My Education by Susan Choi Read Free Book Online

endearing tendency toward inadvertent gossip was very poorly matched with me, as I abetted it whenever I could, despite knowing—or perhaps because of knowing—that he constantly struggled to bring it under the dominance of his better—his beneficent, discreet, chivalrous—self. I liked that self of his perfectly well, but no more than I liked the other, which was gossipy and alert to weakness, which did not suffer fools, and which when it disliked anyone, disliked them to the point of contempt. If not for this dark side of Laurence I doubt we would ever have gotten along.
    â€œPerhaps she did,” he allowed, “with an effort of will that could render irrelevant whether she didn’t.”
    â€œLaurence, you’re speaking in koans,” I complained, which made him laugh but not further explain. “Things weren’t going well between them last year,” I tried, probing for sharper outlines, for as I’d told Brodeur myself, I had always had the gift of faking greater expertise in a subject than I actually possessed. “What with the accusation against him.”
    â€œActually, that might have made things somewhat better, at least for a while. Had any of it been true it might have been better yet.”
    â€œThat doesn’t make any sense.”
    â€œIt might have leveled the playing field. Made her less sure of him. It’s Sahba’s theory, based on no information, that Martha married Nicholas because she thought he was a great deal more wicked. She believed all the hype.”
    â€œAnd she would
want
him to be wicked? That’s not the usual reason for marriage,” I said, with an awareness of my own hypocrisy. Hadn’t I thrilled to that seemingly sinister man in the long duster coat? Though what I’d wanted from him wasn’t marriage.
    â€œRemember, all this is Sahba’s fantastical vision. It’s not based on anything real. Sahba is the kindest, most generous-hearted of women, but she just doesn’t get on with Martha.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œShe thinks Martha condescends to her. Perhaps Martha does. I actually greatly like Martha, except for the fact that she wrecks the composure of these two people I’m so hugely fond of, my wife, and her husband.” And that was all I could get out of Laurence that day on the interesting subject. But it was not very long afterward that I saw her again.
    The Indian summer had held halfway into November, undeterred by the decorative pumpkins all over the town, and then even by the decorative turkeys—but the night Dutra and I threw a party, on no better pretext than that it was warm, the temperature plunged more than twenty degrees some time after I passed out and just before dawn. Now the sky gleamed coldly, scoured of haze; and the trees were simply flinging their leaves to the ground to catch up with the lonely red flags of the sugar maples; and it was, perhaps, the last opportunity for certain seasonal pleasures until the great wheel revolved once again!—“Meaning,” Dutra loudly intruded into the hungover fug of my sleep, “two words: coffee-iced coffee.”
    â€œPlease don’t talk,” I implored him, for I’d had an extremely good time at our party. “And that’s three words, not two.”
    â€œCoffee-iced is hyphenated, to qualify coffee. It’s a compound word. The second ‘coffee’ is the second word: Coffee-iced coffee.”
    â€œPlease get out of my room,” I scraped out, with more force.
    â€œIt’s an amazing day! This is this town’s
quintessential
day. Autumn, baby. Better late than never.” And what better day to partake of the coffee-iced coffee, Dutra argued, given how badly damaged we were? Of course Dutra didn’t seem damaged at all. He was not merely wide-awake and voluble and mintily brushed but extensively clean—I could smell the fumes of Dial and Prell, his no-nonsense