The Twenty-Seventh City (Bestselling Backlist) by Jonathan Franzen Read Free Book Online Page B

thicker and thicker, as if with each of his affairs. He was too weird to really offend Probst.
    “And here we played tennis this morning,” he said. “Where’s Lu?”
    “I’m surprised she isn’t here. I told her to be in early. Her cold’s getting worse.”
    “She’s out with Alan?”
    “Good grief, Martin.”
    “Of course, of course, of course,” he said. Luisa had terminated her relationship with Alan. “So where is she?”
    “I have no idea.”
    “What do you mean you have no idea?”
    “Just that. I don’t know.”
    “Well didn’t you ask her?”
    “I was up here when she left. She said she wouldn’t be gone long.”
    “When was that?”
    “Around seven. Not long after you left.”
    “It’s almost midnight.”
    A page turned. Rain was splashing on the windows and pouring through the gutters.
    “I thought it was our policy to know where she is.”
    “Martin, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Just let me read for a while, all right?”
    “All right. All right. I’ve got policy coming out of my ears, I’m sorry.”
    Practically, in appearance, in the verifiable fact of never having sinned much, Probst had an undeniable claim to moral superiority over Rolf Ripley. From the very beginning his ambitions had kept him moving like a freight train, hurried and undeviating. By the time he was twenty, his married friends had to take steps to make sure he got out for dinner at least once a month. Chief among these early friends was Jack DuChamp, a neighbor of Probst’s and a sharer of his loneliness at McKinley High. Jack had been one of those boys who from puberty onwards want nothing more than to be wise older men like their fathers. Marriage and maturity were Jack’s gospel, and Probst, inevitably, was one of the first savages he tried to convert. The attempt had begun in earnest on a muggy Friday night in July, in the tiny house that Jack and his wife Elaine were renting. Jack’s chest still had its matrimonial swell. All through dinner he smiled at Probst as though awaiting further congratulation. When Elaine began to clear the table, Jack opened fresh Falstaffs and led Probst onto the back porch. The sun had sunk behind the haze above the railyards beyond the DuChamps’ back fence. Bugs were rising from the weeds. “Tsk,” Jack clucked. “Things can be pretty nice sometimes.”
    Probst said nothing.
    “You’re going places, old buddy, I can tell,” Jack continued, his voice all history-in-the-making. “Things are happening fast, and I kind of like the way they look. I just hope we can still see some of you once in a while.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Well.” Jack pulled a fatherly smile. “I’ll tell you. You’ve got a lot going for you, and I know for damn sure we’re not the only ones who can see that. You’re twenty years old, you’ve finally got a little money to throw around, you’ve got looks, brains…”
    Probst laughed. “What are you saying?”
    “I’m saying that I, personally, Jack DuChamp”—Jack pointed at himself—“kind of envy you sometimes.”
    Probst glanced at the kitchen window. Dishes plopped in the sink.
    “Not like that,” Jack said. “I’m a lucky man, and I know it. It’s just we like to speculate.”
    “About what?”
    “Well, we like to speculate—you ready?” Jack paused. “We like to speculate about your sex life, Martin.”
    Probst felt his face go pale. “You what?”
    “Speculate. At parties. It’s kind of a party game whenever you’re not around. You should’ve heard what Dave Hepner said last Saturday. ‘Satin sheets and three at a time.’ Yeah, Elaine was really mad, she thought it was getting kind of dirty—”
    “ Jack .” Probst was aghast.
    A moment passed. Then Jack shook his head and gripped Probst’s arm. He had always been a kidder, a winker, a prankster. “No,” he said, “I’m only teasing. It’s just sometimes we worry you might be workin’ a little too hard. And—well. We know a girl you might