blume told CBS Sunday Morning in 2015. “I went in the closet and I cried.” Over time, however, her skin grew thicker. Eventually, by the late 1960s, she’d been rejected by every major publisher, from Harper & Row to Houghton Mifflin to Random House and Pantheon. But she had made progress, too. She sold a short story, called “The Flying Munchgins,” to a children’s magazine, about a little boy named Leonard who discovers a society of mysterious creatures—the Munchgins—living in the dirt. He traps them in a box and shows them off to his older brother and sister who, unimpressed, inform him that they’re nothing special: just plain old ladybugs. For another story, called “The Ooh Ooh Ahh Ahh Bird,” Judy received $20—and a celebratory red rose from Wyndham. “She was wonderfully supportive,” Blume said of Wyndham at a 2015 book event hosted by the Arlington Public Library in Virginia. “She was wonderful to me, always,” Blume recalled of her teacher, who died in 1978, even though she admitted Wyndham did not always approve of her tendency to leave the task of untangling moral complexities up to the reader. Wyndham’s support meant everything to her, especially because she felt she had so few others in her corner when it came to her writing. John wasn’t bothered by her new passion, but he had trouble seeing it as anything more than a hobby. “He thought it was better than shopping,” Blume said. He’d joke to their friends, “All I have to do is buy Judy some paper and pencils and she’s happy!” At one point, John sent a few of her drafts to his friend who had worked in book publishing. That guy was discouraging to the point of rudeness. In so many words: pack it up sweetheart and go back to baking. Judy didn’t want to bake. She wanted to invent things—to dream. Then one day her dreams took root.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  Rusty and Miri stepped out of the way. The bouquet landed in Irene’s hands, who treated it like a hot potato, quickly tossing it toward Leah’s friends, where Harriet Makenna caught it and promptly passed out. She was rescued by the photographer, who had met her when he’d covered the holiday party at the Elks Club. Once upon a time Miri had planned to wear her bridesmaid dress with its detachable organza overskirt to the ninth-grade prom, but she’d decided against going. When her friends saw the depth of her sadness they accepted her decision. In the same once-upon-a-time she’d thought she’d wear the dress to Mason’s junior prom, at Jefferson. She wondered if he’d go without her, if he’d go with someone else? She doubted it. Or maybe that was just what she was hoping. She couldn’t imagine ever wearing the dress again. MasonPolina kept her job working in the kitchen at Janet, but Mason avoided her like bad food. The kid, too. He was done with all that. No more girlfriends. They wanted too much from you. They expected you to make them happy. Even when they said they wanted to make you happy. Maybe someday he’d feel ready to see Miri again but he couldn’t think when that might be. He’d fucked up big-time. He didn’t expect her to forgive him. The question was, could he forgive himself? Jack wouldn’t let it go. Begged him to come with him and Christina to Las Vegas. Mason finally said, “Don’t ask me again, Jack. I’m staying here, at Janet. I’ll be fine.” “At least come with us for the summer.” “I can’t. I’ve got a job. You know that. You’re the one who set me up with your old boss. He’s going to train me to be an electrician. Just like he trained you.” “He’d understand.” “No.” “Mason—you can’t live your life avoiding Miri.” “Don’t say that name around me. And yes I can. And I will.” “There’ll be other girls, believe me.” “Cut it out, Jack, because you don’t know.” “I know you’re seventeen.” “That doesn’t mean shit.” He hoped Jack wouldn’t cry. He looked like he might. So Mason gave him a bear hug. That way they didn’t have to look at each other. Jack patted his back for too long. “Hey, brother,” Mason said, to get Jack to let go. “I’ll write.” “Every week,” Jack said, sniffling. “I need you to promise.” “I promise.” “And I’ll call every two weeks,” Jack told him. “On Sunday nights.” Mason nodded. Then he asked what he’d been thinking all along. “What about 1-A, Jack?” “No word yet. I’ll see you for Christmas, okay?” “Yeah, sure, Christmas.” SteveThe morning after graduating from Jefferson High, Steve went downtown to the army recruitment center on Elizabeth Avenue and enlisted. He filled out all the paperwork, set up an appointment for a physical that afternoon, and he was in. It was that easy. Phil was apoplectic. “Are you crazy?

