Sublime

‘Okay,’ he says, and he leans the long-handled dustpan and brush he is holding against the wall. He is just a bit taller than I am, slim, clean-shaven. He has very pale skin and eyes that are big and wet-looking. Their irises are like two dirty ponds. They take in my face for just a moment too long for it to feel normal. ‘So, what are you?’ he says

Wolfe now moved into a new apartment at 865 First Avenue, just two blocks toward the East River from the Perkinses’ house.

I knew then that Randy had fallen for AJ, that the friend he really craved was that golden high school boy who had saved him. But he would settle for me.

Bullis, the Egg Man,

I asked Ernest about Harold and Pat and he explained that Harold Loeb was Princeton from a very rich New York family, had been on the boxing and wrestling teams in college. He had literary aspirations, even started a little magazine in Paris called Broom. Fiercely devoted to Duff, very jealous of Pat, who alternated weekends with Duff.

taupe,

Living with him was like standing beside the sea. Each day a different colour, a different foam-capped height, but always the same restless intensity pulling towards the horizon.

A moment later, wearing a corn-colored jacket over green velour pants and an orange-and-green-plaid tie, Jack Ashkenazy came in, followed by George Deasey, who, as ever, appeared to be in a testy mood. He was, as Anapol had mentioned, a graduate of Columbia, class of 1912. Over the course of his career, George Debevoise Deasey had published