Long Made Short Read Online Free PDF Page A

old friend Jack, how are
     you?” and I say “God, how are you, I’m fine, but how are you and what have you been
     doing?” and she says she’s still in New Haven, different house though, and has two
     children, girl in college, boy graduating high school, girl has been a delight her
     entire life and at the very top of her class since kindergarten and is already a fantastic
     scientist, boy has some emotional problems but nothing that won’t be solved, she and
     her husband are divorcing after being married close to nineteen years and together
     for twenty-two, and I say “Sorry to hear that, it must be a very difficult thing to
     go through, especially for the children,” and she says “Not as much as it’s been for
     everyone enduring the two of us living together the last five years, and if you’re
     saying part of my son’s problem is because of the breakup, that’s true but a small
     part of it and will also be worked out,” and I say “Well good, I’m glad. I remember
     your husband. He has an unusual Slavic name I could never pronounce or spell,” and
     she says “Kaczmarek,” and I say “Kaczmarek, I still wouldn’t know how to spell it
     without seeing it, but he liked to climb mountains and jump from airplanes, and was
     a radio producer or assistant to one last time I saw you, which was when I drove to
     New Haven when you were living together,” and she says “Now he’s a TV and movie producer—documentaries
     mostly,” and I say “Good for him. I also read the obituary of your mother and sent
     you a note about it through their old address,” and she says “You did? I never got
     it though my father was still living there till about five years ago,” and I say “He’s
     all right, I hope,” and she says “Ninety-one and still, last I heard, never a health
     problem and barely a checkup, knock wood,” and she raps something twice, and I say
     “Anyway, I sent the note,” though now I remember I wanted to and maybe even wrote
     it but never sent it out, and she says “If he got it he never told me—did you address
     it directly to me?” and I say “Yes, with probably something about my condolences to
     your whole family,” and she says “That was sweet of you—believe me, if I’d received
     it I would have replied,” and I say “That’s okay, it happens. How is your brother,
     by the way—still in films? Because I haven’t seen his name on one for it must be fifteen
     years, but then there’s few American films I go to though I think I would have caught
     his name in the ads if he had any billing,” and she says “Listen, less we say about
     him or any of my family, the better. I’ve sort of cut myself off from all of them,
     even my father—imagine,” and she laughs, “their little pip-squeak Ramona, the one
     who could always be bossed around and whom they treated as if she never and could
     never grow up. Well, they still treat me that way and I’m fifty-three, so I just said—this
     was in relation to my divorce when I told them—‘Fuck you, gang,’ and I don’t hear
     from them anymore, not even my oldest and closest sister and certainly not my wacko
     brother,” and I say “She—but you don’t want to talk about it,” and she says “No, what?”
     and I say “The oldest one, Denise or Diana, lived in Mount Kisco, didn’t she?” and
     she says “What a memory you have about things I like to forget. Dina still does—Ms.
     Stability—hasn’t moved or been upset by anything in forty years,” and I say “On Elderberry
     Street, number one-o-four or six,” and she says “Eight, but still, that’s fantastic
     and you even got the berries right this time,” and I say “I didn’t use to?” and she
     says “I don’t know, didn’t you? For I was only kidding, but what about your family—your
     mother?” and I say “She’s old and ailing and not altogether there sometimes—her memory
     of what you just tell her goes pretty