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  Otherwise they’d never have been at home that day.” “Natalie called Rusty a whore.” “Poor Natalie, if she feels that to defend her mother she has to bad-mouth Rusty. Someday she’ll grow up and figure it out for herself.” “Figure what out?” “There are two sides to every story.” “Always?” “Almost always.” Henry took her hand. “Rusty deserves to be happy,” he said, “and so does Arthur. He’s a good man, Miri.” As if she didn’t know. As if she hadn’t dreamed of having a father just like him. “How can a good man leave his wife and children?” “We don’t know about his marriage, Miri. We don’t even know that he is leaving his children.” “Do you mean the children might go with him?” That would change everything, and not for the better, now that Natalie hated her. She was glad Steve would be going away to college. She didn’t want to live in the same house with him. He barely acknowledged her existence. And Fern? Fern was a noodge but Miri wouldn’t mind her that much. They could get a babysitter for her, maybe another Mrs. Barnes. “You’re asking questions only Rusty and Arthur can answer,” Henry said. “I’m sure they’re going to sit down with you and explain everything.” “Oh, no!” “What?” “Tonight. Six-thirty. Pizza from Spirito’s. I forgot.” He checked his watch. “You’re already late. You should call.” “Would you do it for me?” “It would be better if you did it yourself.” She called from a phone booth along the boardwalk, feeding coins into the box as fast as Henry handed them to her. When Rusty answered, Miri said, “It’s me. I forgot.” “We’ll do it tomorrow,” Rusty said. “No excuses.” “Okay. Tomorrow.” She didn’t tell Henry until after they’d stopped at the hotel where the wedding would be, until after he’d shown her the garden where the chuppah would be draped with Grandpa Max’s tallis and a white lace tablecloth brought from the old country by Leah’s grandmother. Everything else would be decorated with peonies, Leah’s favorite flower, in shades ranging from pale blush to deep pink. She didn’t tell him until he asked, “Would you like to bring Mason to the wedding? I know we didn’t send him a proper invitation but—” “We broke up,” she managed to say, holding back tears. If only she could have a do-over she’d take a different route home from school, or she’d have gone to Pamel’s with her girlfriends, or maybe to the library. Then she wouldn’t have run into him or seen Polina and Stash. “You broke up?” Henry said. “I’m so sorry.” She leaned against him and nestled her head against his chest. “He has another girlfriend. All this time he’s had another girlfriend.” Henry shook his head. “I can’t believe this. Are you sure?” “She cooks at Janet. She has a little boy. He says he tried to end it with her…” “But you don’t believe him?” She shrugged.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  We’re going to Lehigh, not Korea.” “You’ll have to go without me.” “Steve—come on!” “It’s done.” “Do your parents know?” “They will.” “They’re going to go ape-shit!” Steve shrugged. He told his father first. He went to his office hoping to catch him before he left. His father was staying at the Elizabeth Carteret hotel these days, in the same room where Joseph Fluet, the guy who’d investigated the airplane crashes, had stayed. “Hello, Steve,” Daisy said. “Congratulations on your graduation.” “Thanks.” “I have something for you.” She pulled out a package wrapped with manly paper and tied with a brown ribbon. “I hope you’ll enjoy it.” “Thank you, Daisy.” “He’s with his last patient of the day,” Daisy said. “I’ll tell him you’re waiting.” When the last patient left, his father joined him in the waiting room. “How about supper at Three Brothers?” his father said. “I’ve been eating there a lot lately.” “Your girlfriend doesn’t cook for you?” His father gave him a sad smile. So Steve said, “Sure, I like their burgers.” Steve waited until his father finished his moussaka, then the baklava he’d ordered for dessert. He’d never seen his father eat Greek food. Steve didn’t like baklava—too sticky for him. He was off desserts anyway, trying to get into shape before basic training. When he broke his news his father didn’t take it well. “Now?” he said. “You’ve enlisted now, when we’re still fighting in Korea? No, son. I’m not going to let you do this.” “Too late, Dad. It’s done.” “I’ll get you out of it. I’ll tell them you’re not yourself.” “But I am myself.” “No, Steve. You haven’t been yourself in a long time.” “How would you know?” “I know my son.” “Not anymore. You don’t have any idea who I am.” Steve stood up. “Thanks for supper.” “Sit down,” his father said. “We’re not finished.” “I’m finished.” His father grabbed his arm. “You can’t tell your mother about this.” “Says who?” Steve shook off his father, saluted him, then marched out of the restaurant. Hup two three four…hup two three four. His father followed him out the door and down the street, calling, “Steve…I mean it, don’t tell your mother. Not now.” Steve stopped. “You’re not going to be able to fix this, Dad. I’m telling her.” “Then I’m coming with you,” his father said. “That should make Mom happy.” —HIS MOTHER WAS in the den, sitting in her favorite chair, working on a needlepoint canvas. What was she making this time? A pillow for him to take to college? Fern was on the floor in front of the television watching Hopalong Cassidy. Natalie was probably locked in her room. “Hey, Mom…” “Steve! I thought you and Phil were going to a graduation party tonight.” “I had something more important to do.” His father stepped into the den. “Daddy!” Fern ran to him, jumped into his arms. “You’re not supposed to be here,” his mother said to his father.