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Bill remained slow and steady, keeping his di tance from her gaining
hailstorm. "I know it seems like a betrayal Marilyn, but honestly, l didn' t think
I'd really do it -- track him down and aU that. He's not sending money. He's
sending some form of exports he said 'should have significant future value' and
that he hopes this dears up matters because, as he put it, 'any further discussion
would be very damaging to our friendship.' Do you want another drink?" he
asked already heading for the kitchen.
Marilyn turned towards the fire, stewing. She stared, fascinated by the
flames, how they looked so random and natural given their measured source
and the permanent configuration of the ceramic logs. She thought how much
they were like the Bill she'd come to accept over the last two years, steady, pre­
dictable and only an odd resemblance of what she knew to be the real thing.
"He still wins, the bastard beat you again. Christ, even the payback's
on his terms," she said, adding, "the turd's still in your pocket."
*
On a Saturday morning in October a shipment containing an eighteen­
inch stone carving arrived by special delivery. It was an elephant headed
human form seated on a rat. Marilyn wouldn't allow it in the house. She resur­
rected her anger. "I'm not gonna live with this miserable deity casting Bradley's
superiority over us. I can just see that smug smile of his -- twisting the knife
from across the globe. It's pathetic; you thinking you'd get even. What was it
that fascinated you in China? Captive snakes swirling in circles? Some
metaphor. Just how many times do you, do we, have to be fucked by Bradley
Campbell?"
Marilyn striking was Marilyn full of poison, spewing what could never
be retracted. The man who wanted to go to China now just wanted a scotch. It
was ten AM.
"And where are you in all this? I've been patient; god damned heroic,
waiting out your crisis. You gotta accept your losses Bill; re-group for Christ's
sake. You used to be so dynamic, assertive -- you had a vision for your life. I
busted my ass in graduate school too you know. You think watching you shuf­
fle off to the lecture hall has been easy for me? Seeing you so completely dimin­
ished? And it's not just the money, at least not the obscene piles of it you were
bringing in. It's you, you're gone. I've hated myself these two years for being so
superficial, so contradictory. I mean, I love my gardens and your themed dinners,
the pleasure you take in them, but --"
"It just might be worth something Marilyn. It might be old. You can
say a lot of things about Bradley Campbell, but the guy is shrewd and that's
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