A Regular Guy by Mona Simpson Read Free Book Online

protesters. “Did you get the polio vaccine?” Noah shouted, a taunt particularly jarring, he noticed, for the dumber ones, whose eyes flickered as they wondered if he had polio. Oops, he just remembered that Owens’ girlfriend, Olivia, was involved with animal rights now, something to do with Latin American parrots.
    “Hey, why don’t you ever get any women biologists from Denmark in your lab?” Owens asked. Because he was seldom outside at this time of day, he associated morning hours outdoors with love. In the first few months with Olivia, he’d snuck away from the office for picnic lunches in the hills. Not many CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, he thought, made love on the ground before noon.
    There was a particular smell of bark the ground released when, later,it was going to be hot. Owens walked through the fields of palm and live oak in the hiking boots he’d been wearing whenever he wasn’t in a suit for the last five years. Kaskie wondered how he kept them clean. A strange thing they had in common. One thing about a chair: shoes stay new.
    “Or do you know any French female scientists? Sort of like Madame Curie?”
    “I haven’t met many Marie Curies.”
    “Have you ever seen a picture of her? Oh, Kaskie—God, she was beautiful.” Owens’ voice had reverence and heartbreak, as if he was talking about a whole era of life from which he would be forever excluded: mothers seen from outside windows, bending down over tables, cleaning for love. “You’ve got to see her. I’ll show you a picture.”
    “Not my type.” Noah smiled. It was like Owens to want to show you things. This impulse led to some graces. He was always willing to see a movie again, if he could introduce you to it. As Owens often told the same stories without remembering, Noah thought it was interesting that his opinions didn’t change. But he and Owens never agreed on women. Except Olivia, who, as luck would have it, happened to be Owens’ girlfriend, since Owens had the corner on luck.
    “Well, Olivia’s pretty pretty,” Noah said.
    Owens sighed. “I wish she’d do something with her life.”
    Though Olivia was undeniably beautiful, Noah tried not to envy Owens. He’d known her for years and secretly believed she wasn’t that smart. This didn’t prevent him from being half in love with her. It was distinctly possible to be in love with a woman and also find her faintly stupid. But it enchanted him that Owens would choose Olivia and then expect her to have some sort of heroic career. Even among friends as close as Noah and Owens, it was important that each man be able secretly to prefer his own life. This small and unacknowledged snobbery allowed Noah to flatter his friend, trying to make it easier for Owens to bear the life Noah himself would not truly want.
    “I just don’t know if, in the end, Olivia’s really smart enough.”
    “Smart enough for what?” Noah asked, privately agreeing.
    “You know how sometimes you’re with someone and stay up all night talking? Well, we never do that.” Owens shook his head.
    Noah was celibate, though he would have been disturbed to hear himself described as such. His condition, in all its aspects, embarrassed him, and while he relished and craved intricate discussions of love, he became vague and abstract about his own circumstances.
    Years ago, in college, a girl sat on his lap at a party. She’d ridden with him later on the uneven sidewalks and they’d kissed. Their kissing seemed important to him, as if she were lifting a curtain he always had assumed was the real world and shown him something behind, a secret party where others were already laughing and sighing, even the trees. It seemed for this once easy, as if all he had to do was relax. She kept telling him he had a beautiful face. Like a fat person, Noah thought. “She has such a pretty, pretty face,” his mother and sister were always saying of fat women. It was very late when he finally stopped at the girl’s dorm