Free The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories by Marina Keegan Page B

sink to her hands.
    Anna walked over to the phone, dialed Sam’s number, and hung up.
    * * *
    On Wednesday at 4:42 P.M. , Anna knocked on Sam’s apartment door.
    “Hi Anna,” said Sam.
    Anna looked at him.
    “How does your knee feel today?”
    “Yes,” she said. “Yes, it is.”
    Anna went inside and sat down.
    Sam tilted his head slightly and chuckled.
    “No tuberculosis or anemia or endometrial cancer?”
    “No,” she said. “No, there isn’t.”
    Sam put on some tea and handed her his pile.
    “I’ve got a lot for you today. Two of those Saint Augustine chapters, and I want you to look at this pile of coupons.”
    She read him an advertisement for car insurance.
    She read him a sheet of coupons for Walgreens.
    She read him a page of Saint Augustine’s philosophy.
    Sam’s clicking stopped. He looked toward her as if listening for something, or smelling for something or tasting for something or feeling for something.
    “Are you okay?” he asked.
    Sam stood up from his desk, went into the kitchen briefly, and walked over to her side of the room. Sam never left his side of the room.
    “I found this on the chair and I presume it’s yours.” Sam leaned against her chair, handing her a thin beige cardigan. Anna took it from him, careful to avoid meeting his skin.
    “Thank you, Sam. I must have left it here.”
    Sam wasn’t certain if he was looking directly at Anna’s eyes. He was never certain with her. He could only guess, wonder, speculate until he told himself he was being silly, being egocentric, being sick.
    “Anna,” he repeated, reaching out slowly, hesitantly, before placing a hand on her shoulder—exhaling into relaxation as he felt the smooth linen fabric beneath his fingers. “You sure you’re okay?”
    Anna nodded, knowing he could somehow sense the motion of her head. Then picked up the book, dislodging his hand.
    “I’m fine, Sam. Really.”
    She listened to the sound of the tea percolating and thought about their mutual senses; it smells like cinnamon berries, it tastes like honey smoke, it feels warmer today. “Did I ever tell you I could do Black Swan’s thirty-two fouettés en tournant?”
    “No.” Sam went back over to his desk and resumed his clicking. “You’ve never told me that, Anna. That’s impressive.”
    Then Anna read to Sam. Read to him as he turned her words into a language of spots. A language that she now knew he could read in the steam and in the tea and in the books and in his body. In the painting and the shelves and the music and the air.
    Anna brought her mug to the sink before excusing herself to the bathroom. She didn’t let him hear her turn the wrong way—but she knew when she clicked shut the front door that he’d know she’d never be back. Knew because her sagging breasts and varicose veins were covered in cotton. Knew because he could hear her tears spot his book like Braille.

The Ingenue
    T he biggest fight in my relationship with Danny regards his absurd claim that he invented the popular middle school phenomenon of saying “cha-cha-cha” after each phrase of the Happy Birthday song—an idea his ingenious sixth-grade brain allegedly spawned in a New Jersey Chuck E. Cheese and watched spread across 1993 America with an unprecedented rapidity.
    “I started that! Are you kidding me!?” His face was serious now, indignant. “Literally, I started that, ask anyone from Montclair!”
    “Danny, you did not start that, that’s ridiculous.” I was serious now, too. “I’m done talking about this.”
    “No, no, no. Listen. I don’t know why this is so impossible to you. Someone had to start it; someone had to be the first kid to say it. I’m telling you, that was me. Eliot Grossman’s birthday party. Ask anyone.”
    “This is really typical.”
    “What!?” He put his wineglass down on the table.
    “Nothing. Just . . . you would think you invented something like that. It’s just something you would think.” I was searching the