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  “Like seeing a long-lost friend,” Miri tells her. “Like seeing you.” “I saw your goodbye kiss. I doubt if that’s how you’d say goodbye to me.” Miri feels her face flush. “It didn’t mean anything.” “If you say so.” Change the subject before this escalates, Miri tells herself. “So, Warren Beatty?” “You like that story?” “It grabbed my attention.” “He was great.” “So, it’s true?” “Maybe yes, maybe no.” “We’re back to that?” “Ask me another one, Girl Reporter.” “How did you know Kathy Stein was on that plane?” Natalie pauses for just a moment. “Ruby told me.” “No, really…how did you know?” “Sorry if you don’t like my answer but it’s the truth. Next…” Miri reminds herself not to push it. “Corinne?” “She and her hubby spend winters in Palm Beach, summers on Nantucket. They play golf. I don’t know how they can stand it. But, then, I never understood my mother. I suppose you see a lot of Fern.” “I do. It’s nice for Dr. O.” “You still call him that, after all these years?” “I tried Arthur but it never felt right.” They get their coffees, carry them to a quiet corner, where Miri says, “He’s sick.” “I heard.” “We’re hoping you’ll come to see him.” “I was waiting for his eightieth birthday.” “You probably shouldn’t wait that long.” “August? Are you saying August is too long to wait?” Miri nods. “Shit.” “Yeah.” —ON THE PLANE Miri is seated next to a young girl. “I’m Lily,” she says. “I’m nine. My dad is a pilot.” “Is he flying this plane?” Miri asks, sure that if he is he’ll be extra careful with his daughter on board. “No. He flies to Europe,” she says, kicking the seat in front of her. “I just came back from Portugal. Have you been there?” She doesn’t wait for Miri to tell her she hasn’t been to Portugal. “You should go. They have a lot of tiles there. Do you like tiles?” “Yes.” “Everything is tiled except your toothbrush.” Miri laughs. “You think I’m joking but I’m not,” Lily says. “Are you going to Vegas to gamble?” “No,” Miri tells her. “I live there.” “Me, too. With my mother. My dad lives all over the place. Do you think it’s weird?” Does she mean weird that her parents live in different places? “Vegas,” she says. “Do you think it’s a weird place to live?” “I’ve lived there since I was fifteen. My children grew up there.” “And they turned out okay? Because my dad thinks it’s not a good place to grow up.” “They’re fine.” Well, she thinks, two of them are anyway, but she’s not getting into that. “What were you doing in New Jersey?” Lily asks. “Visiting old friends.” “Was it fun?” Miri thinks before answering. “In a way it was. Yes.” The flight attendant stands at the front of the cabin. “May I have your attention?” She demonstrates the proper way to fasten your seat belt.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  Miri handed the panda bear from its shelf in her now-empty closet to Suzanne, asking her to give it to Betsy in person as soon as Mrs. Foster said it was okay to visit. Suzanne promised she would. They’d chipped in to give Miri a going-away present from Oakley’s, a double box of stationery with a western motif—cowboys, cacti, broncos—decorating the lower-right-hand corner of each sheet, plus an Esterbrook pen in pastel green, with a bottle of green ink, exactly what she’d been hoping someone would give her for Hanukkah. “Something to remember us by,” Suzanne said. “As if I could forget any of you,” Miri told them, choking up. She promised to write. They promised they’d write, too. For a while she thought Mason might come by the house, but he didn’t. Once she understood he was avoiding her the way she was avoiding him, she wanted to leave, the sooner the better. And now she was going. She was going to walk up the steps leading to the silver bird that would gobble her up, holding her in its belly until it reached its faraway destination, where it would spit her out. In one piece, she hoped. The stewardess, in her famous uniform with the red cut-out TWA logo on her right shoulder, welcomed them onto the plane. Miri was reassured to see that the seating looked so much like a train. She was never afraid on a train. They were seated two by two—Irene with Ben, Rusty with Dr. O and Miri with Fern. The stewardess handed the two girls silver wings to pin to their jackets. Fern’s jacket was turquoise felt with appliquéd animals. She asked for a second pin for Roy Rabbit. Miri offered hers, then pinned one to Fern’s jacket, and the other to Roy Rabbit’s well-worn vest. “Have you been to Lost Vegas?” Fern asked her. “No.” Miri resisted a laugh. It made sense to call it lost since it was in the middle of nowhere. “Will you be my sister now?” Fern asked. “Stepsister.” “Like in Cinderella ?” “No. My mother is very nice so you don’t have to worry about having a wicked stepmother. And my grandmother is the best grandmother ever—except when she talks about boys, but you don’t have to worry about that yet.” “I’m only coming for the summer,” Fern said. “Mommy wanted me to go to camp but I wanted to go with Daddy.” “I’m glad you’re coming with us.” Miri never thought she’d say that, but there was something comforting about having Fern sitting next to her, her skinny little legs swinging up and down, her cowboy bunny clutched against her chest. She liked having someone to watch over, someone who needed her to be strong.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  “Do you?” “I don’t know Mason as well as you.” “Would you ever lie like that to Leah?” “Never.” “I don’t see how he could have lied to me.” “Maybe he didn’t know how to tell you. He’s still a boy, Miri. He has a lot of stuff to figure out.” “I told him I never want to see him again.” “That’s a strong message.” “I mean it.” Was this her punishment for her fantasy about Dr. O marrying her mother? To lose her boyfriend, the best boyfriend any girl could have? No wonder he’d never tried to get beyond first base with her. All the time he was doing it with Polina. How could she, a fifteen-year-old girl, compete with that? “I don’t know how I can keep going,” she told Henry. “Miri, sweetheart—life is hard,” Henry said, “but it’s worth the struggle.” “Are you sure?” “Very, very sure.” —“I BROKE UP with Mason,” she told Rusty that night, “and I don’t want to talk about it.” “Oh, honey,” Rusty said. “I’m so sorry. Is it about Las Vegas?” “I said I don’t want to talk about it, and no, it’s not about Las Vegas. End of conversation.” Let Rusty tell Irene. Let Rusty tell the whole world. HenryLeah said Miri would learn from this experience. She said it wasn’t realistic of them to think puppy love could last. But learn what? Not to trust? Not to believe? Not to love? He didn’t agree with Leah. He wished he could make Miri’s sadness go away. But there was nothing he could do except be there for her. ChristinaJack was beside himself. They were in his room at Mrs. O’Malley’s. He paced up and down, punching his fist into his open hand while she sat primly on the edge of the bed. “And now Mason won’t come to Las Vegas because of that little bitch.” “Do you know why Miri broke up with him?” Christina asked. “No. Do you?” “Because he lied to her. Because he’s been…” She tried to put it delicately. “He’s been sleeping with Polina, the girl who cooks at Janet, the one Daisy took in after she lost everything in the Williamson Street crash.” “Mason?” “Yes, Mason. Polina told Daisy and Daisy told me. She thought I should know because of our…closeness.” “My little brother?” “Yes, your little brother. Polina said Mason broke up with her right after Miri found out he was cheating.” “This is crazy. We’re talking about kids.” “Polina’s not a kid. But she has one.” “Jesus, Mary and Joseph! How do we know this is really true?” “Why would Daisy lie to me? She’s not a gossip. But you should ask Mason yourself.” “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” “I wish you’d stop saying that.” “What should I say?” “I’m sorry, Jack.” Christina softened.