Anagrams by Lorrie Moore Read Free Book Online

Street thousands of dark birds had landed, descended from their neat, purposeful geometry into the mess of the neighborhood, scattered their troubled squawking throughout trees and on rooftops, looking the rainbowy, shadowy black of an oil spill. There were scientists, I knew, who did studies of such events, who claimed to discern patterns in such chaos. But this required distance and a study that took no account of any single particle in the mess. Particles were of no value. Up close was of no particular use.
    From four blocks away I could see that the flock had a kind of group-life, a recognizable intelligence; no doubt in its random flutters there were patterns, but alone any one of those black birds would not have known what was up. Alone, as people live, they would crash their heads against walls.
    I walked slowly, away from Marini Street, and understood this small shred: Between large and small, between near and far, there was no wisdom or truce to be had. To be near was to be blind; to be one among so many was to own no shape or say.
    “There must be things that can save us!” I wanted to shout. “But they are just not here.”
    I got an abortion. Later I suffered from a brief heterosexual depression and had trouble teaching my class: I would inadvertently skip the number three when counting and would instead call out, “Front-two-four-five, Side-two-four-five.” Actually that happened only once, but later, when I was living in New York, it seemed to make a funny story. (“Benna,” said Gerard, the day I left. “Baby, I’m really sorry.”)
    Because of the pregnancy, the lump in my breast disappeared, retracted and absorbed, never to sprout again. “A night-blooming-not-so-serious,” I said to the nurse-practitioner. She smiled. When she felt my breast, I wanted her to ask me out to dinner. There was a week in my life when she was the only person I really liked.
    But I believed in starting over. There was finally, I knew, only rupture and hurt and falling short between all persons, but, Shirley, the best revenge was to turn your life into a small gathering of miracles.
    If I could not be anchored and profound, I would try, at least, to be kind.
    And so before I left, I phoned Barney and took him out for a drink. “You’re a sweet girl,” he said, loud as a sportscaster. “I’ve always thought that.”

   3   
YARD SALE
    T HERE ARE , I ’VE NOTICED, THOSE IN the world who are born salespeople. They know how to transact, how to dispose. They know how to charm their way all the way to the close, to the dump. Then they get in their cars and drive fast.
    “Every time I move to a new place,” Eleanor is saying, “I buy a new shower caddy. It gives me a nice sense of starting over.” She smiles, big and pointed.
    “I know what you mean,” says Gerard, bending over in his lawn chair to tie a sneaker. We are in the side yard of the house, liquidating our affections, trading our lives in for cash: We are having a yard sale. Gerard straightens back up from his sneaker. His hair falls into his face, makes him look too young, then too handsome when he shakes it back. My heart hurts, spreads, folds over like an omelette.
    It’s two against one out here.
    Eleanor is trying to sell her old shower caddy for a quarter, even though the mush of some horrible soap has dried to a greenwax all over it. Eleanor is a good friend and has come to our yard sale this weekend with all of the mangy items she failed to sell in her own sale last weekend. I invited her to set up her own concession, but now I wonder if she’s not desecrating our yard. Gerard and I are selling attractive things: a ten-speed bike, a cut-glass wine decanter, some rare jazz albums, healthy plants that need a healthy home, good wool sweaters, two antique ladderback chairs. Eleanor has brought over junk: foam rubber curlers with hairs stuck in them; a lavender lace teddy with a large, unsightly stain; two bags of fiberglass insulation; three