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Show Motherlunge a novel 103 And so for the time period in question we began to be an actual couple. I met Cassandra, who was as beautiful as I'd suspected yet surprisingly interested in and nice to me, plus often miserable; I liked her. She loved Steig-who taught at the art school and was hairy and voluble and skeptical-looking, with full, curving lips. When Steig was in the big city he sketched Cassandra over and over again, from every angle, and sold the drawings of her and went back to his family in Israel every six weeks. And when he was gone, Cassandra looked blank and undrawn, pale as paper. And coincidentally whenever Steig was gone, I tended to break up with Eli, though usually he didn't realize it. During one such time, I had sex with one of the graduate students who moved in two places down from Pavia-he rode the same bus I did every morning, and had read the book I was carrying around, which I never did finish. Another time Cassandra and I went to a rock show together and kissed and stroked each other's arms up and down, but we got tired and gave up and we never got around to it again. It seemed that wronging Eli-even with pre-emptive intentions-was more gratifying to contemplate than to do. 1 Of course also during this time I was learning about Eli. I learned that he liked to draw on napkins at restaurants, liked to ride his bike, gave careful directions to tourists. I discovered that he phoned his parents twice a week, that he was neat and could fix things. I found out the names of his previous girlfriends-Christine, Anna, and Robin-and that he was still friends with all of them (except Robin, who was crazy), and I observed that men often hit on him, too, because of his prettiness. I learned Eli's smell and how his hand closed to hold mine firmly and automatically when we walked down the street. Naturally, the more I learned about him, the angrier I became. For I believed that he was |