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  MiriMiri expected school to be canceled on Monday morning but there was no announcement on the local radio station. She wished she could stay in bed under the covers with the quilt pulled over her head. She’d slept fitfully last night, waking every hour, finally winding up in Rusty’s bed, the two of them watching over each other. She’d never get rid of the stench in her nostrils, no matter how she washed them, sticking the soapy washcloth up as far as it would go, making her sneeze twenty times in a row. She’d tried telling herself it hadn’t happened. If she went to the river today there would be no sign of a plane. It had all been a bad dream. Even before she got downstairs the aroma of freshly baked coffee cake wafted up from Irene’s kitchen. And if it hadn’t happened, why would Irene be up and baking this early? “For the Red Cross, darling,” Irene told her, while Blanche Kessler, home-service chairman for the Elizabethtown chapter, packed the cakes into boxes. “To serve at the hospitality table,” Blanche Kessler said, “outside the makeshift morgue behind Haines Funeral Home.” If she still had any doubts, they vanished when she got to school. They were all buzzing about it in the hall outside their homerooms. Where were you when you heard the news? What were you doing? SUZANNE: My mother and I had just sat down to Sunday dinner when we heard the roar, then the explosions. We put our faces into our dinner plates—pork chops, mashed potatoes and beets. You should have seen us when it was over. Beets stain everything. I swear, I thought it was a comet. It sounded like a comet. ANGELO VENETTI: That was no comet—that was a bomb inside the plane. PETE WOLF: That was no bomb. It was something from outer space, some alien thing, maybe Martians. DONNY KELLEN: It’s a Commie plot! ELEANOR ( baiting Donny ): You sure Senator Joe McCarthy didn’t take the plane down? DONNY KELLEN: McCarthy’s the one person trying to save us from the Commies. ELEANOR: McCarthy is an evil man. A bully. DONNY KELLEN ( shouting ): I can’t help it if you’re too thick to see the truth, bitch. ELEANOR: Idiot! Eleanor Gordon was the most sophisticated in their crowd. She read The New Yorker. When it came to McCarthy, Miri’s family agreed with Eleanor. Donny Kellen was always ranting ab out the Commies and how they were trying to take over the world. When the Dianetics were kicked out of town for starting a medical school without permission, he’d ranted about that, too, but Miri didn’t think the Dianetics had anything to do with the Commies, though she couldn’t be sure. Uncle Henry had covered the story for the Daily Post. That’s how Miri found out Donny’s aunt had left town with them, to follow some guy named L. Ron Hubbard to Kansas.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  Your mother said you couldn’t come to the phone.” “Yeah, sick.” “What kind of sick?” “Just plain sick.” “You don’t sound sick.” “What does sick sound like?” “Okay, I get it.” No you don’t, Steve thought. Coffee CakeMiri brought one of Irene’s coffee cakes to Mrs. Stein once the Steins returned to their regular routines—Phil at school, Mr. Stein at his office, Mrs. Stein reading in her favorite chair. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” Miri said. “I still can’t believe it.” Mrs. Stein teared up. “My niece was a wonderful girl. And such promise. Even though we buried her and sat shiva, none of it feels real.” When Fred barked Mrs. Stein scooped him up and her mood lightened. “I’m so happy to see you, Miri, and Fred, too. Look at this cake!” she said, taking it from Miri. “It looks good enough to eat. What do you say?” Miri nodded. “And how about a cold glass of milk to go with it?” Miri nodded again. [image "Elizabeth Daily Post" file=Image00023.jpg] [image "Elizabeth Daily Post" file=Image00023.jpg] EditorialBARKING AT THE MOONJAN. 25 — Elizabeth’s second air disaster is now three days old. Our commercial airline death record has taken first place in the whole world. Show us, if you can, an official act or an official decision made that offers assurance there won’t be more slaughter. The governor, who is a lawyer himself, hides behind the opinion of another lawyer. The mayor calls for removal of Newark Airport “bag and baggage,” which he should know is barking at the moon. The Port Authority sticks to its old reliable routine of pat terns and improvements to come, while crash experts give us an answer to everything except why the airport keeps expanding. Let the governor order expansion work at Newark Airport stopped NOW—TODAY! That would be a gesture of sincerity which would reassure an aroused and grieving people. Public IndignationA few days after the crash, a “Public Indignation” meeting was held at City Hall, demanding authorities shut down Newark Airport. More than a thousand people came, not only from Elizabeth, but other towns along the flight paths. Irene didn’t want Ben Sapphire to go. “It could be too much for you, Ben.” “My wife died on one of those planes,” Ben said. “I’m not sitting this one out.” “Then I’m coming with you,” Irene told him. “Take your pills just in case,” Rusty said. But Irene ignored her. “Come, Rusty,” Ben said, “we’ll give you a ride.” “Me, too,” Miri said. She’d made plans to meet Mason there. “You’re not coming,” Rusty told her. “You have to be eighteen.” “You didn’t have to be eighteen to die,” Miri argued. “Penny wasn’t even eight.” Henry said, “I think she can come.” Rusty shrugged. “I hate this.” “We all do,” Henry said. —MASON WAS WAITING for her with Christina and Jack, in front of City Hall.

