Problems with People Read Online Free PDF Page B

word because he had so little clothing terminology—was it pleats? And down booties with hard soles. What was her look? Did it have a name? Mix and match? Potluck medley? Vintage anarchic? Intentional clash? She made him think of politically activated peasants from the era of Tolstoy—minus the tall boots—in this case a Tolstoyan with an air of only partial political zeal, a comrade with some poetry and whimsy and those parts of her stronger than her politics; either all of that or Maid Marian dressed for bow pulling. Lydia Williams was a little bit pale, not on the side of faded or blanched, not along the lines of ghostly and wan, more sort of north of Irish, or south of Icelandic, but maybe this vagrant ethereality of hers was just a trick of his canned lighting scheme coupled with the snaring of her hair in that clingy beanie, leaving a considerable forehead tract to catch not just the forty-watt recessed halogens but also what still seemed, to him, like snow light coming through the windows, even though snow was, for the most part, past. The staying-in look—the staying in on Saturday a.m. to drink tea and read look, not PJs and a robe but not going-out clothes; he added to this rapid, first-impression assessment her “natural” approach when it came to makeup, she had something or other on, he didn’t know what to call it,but not very much of it, almost none, still, her skin had a layer of something or other which was meant to, he thought now, deepen her paleness, probably a contradiction in terms when he thought about it—a deeper paleness? The point was, after getting up this morning she’d put something on, the better to greet him, maybe feeling that without it, what—but now that they’d passed along the short entry hall and into the great room he wasn’t sure any longer; maybe she wore no makeup at all; light changed everything; in the great room, even though the light was cleaner and more telling, he decided Lydia Williams could be under thirty-five; after all, a cold, full, and naked light didn’t reveal more forehead furrows, laugh lines, crow’s feet, or other signatures of late-thirtysomething aging, no, she didn’t have as many time-related skin flaws as he’d guessed, fleetingly, would be revealed here when, a few seconds before, he’d made some initial but not perfunctory observations about her in the less well-lit foyer. Though he hardly had time to think about that now, overwhelmed as he was by her style of apartment decorating/furnishing in all its density, color, texture, and vivacity—he didn’t recognize the great room; was this really his apartment? It looked like a curio shop and an import emporium—a phantasmagoria or multicultural souk—paper lanterns, prayer flags, tapering vases, wicker baskets, lucky cats, mounded throw pillows, whatnots, gewgaws, knickknacks, tchotchkes, a naked mannequin, a sombrero, some gourds, a divan on wheels, strings of twinkling Christmas lights, it was all too much to take in with any depth in the context of this, his introductory visit, there were just so many horizontal and vertical planes of productand incident—streamers, pendants, hung crystals, strung beads—though it did occur to him to wonder how everything was attached, fixed, arrayed, pinned, to what extent his perfect surfaces were now compromised by tacks, tape, stains, and picture hooks, how much work it might be one day to repair this gaudy and shimmering bazaar, to put things back to how they’d been before—clean, unmarred, easy to maintain, four white walls and a ceiling. Plus the cork floor. A landlordish consideration—the sort of thing he had to think about. For example, these very large portraits on the most proximate, the east, wall, framed and hung—he hoped the drywall could handle them without fissuring. They were all of multi-armed goddesses derived from Hindu mythology, including Kali, blue and bloodthirsty, stepping as she was on the throat of a dead man and