The Wisdom of Perversity Read Online Free PDF Page B

had begun dating, holding her week after week while she cried and moped and never really explained her grief, never confessed to Gary that losing her mother felt as if all hope of improving herself was also gone.
    â€œI’m . . . I’m worried . . .” she stammered her way into what she wanted to say, “about Zack.”
    â€œSo am I.” Gary puffed up, ready to speechify.
    She raised a hand to stop him. “I mean: I’m worried about
you
and Zack.”
    â€œOh.” He rolled his eyes. “You’re worried about
me
and Zack.” He turned away to fetch a stick of Trident from a towering stack on his desk. That reawakened her suspicion he had been cheating. Why else would he be sitting at an open window in winter, contemplating a view he’d seen daily for nineteen years? It wasn’t plausible that the anxious, efficient Gary would be meditative. As if to prove that point, he restlessly pulled a wrapper off the gum, fed a stick to his maw, and chewed, glaring at her defiantly.
    â€œHoney,” she said, anxious to calm him, “I’m not criticizing you. I don’t think you realize how much you mean to Zack. He worships you.” The instant she spoke that overwrought sentence she regretted it. The hyperbole was obvious and would offend.
    â€œReally?” Gary’s jaw ceased working angrily, his face relaxing into delight.
    Forward, then, into shameless flattery: “Of course. You’re brilliant and so successful. Think how hard it must be to have a father like you. How can he ever hope to be your equal?”
    Gary was mesmerized by her bait—for a split second. Then he frowned. “No. He’s like every teenage son in the history of the world. He thinks his father is an asshole. And you know what? He’s right. For wasting my time trying to get him to like me, I’m a gigantic asshole.”
    â€œHe doesn’t think you’re an asshole. He’s intimidated by you,” Julie argued, although she was relieved Gary hadn’t been fooled. “You’re perfect and he’s not—”
    â€œI’m not perfect,” Gary snapped, and winced at having to make this concession.
    â€œTo him you’re perfect. Everything he has trouble with, you do perfectly.” She meant that. Gary’s facility with language, formidable debating skills, and the blunt confident way he presented himself to the world must loom as unassailable mountains to Zack.
    Gary’s mouth twisted skeptically, but he nodded.
    She pressed her advantage. “And every time you criticize him it makes Zack feel he’ll never measure up.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about? I have to criticize him.”
    â€œWhy?” Julie shot back.
    He goggled at her. “Why!”
    â€œWhy?” she insisted.
    Gary sneered. “Because you won’t.”
    She decided to ignore that provocation. In his work it was routine for Gary to react to any dispute with attack. “His teachers criticize him. His friends criticize him. The world is ready to find fault night and day. He doesn’t need more of it from us.”
    â€œWhat do you want from me?” Gary’s angry front abruptly collapsed. His nose and mouth scrunched together and he moaned piteously, “What do you want from me? I can’t watch every fucking word I say! This is my home.” Tears welled. Tears! When had she last seen tears in her husband’s eyes? “This is my family. Can’t I relax with my own family?” He turned away to lean on his desk, a hand inadvertently toppling the stack of gum. “I can’t take this,” he whispered. “I’m falling apart.”
    Moved by his confession of turmoil, she put a hand on his bowed back. This part of him rippled with muscles. They were formed in his youth, lugging a backpack laden with thick, sharp-edged tomes up and down Cathedral Parkway to Columbia Law School. She pitied him and