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  I remembered a diet column in a medical journal of Bennett’s. It seemed that Miss X had been on a strict diet of 600 calories a day for weeks and weeks and was still unable to lose weight. At first her puzzled doctor thought she was cheating, so he had her make careful lists of everything she ate. She didn’t seem to be cheating. “Are you sure you have listed absolutely every mouthful you ate?” he asked. “Mouthful?” she asked. “Yes,” the doctor said sternly. “I didn’t realize that had calories,” she said. Well, the upshot, of course (with pun intended) was that she was a prostitute swallowing at least ten to fifteen mouthfuls of ejaculate a day and the calories in just one good-sized spurt were enough to get her thrown out of Weight Watchers forever. What was the calorie count? I can’t remember. But ten to fifteen ejaculations turned out to be the equivalent of a seven-course meal at the Tour d’Argent, though of course, they paid you to eat instead of you paying them. Poor people starving from lack of protein all over the world. If only they knew! The cure for starvation for India and the cure for the overpopulation—both in one big swallow! One swallow doesn’t make a summer, but it makes a pretty damn good nightcap. Was it possible that I was really making myself laugh? “Ho ho ho,” I said to my naked self. And then, on the momentum gained from that little burst of false humor, I dug into my suitcase and pulled out my notebooks and worksheets and poems. “I am going to figure out how I got here,” I said to myself. How had I wound up naked and roasted like a half-done chicken, in a seedy dump in Paris? And where the hell was I going next? I sat down on the bed, spread all my notebooks and poems around me, and started flipping through a fat spiral binder which went back almost four years. There was no particular system. Journal jottings, shopping lists, lists of letters to be answered, drafts of irate letters never sent, pasted-in newspaper clippings, ideas for stories, first drafts of poems—everything jumbled together, chaotic, almost illegible. The entries were written in felt-tipped pens of all colors. But again, there was no system of color-coding. Shocking pink, Kelly green, and Mediterranean blue seemed to be the preferred colors, but there was also quite a lot of black and orange and purple. There was scarcely any somber blue-black ink at all. And never pencil. I needed to feel the flow of ink beneath my fingers as I wrote. And I wanted my ephemera to last.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  “What?” “Understand that you’re sensitive.” Miri was proud for coming up with such a good word. “Is that like saying I’m dramatic, or crazy?” Miri was careful now. “Sensitive is better than dramatic, and it’s definitely not as bad as crazy.” “You saw the crash but you didn’t cry in the middle of the Christmas pageant.” “Everyone is different.” Miri didn’t add, You don’t know what’s inside of me. You don’t know about the smell in my nostrils, you don’t know how I have to sleep in bed with my mother half the night, or that the only thing she’ll say about it is, It’s over and it’s never going to happen again. Natalie held on to Miri’s hand, and looked around as if there might be someone else in her room. Then she lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “You know that dancer, Ruby Granik?” “My uncle is interviewing her family,” Miri said. Natalie let go of Miri’s hand and sat up, intrigued by this information. “Do you think he’d interview me?” “He’s only talking to people who knew her. Family. Friends. People who worked with her.” Natalie’s voice went very low. “What I could tell him is just as important, maybe more important. Not that I’d want him to use my name.” “Like what?” “Swear you’ll never tell?” “I already swore I wouldn’t, remember?” “She’s the one who cried in the middle of the Christmas pageant today because she’ll never have another Christmas. She’s the one who keeps telling me about the babies inside the plane.” Natalie jumped off her bed. “I have to get ready for dance class. Come with me.” “Wait, I thought…” But Natalie grabbed her hatbox-shaped dance bag and ran down the stairs, with Miri trailing behind her. Natalie was full of surprises today, Miri thought. One minute, falling apart onstage, the next, with enough energy to light up the whole house. “Tell Mom I’ve gone to dance class,” Natalie called to Mrs. Barnes. Mrs. Barnes met her at the kitchen door. “I thought you weren’t feeling well.” “I’m better now,” Natalie said. “And Miri’s coming with me. We’ll take the bus. Mom can pick me up at the usual time.” At tap class Natalie was the best. Her feet led the way and the rest of her body followed. Double pullbacks, traveling time steps, wings—she could do it all. No one in her class could begin to keep up with her. After class, Natalie gave her teacher, Erma Rankin, her Christmas gift, which Miri guessed from the size and shape of the box was a Volupté compact, tied with the same holiday paper and red ribbon her grandmother used. Miss Rankin said, “Thank you, Natalie. I’m going to miss you. I hope you’ll still come to visit from time to time.” “What do you mean?” Natalie asked. “I’ve taught you all I can. As I told your mother a few weeks ago, you’re ready to study with the masters.

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  I dragged my albatross of a suitcase around the corner into the Rue de la Harpe (shades of Charlie’s girlfriend Sally) and surprisingly found a room in the first hotel I tried. The prices had gone up steeply since the last time I’d been there and I was given the last remaining room on the very top floor (a painfully long climb with that suitcase). The place was a fire-trap, I remarked to myself with masochistic pleasure, and the top floor was where I was most likely to be trapped. All sorts of images rushed into my mind: Zelda Fitzgerald dying in that asylum fire (I had just read a biography of her): the seedy hotel room in the movie Breathless; my father warning me gravely before my first unescorted trip to Europe at nineteen that he had seen Breathless and knew what happened to American girls in Europe; Bennett and I fighting bitterly in Paris five Christmases ago; Pia and I staying in this same hotel when we were both twenty-three; my first trip to Paris at thirteen (a posh suite at the Georges V with my parents and sisters, and all of us brushing our teeth with Perrier); my grandfather’s stories about living on bananas in Paris as a penniless art student; my mother dancing naked in the Bois de Boulogne (she said)…. I had been temporarily cheered by my luck in finding a place, but when I actually saw the room and realized I’d have to spend the night alone there, my heart sank. It was really half a room with a plywood partition across it (God knows what was on the other side) and a sagging single bed covered by a very dusty chintz spread. The walls were old striped wallpaper, very splotched and discolored. I pulled my suitcase in and closed the door. I fiddled awhile with the lock before being able to work it. Finally, I sank down on the bed and began to cry. I was conscious of wanting to cry passionately and without restraint, of wanting to weep a whole ocean of tears and drown. But even my tears were blocked. There was a peculiar knot in my stomach which kept making me think of Bennett. It was almost as if my navel was attached to his so that I couldn’t even lose myself in tears without wondering and worrying about him. Where was he? Couldn’t I even cry properly until I found him? The strangest thing about crying (perhaps this is a carryover from infancy) is that we never can cry wholeheartedly without a listener—or at least a potential listener. We don’t let ourselves cry as desperately as we might. Maybe we’re afraid to sink under the surface of the tears for fear there will be no one to save us. Or maybe tears are a form of communication—like speech—and require a listener.