Vox by Nicholson Baker Read Free Book Online Page B

the piece, all right?’ He grabs his jacket and goes out, pulling the door shut with unusual force, so that the sign saying OPEN flips down to say CLOSED . And so …”
    “Mm-hmm?”
    “No, that’s it, I shot my wad getting the two of you face-to-face.”
    “No! You’re bailing out right there? Did you really shoot your wad, or you mean figuratively?”
    “At the moment, my true wad could not be farther from shooting. It is
work
getting the two of you together. I feel that any second I’m going to misstep in telling this. It’s very stressful.”
    “Now listen,” she said. “Harvey leaves, slamming the door, so the sign says CLOSED , and I, me, I am left, abandoned right in the middle of things by Harvey, and I’m standing there in the shop with the taciturn and very rich guy Forky, Forky Pigtail, who’s holding the necklace that I made in his big knuckly fingers. He sits down on a step stool, he looks down at the necklace, looks up at me.
What does he do?
”
    “He says, ‘I really do have to see what it looks like on someone before I know whether it’s something I want.’ And you look down at your shirt with the green and black stars and you sort of pluck at it and smile and say, ‘I’m sorry, I’m not wearing the clothes for that piece. It’s really an evening piece, for a low-cut dress.’ With your finger you trace the ideal curve of the neckline of the dress. And Fork says, ‘Then unbutton your shirt.’ Well, what can you do? You unbutton the top three buttons of your shirt. With each button, you feel the fabric shift slightly against your collarbone. Fork stands up, letting the necklace dangle from his left hand, and, to your astonishment, he begins unbuttoning the buttons of his fly. Because of course he’s a button-fly kind of guy. He unbuttons three buttons. The two of you are still about ten feet apart. You fold your shirt down, trying to makeit follow the line of the dress that you should be wearing to wear the necklace, but looking down at yourself you see that you really need to undo one more button, and you dart a glance at him—has he reached the same conclusion? Oh no, he has! He is shaking his head. He says, ‘I think really you’ll need to go down one more in order to wear your necklace.’ So you unbutton one more button, and he responds by unbuttoning the last button of his fly. He doesn’t do anything, he doesn’t reach in, you almost couldn’t tell that his fly was undone, if it weren’t for the fact that you’ve just seen him undo it. Oh, he is a bold bastard! What is he up to? He takes the necklace in both his hands, by both ends, and he shakes it, indicating for you to walk toward him, which you do. When you are standing close to him, he says, ‘I think it’ll be easier if you turn around. Then I’ll be able to see the clasp.’ So you turn around, and you see this necklace, your own handiwork, descend very slowly in front of your face, and you feel the dangly elements just touch your skin and you try to hold your shirt so it doesn’t get in the way, but instead of doing the clasp, he lowers the necklace further and lets it accommodate itself to your breasts, and you hear him say, thoughtfully, ‘Hmm, no, I really think the shirt has to come off entirely before I can evaluate this necklace. The green and black stars clash with the stones.’ So you unbutton the shirt completely and let it fall off your arms. You’re wearing a black cotton undershirty thing, with very thin shoulderstraps. Very gently he drags your piece of jewelry up again, against you, and then finally he fastens it, holding the ends away from your neck so that his hands hardly touch you. You look down at it. It’s hard to tell, but you think it looks kind of beautiful. Your nipples are visible through the black material. He’s silent behind you. You say, ‘Don’t you want to see it now?’ But he says, ‘Wait let me just do something.’ And you hear a slight scrape of the step stool