You Don't Love Me Yet by Jonathan Lethem Read Free Book Online Page B

duct tape still clinging to their edges. His two armchairs were populated by tottering books, piled so high they served as dusty dummy companions. The television, stacked with the videocassette player on a milk crate, faced an empty patch of carpet. Its screen displayed the black-and-white image of a locomotive, trembling in frozen static beneath the word PAUSE in blue.
    Bedwin returned from the kitchen with two small plates in hand, the triangles of pizza draped over their edges. “I don’t have any beer or anything.”
    “That’s okay.” She’d quaffed a beer beforehand, looking to take the edge off her panicky enthusiasm. “The movie good?”
    He looked shocked again. “It’s one of the ten greatest films of all time.”
    “So you’ve seen it before.”
    “I guess you could say I’m studying it.”
    “I don’t want to interrupt if you need to—”
    “No, it’s fine. But if you want to watch it I don’t mind rewinding to the beginning.”
    “That’s okay.”
    “Sure,” he said, his tone only slightly injured.
    “I’d love to see it another time,” she said. “I wanted…”
    Bedwin waited, his pupils wide. The two of them stood balancing pizza on tiny plates, crowded together in the room’s clear spot.
    “Is there a place to sit in the kitchen?”
    “Sure, sure.”
    They perched at two corners of Bedwin’s red linoleum table, their pizza before them. Bedwin nibbled, ready to understand her invasion here. Lucinda imagined she could say or do anything and rely on his obedience, a disturbing prospect, actually. Perhaps she’d underestimated the responsibilities entailed in invading the sanctum of a mind as tender as Bedwin’s. In the room behind them the player reached some limit and clicked off the film, the space filling with blue light and a dim undertone of static.
    Her own agenda boiling within her, Lucinda tried to pacify herself with a few bites of pizza before pulling the crumpled yellow sheets from her bag and smoothing them across the table between them.
    “Look, here’s the thing,” she said. “I have some more ideas for songs. Do you like ‘Monster Eyes’?”
    “It’s so great,” he said, with fannish sincerity and awe.
    “Maybe we can do it again. Look.”
    The five sheets were headed with titles. Beneath them, fragments of lyrics lurched in urgent scrawl to the margins, oblivious to printed lines. The jottings resembled crazed dictation, perhaps some Ouija boardist’s blind record. She hadn’t examined them since fleeing the gallery, but she didn’t have to. Bedwin would see and understand. Each notion would make the root of a song as good, as unexpected and pure, as “Monster Eyes.” Bedwin only had to set them to music.
    “What’s that—‘Astronaut Food’?”
    “Yes.”
    “I like that.” Bedwin murmured phrases to himself, discovering them aloud. “Secrets from yourself…bomb-shelter provisions…”
    “And this one,” she said, overeager, rustling pages. Bedwin flinched, taken aback. “‘Dirty Yellow Chair.’ See?”
    “Yes…it all looks terrific, Lucinda.” He spoke gently, wonderingly.
    “Nobody has to know I gave you these. Let’s just pretend you came up with them yourself, okay?”
    “You don’t want to write them with me?”
    “No. Just take them. You don’t need any help from me, you know it.”
    “I shouldn’t tell the others?”
    “It’ll confuse them. Matthew won’t like it. You’re our songwriter. These are just ideas, anyway. They’ll be your songs.”
    “Sure, sure. Lucinda?”
    “Yes?”
    “Are you okay? Because you seem a little excited, I mean maybe a little bit upset about something.”
    “Nothing, I mean, nothing’s wrong, everything’s great.”
    “Okay, no problem, I was just checking.”
    “Maybe I’ll let you get back to your movie now.”
    “You could watch a little. It’s really a tremendously interesting film. Or at least finish your pizza.”
    “I’m not really hungry,” said Lucinda. She