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  Steve The morning after graduating from Jefferson High, Steve went downtown to the army recruitment center on Elizabeth Avenue and enlisted. He filled out all the paperwork, set up an appointment for a physical that afternoon, and he was in. It was that easy. Phil was apoplectic. “Are you crazy? We’re going to Lehigh, not Korea.” “You’ll have to go without me.” “Steve—come on!” “It’s done.” “Do your parents know?” “They will.” “They’re going to go ape-shit!” Steve shrugged. He told his father first. He went to his office hoping to catch him before he left. His father was staying at the Elizabeth Carteret hotel these days, in the same room where Joseph Fluet, the guy who’d investigated the airplane crashes, had stayed. “Hello, Steve,” Daisy said. “Congratulations on your graduation.” “Thanks.” “I have something for you.” She pulled out a package wrapped with manly paper and tied with a brown ribbon. “I hope you’ll enjoy it.” “Thank you, Daisy.” “He’s with his last patient of the day,” Daisy said. “I’ll tell him you’re waiting.” When the last patient left, his father joined him in the waiting room. “How about supper at Three Brothers?” his father said. “I’ve been eating there a lot lately.” “Your girlfriend doesn’t cook for you?” His father gave him a sad smile. So Steve said, “Sure, I like their burgers.” Steve waited until his father finished his moussaka, then the baklava he’d

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  After that, the druggist was silent, and the silence at once regained control of the whole room, as if it were empty. He stood up and began to walk, so that I was able to see that he limped painfully, another undeniable proof of his father’s senility. His hip went askew, like a rowboat in a heavy sea, so that his shoulder and head slumped as if he were about to fall over backwards. (But the principal had told me to take him as an example.) With difficulty, he reached toward a desk drawer, pulled a business card out, and came back, lifting his twisted foot as if it were a foreign body and dropping it again heavily, while his whole body was drawn perilously in its wake. It hurt me to watch him. Monsieur Bismuth refrained from saying anything more. I had not opened my mouth, but my mind was all in a turmoil. In the silence, the telephone rang once, its ringing like a single pearl. We both stared at it, but it failed to ring again: it was nothing, the telephone merely dreaming. But what were Monsieur Bismuth’s dreams? Perhaps he had also hoped to become a physician. I don’t know why I was later convinced that this had been what he was daydreaming about on that occasion of my first visit. He had now picked up his pen again and was writing on the card. The trembling of his hands, it seemed, was caused by the same thing as his limping. He handed me the card and, without arising from his chair, held out his hand for me to shake. I returned along the passage, upset and dissatisfied. All the noises of the drugstore surged toward me as in a dream, but even these and the excitement of the many customers failed to rouse me from my painful thoughts. To the lights and the luxury of the store, I paid less attention now than earlier. I might have lacked the material means to continue my studies. But now, as soon as the means were assured me, I felt it would be an injustice if I were not granted freedom to pursue them as best I wished. I was perhaps irresponsible, but I assumed that my rebelliousness was a virtue. As soon as I had left the store, I stared with curiosity at the business card that I carried. It didn’t say much: “Please hand to the bearer all schoolbooks required for the sixth-year class.” The name of the card’s owner was followed by a whole string of titles and honors: Doctorate, master’s degree, certificates, but the last line had been crossed out. Still, I was able to decipher it: Vice-President of the Chamber of Commerce.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  He hoped she was getting plenty of rest. Because there was nothing restful about living here. Only Fern carried on as if everything were okay. Maybe that was her way of dealing with it. Pretend everything is fine. Same as always. Too bad he couldn’t do that. Inside, his parents and Fern were waiting for him in the kitchen. “Congratulations!” they called out. Was this a surprise party? Were his friends hiding in the other room? He looked around, but no, it was just the family. What was left of the family. He supposed he should be grateful. A surprise party was the last thing he wanted. Besides, all his friends would be celebrating with their families tonight, except for the ones who didn’t get into their first-choice schools. “Look at your cake!” Fern sang. “It’s your favorite. All chocolate. From Allen’s Bakery.” “We’re proud of you, son,” his father said, throwing an arm over his shoulder. His mother embraced him. “I never doubted you’d do well.” “Can we eat the cake now?” Fern asked, practically drooling over it. “After Steve has his supper,” his mother said. “I’ll heat up the plate I saved for you.” “No, I’ll have cake for my supper,” Steve said, making Fern clap her hands. His mother started to protest but his father said, “You’re not going to be there next year to make sure he has supper before dessert. You might as well get used to it.” At which point his mother burst into tears and left the room. “She’s just emotional about you leaving home,” his father said, trying to reassure him. “Good Natalie’s not here,” Fern said. “She doesn’t eat cake.” [image "Elizabeth Daily Post" file=Image00040.jpg] [image "Elizabeth Daily Post" file=Image00040.jpg] DESK-FAX SERVICE COMES TO AREAAPRIL 28 — Western Union has introduced an electronic service which provides the busy businessman with a push-button telegraph office right on his desk. The device is the Desk-Fax, a machine which sends and receives telegrams by literally taking a picture of them. Transmission is possible up to nine miles. The quality diminishes over longer distances because of the limitations of telephone lines. 