I Regret Everything Read Online Free PDF Page A

I’d see another me, meta-Spaulding, equally uneasy, pulling strings. Could he tell? And had I really asked him to take me to lunch?
    Dr. Margaret Noonan, who I’d been seeing twice a week since my release, and who insisted I call her “Dr. Margaret,” had told me to approach social situations like I was playing a character named “Spaulding.” This Spaulding was deep-space cool and confident. This Spaulding could star in a movie about the other “real” Spaulding and win an Oscar. In my father’s office these words cycled through my brain:
    The ner- / vous girl / asserts / her fool- / ish plan.
    But Mr. Best was so friendly, talking to me like I was a person and not throwing me out. I made a mental note to discuss this with Dr. Margaret during my next session. I had initiated a conversation and nearly gotten through it without embarrassing myself. Why did I ask him to take me out to lunch? When it came to trying to understand my behavior, Dr. Margaret was helpful but whenever I talked to her about anything creative she saw it as an extension of my therapy.
    â€”I’m working on this poem about flying over everybody.
    â€”So you can’t be seen? Or so you can be seen?
    I don’t know! But I didn’t want to talk about it. My parents forced me to go to therapy. Dr. Margaret was nice and everything, but I would have rather been at the dentist. I thought it might be helpful to have a casual conversation with an actual writer and that’s what I was thinking I would do with Mr. Best. At least that’s what I was thinking until I stepped into his force field. Yes, force field. It sounds overdramatic (and intergalactic) but that was the effect of the confidence, authority, and ease he exuded.
    It wasn’t his physical attractiveness, because while he was nice enough looking—dark hair, medium build, a shade under six feet—he wasn’t exactly a runway model. Mr. Best just seemed to have it figured out. Here was someone with a goal and a plan. He had a job where he made money and an art life, too. I wanted to know what he knew.
    Facebook showed several Jeremy Bests in New Zealand, Australia, England, and America but mine did not have an account. Needless to say, he was a stranger to Twitter, LinkedIn, and Tumblr. In fact, the online profile of my Jeremy Best was remarkably low-key. A search engine only turned up membership in some professional societies. His alter ego, Jinx Bell, had a similarly inconspicuous Internet presence: a couple of poems in literary journals, the edition of
The Paris Review
where his work had appeared, and that was pretty much the extent of it.
    But he was a published poet, an artist, and that was impressive. Did he want an apprentice?

J EREMY
The House of Regret Has Many Rooms
    T he day before Spaulding’s appearance, Ed Simonson and I were having lunch at the University Club. He had invited me out to discuss a delicate matter and the mealtime din made it easier to speak confidentially. Ed speared his last oyster, put it in his mouth, swallowed, and chased it with a sip of lager. I thought of him as the Raptor. It wasn’t a nickname I shared with anyone.
    â€œI’ve been looking over what you’ve done on the Vendler estate.” Like all good attorneys, Ed Simonson was inscrutable. His expression did not indicate whether he thought the work was high quality or I was going to be asked to resign. Had my designs on the client’s Montauk home been telepathically surmised? The finest attorneys have an ability to peer into the souls of their adversaries. Did he think of me as an adversary? “Solid work there, as usual.”
    The Vendler estate was routine. Was this what he had wanted to talk about? I ate a spoonful of chowder and waited for him to continue. A woman laughed at a nearby table. Across the room a couple appeared to be having an argument. Thirty seconds passed. There was a vacant look in Ed’s eyes.