what she would see. And yet here was
Thomas, and he was quite content to
look at her in his placid way, without any
real judgment, so maybe she was O.K.
Whereas people her own age were just
like her: also always rushing, as if they
couldn’t bear to look at themselves, or at
one another, or at their own lives. How
come it had taken being with this old
man to see it? Perhaps it was because he
was from a different generation, so she
could see what never would have been
clear with someone of her own gener-
ation, where there wasn’t the contrast.
But when she put this theory to him
he said, “It has nothing to do with my
age. What you’re seeing is just me, and
it is the way I have always been.”
He could tell that she didn’t quite
believe him, so that’s when he invited
her to a party at his house where there
were going to be lots of people from
his generation: women and men. She
could see for herself.
At that interesting party, there were
seventeen old men and women, all of
whom had been friends with each other
for at least forty years. These were people
who had known each other when they
were still young, who had known each
other all their lives. Most of them remem-
bered Pearl. They were lively, like Angela’s
own friends, playing the piano, laughing
too loudly, telling long and boring sto-
ries, eating the food with terrible man-
ners, and dressed all sloppily. Some tried
to look nice but still didn’t know how to
put together an outfit, even at their age.
Meanwhile, Thomas was looking upon
the whole scene with his usual forbear-
ance, and she saw that it really was him—
not his age but his self—that made her
feel like slowing down, like being com-
fortably in the middle of things.
The next morning, amid the mess of
the party—the bottles, the cigarettes, the
rumpled rug—she apologized to him.
As with meeting his son, another hur-
dle of understanding had been passed.
He had, in his calm way, let her see the
truth about himself by situating him-
self among other people. Most people
would not have had the confidence to
do this, but Thomas did, and this was
part of the reason she loved him; yes,
she did, she loved him.
But, unfortunately, she was not the
only one, and it was hard to forget it. At
the party, there had been two of his girl-
friends, Lolly and Sarina, and although
both of them were his age, this fact made
her even more jealous. They had some-
thing to offer him—they could look
straight into his eyes, as it were—whereas
she, she felt, was smaller and lesser than
them, having lived so many fewer years.
They had maybe thirty or fifty years on
her—she didn’t dare ask—so they were
coming from a similar place to Thomas,
and Angela knew that coming from a
similar place was one of the ingredi-
ents of love, often. She could never offer
Thomas that. Some may have thought,
Well, I have my youthful body to offer,
but the way Thomas looked at her was
never with an evaluating eye: she had
no idea what he thought of her body.
She wouldn’t have been surprised to
learn that he thought nothing about it
at all. In any case, she felt very jealous
of Sarina and Lolly, especially because
they were just sitting there so much of
the night, laughing together and getting
drunk, and even though when Thomas
introduced her to them they were very
eager with all their questions, and in-
vited her in their grownup way to sit
down, she had been uneasy, and, with
her own youthful and inferior feelings,made an excuse and shifted away and
stayed on the other side of the room,
eating grapes and shrimp the rest of
the night. So while Thomas had shown
himself to be all she had hoped for, in
the context of a party, she had failed—
not him, not herself, but some grander
calculus that should have put her in the
lead. She had done no favors to her gen-
eration or to young people in general by
acting so small. She didn’t tell any of her
friends about the party, and, anyway, she
didn’t like to talk much about Tom, be-
cause she knew that they judged her. She
suspected they judged her as being too
ugly to get a guy her age, which is what
they would think—because they were
idiots, she now saw—but it was too late
to get new friends. Or was it?
A few nights later, in bed, she asked
Thomas, “Do you think it’s fair to get
a whole new set of friends?”
“I don’t understand the question,”
he said.
“Sorry. I just mean, do I have to keep
being friends with my friends, simply
because I’ve been friends with them?”
He thought about it for a moment.
“I don’t think so,” he said, but he didn’t
seem convinced. “You want to get rid