31 [image "image" file=Image00005.jpg] [image file=Image00005.jpg] ChristinaDr. O seemed tense at the office. Daisy was sweeping up more figurines than usual. Christina kept count of them. One day there were five dwarfs left on the shelf, and the next, only three. A few days later Daisy took her aside. “He can’t decide whether to take the offer to open a practice in Las Vegas or not. His friends are building a modern medical-dental center and they’re begging him to come. If he does, I’m willing to go with him. What about you, Christina—would you consider starting a new life after graduation?” “You mean move to Las Vegas?” “If he decides to go.” “I don’t know. Jack would have to want to go, too.” “You should tell him there will be great jobs for an electrician out there.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  That’s how she knew it was special. Every other time she’d liked a boy she’d blabbed to all her friends about him. But not this time. “Are we still best friends?” Natalie asked out of nowhere, winding a piece of gray wool she’d found on the carpet around her finger. “I can’t believe you have to ask,” Miri said. “It’s just that lately you’ve been so…” Natalie stopped, searching for just the right word. “Remote,” she finally said, looking satisfied. Miri was stung. “You go to New York for dance classes three days a week and you’re calling me remote?” Natalie sat up. “I didn’t think you even noticed I was gone. You’re always with Mason, or you’re babysitting with Suzanne.” Natalie smoothed down her curls. “Even at school you hang out with Robo more than me.” “I do not.” “You sit with her every day at lunch, laughing.” “You’re at the same lunch table.” “But nobody laughs with me.” Miri looked at Natalie and realized it was true. ChristinaMr. Durkee, who taught bookkeeping at Battin, asked Christina to assist with his late class. Christina was his star pupil. If she didn’t mess up, she’d be graduating first among the girls in the business program. Today she’d be working late at Dr. O’s office. Mrs. Jones and her daughters were coming in for checkups. Daisy scheduled their appointments after hours because Mrs. Osner was afraid if Dr. O’s regular patients discovered Dr. O was treating colored people they might be upset, they might even switch to a different dentist. Dr. O, on the other hand, believed Mrs. Jones and her daughters deserved the best dental care. He had Daisy set up a plan for them with a sizable discount because, after all, she worked for the Osners and her girls were polite and doing well at school. As long as she left school by 3:45 p.m. she’d make it to Dr. O’s office in time. While the students were at their desks, taking a test, Christina grabbed her raincoat and umbrella. She was glad she was wearing old shoes in this crazy weather. She heard a plane overhead but when she looked out the window she couldn’t see anything the fog was so dense. Suddenly, the building rumbled. The girls looked up from their test papers, a few of them rushing to the windows in time to see a twin-engine plane thunder out of the fog, heading straight for them. One girl screamed. Another crossed herself and started a Hail Mary. Christina was sure the plane was coming through the window into the classroom. “Get back from the glass!” Mr. Durkee shouted. “Duck and cover!” But there was almost no time. The engine of the plane went quiet as it barely sailed over the roof of the school. The first explosion caused the windows to rattle, the second, louder explosion shook the building. “Oh my god—Jack!” Christina cried. “Jack…Jack…” She ran from the classroom with Mr.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  That day or the next, after a tedious drive through a land of food crops, we reached a pleasant little burg and put up at Chestnut Court—nice cabins, damp green grounds, apple trees, an old swing—and a tremendous sunset which the tired child ignored. She had wanted to go through Kasbeam because it was only thirty miles north from her home town but on the following morning I found her quite listless, with no desire to see again the sidewalk where she had played hopscotch some five years before. For obvious reasons I had rather dreaded that side trip, even though we had agreed not to make ourselves conspicuous in any way—to remain in the car and not look up old friends. My relief at her abandoning the project was spoiled by the thought that had she felt I were totally against the nostalgic possibilities of Pisky, as I had been last year, she would not have given up so easily. On my mentioning this with a sigh, she sighed too and complained of being out of sorts. She wanted to remain in bed till teatime at least, with lots of magazines, and then if she felt better she suggested we just continue westward. I must say she was very sweet and languid, and craved for fresh fruits, and I decided to go and fetch her a toothsome picnic lunch in Kasbeam. Our cabin stood on the timbered crest of a hill, and from our window you could see the road winding down, and then running as straight as a hair parting between two rows of chestnut trees, towards the pretty town, which looked singularly distinct and toylike in the pure morning distance. One could make out an elf-like girl on an insect-like bicycle, and a dog, a bit too large proportionately, all as clear as those pilgrims and mules winding up wax-pale roads in old paintings with blue hills and red little people. I have the European urge to use my feet when a drive can be dispensed with, so I leisurely walked down, eventually meeting the cyclist—a plain plump girl with pigtails, followed by a huge St. Bernard dog with orbits like pansies. In Kasbeam a very old barber gave me a very mediocre haircut: he babbled of a baseball-playing son of his, and, at every explodent, spat into my neck, and every now and then wiped his glasses on my sheet-wrap, or interrupted his tremulous scissor work to produce faded newspaper clippings, and so inattentive was I that it came as a shock to realize as he pointed to an easeled photograph among the ancient gray lotions, that the mustached young ball player had been dead for the last thirty years.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  see Paris, Tristan”;6 and more than a thousand shades he showed to me, and pointing with his finger, named to me those whom love had parted from our life. After I had heard my teacher name the olden dames and cavaliers, pity came over me, and I was as if bewildered. I began: “Poet, willingly would I speak with those two7 that go together, and seem so light upon the wind.” And he to me: “Thou shalt see when they are nearer to us; and do thou then entreat them by that love, which leads them; and they will come.” Soon as the wind bends them to us, I raised my voice: “O wearied souls! come to speak with us, if none denies it.” As doves called by desire, with raised and steady wings come through the air to their loved nest, borne by their will: so those spirits issued from the band where Dido is, coming to us through the malignant air; such was the force of my affectuous cry. “O living creature, gracious and benign; that goest through the black air, visiting us who stained the earth with blood. if the King of the Universe were our friend, we would pray him for thy peace; seeing that thou hast pity of our perverse misfortune. Of that which it pleases thee to hear and to speak, we will hear and speak with you, whilst the wind, as now, is silent for us. The town,8 where I was born, sits on the shore, where Po descends to rest with his attendant streams. Love, which is quickly caught in gentle heart, took him with the fair body of which I was bereft; and the manner still afflicts me. Love, which to no loved one permits excuse for loving, took me so strongly with delight in him, that, as thou seest, even now it leaves me not. Love led us to one death; Caïna9 waits for him who quenched our life.” These words from them were offered to us. After I had heard those wounded souls, I bowed my face, and held it low until the Poet said to me: “What are thou thinking of?” When I answered, I began: “Ah me! what sweet thoughts, what longing led them to the woeful pass!” Then I turned again to them; and I spoke, and began: Francesca, thy torments make me weep with grief and pity. But tell me: in the time of the sweet sighs, by what and how love granted you to know the dubious desires?” And she to me: “There is no greater pain than to recall a happy time in wretchedness; and this thy teacher knows.10 But if thou hast such desire to learn the first root of our love, I will do like one who weeps and tells. One day, for pastime, we read of Lancelot,11 how love constrained him; we were alone, and without all suspicion.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  and seeing they were before Christianity, they worshipped not God aright; and of these am I myself. For such defects, and for no other fault, are we lost; and only in so far afflicted, that without hope we live in desire.” Great sadness took me at the heart on hearing this; because I knew men of much worth, who in that Limbo were suspense. “Tell me, Master; tell me, Sir,” I began, desiring to be assured of that Faith which conquers every error; “did ever any, by his own merit, or by others’, go out from hence, that afterwards was blessed?” And he, understanding my covert speech, replied: “I was new in this condition, when I saw a Mighty One1 come to us, crowned with sign of victory. He took away from us the shade of our First Parent, of Abel his son, and that of Noah; of Moses the Legislator and obedient; Abraham the Patriarch; David the King; Israel with his father and his children, and with Rachel, for whom he did so much; and many others, and made them blessed; and I wish thee to know, that, before these, no human souls were saved.” We ceased not to go, though he was speaking; but passed the wood meanwhile, the wood, I say, of crowded spirits. Our way was not yet far since my slumber, when I saw a fire,2 which conquered a hemisphere of the darkness. We were still a little distant from it; yet not so distant, that I did not in part discern what honourable people occupied that place. “O thou, that honourest every science and art; who are these, who have such honour, that it separates them from the manner of the rest?” And he to me: “The honoured name, which sounds of them, up in that life of thine, gains favours in heaven which thus advances them.” Meanwhile a voice was heard by me: “Honour the great Poet! His shade returns that was departed.” After the voice had paused, and was silent, I saw four great shadows come to us; they had an aspect neither sad nor joyful. The good Master began to speak: “Mark him with that sword in hand, who comes before the three as their lord: that is Homer, the sovereign Poet; the next who comes is Horace the satirist; Ovid is the third, and the last is Lucan. Because each agrees with me in the name, which the one voice sounded, they do me honour: and therein they do well.” Thus I saw assembled the goodly school of those lords of highest song, which, like an eagle, soars above the rest. After they had talked a space together, they turned to me with a sign of salutation; and my Master smiled thereat. And greatly more besides they honoured me for they made me of their number, so that I was a sixth amid such intelligences.

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

  “What book?” “The one Lisbeth gave you.” “This has nothing to do with Lisbeth or books,” Sandy says. Like Bettina Balser, Sandy feels she has to choke her own voice down in order to stomach her marriage. Like Isadora White Wing, Sandy worries that she’ll never know true sexual liberation firsthand. Did Judy relate to these predicaments, too? And if so, what did she do about it? Blume is forthright about one part of her “rebellion,” which overlapped with Isadora Wing’s—her marriage to John left her feeling inept. “He had married this little girl, and he was happy that way,” Blume told a reporter for the Chicago Tribune in 1985. Divorcing him meant she would have to grow up, which wasn’t easy, either. John was cold toward her; the kids were angry. Judy found that the period after her divorce left her more confused and depressed than ever. “Just getting through the day was a real struggle for me,” she writes of that time in Letters to Judy . “I woke up crying every morning and I went to bed crying every night. I wasn’t sure I could cope. I had very little left over for my kids.” She worried a lot, fearing that she’d ruined all their lives. The only thing she didn’t have to stress about was money. Thanks to her career, she wasn’t financially ensnared like Bettina Balser. She wouldn’t have to work as a cocktail waitress— “That’s what divorced women on TV always turn out to be—cocktail waitresses,” Karen muses in It’s Not the End of the World —or transform herself into the sad woman Sandy’s sister, Myra, describes in Wifey . Myra is having a turbulent moment with her wealthy gynecologist husband, Gordon. She doesn’t trust him anymore, but she can’t imagine leaving, either. “If I divorced him, I’d have to give up the house and move to an apartment in Fort Lee, with all the other divorcées,” she whines. She’d have to “eat at Howard Johnson’s instead of Périgord Park, get a job in a department store.” For Myra, who has embraced the upscale suburban lifestyle in ways Sandy cannot bring herself to do, it’s a nonstarter. She’ll have to look past his suspected dalliances (it’s only one, with Sandy incidentally) and stand by him. Judy didn’t have to brave financial ruin to leave John, and so the exes settled into their new routines as co-parents. She had the kids during the school week, in Princeton, and on the weekend they went to John’s, where he would take them out to fancy dinners and plays in the city. “He entertained them lavishly,” Judy later explained, “not to compete with me, but because he didn’t know what else to do. He wanted to show them that he cared.” This went on for a bit, until John realized that he couldn’t sustain paying for expensive outings every time he had his children with him. The big-ticket jaunts abruptly stopped, which disappointed them.