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32c2323
|
And of course they used her like a disposable object, without regret or apology, because that's what privilege is--the license to treat other people like shit while still getting to believe that you're a good person.
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Tom Perrotta |
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b325b19
|
When your words are futile, you're better off keeping them to yourself,
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Tom Perrotta |
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2341596
|
Sarah smelled chocolate on Lucy's breath as she leaned forward to plant a soft kiss on the tip of her cute little nose. A vision came to her as her lips touched Lucy's skin, a sudden vivid awareness of the life they'd lead together from here on out, the hothouse intimacy of a single mother and her only child, the two of them sharing everything, breathing the same air, inflicting their moods on each other, best friends and bitter rivals, com..
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Tom Perrotta |
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91f9894
|
Nora had been training herself not to think too much about her kids. Not because she wanted to forget them - not at all - but because she wanted to remember them more accurately. For the same reason, she tried not to look too often at old photographs or videos...After a while, these scraps hardened into a kind of official narrative that crowded out thousands of equally valid memories, shunting the losers to some cluttered basement storage a..
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memory
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Tom Perrotta |
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c5a6e6f
|
Next time she'd have to ask him to keep the light on while he did it, so she could watch his face. That was the best part of the whole thing as far as she was concerned, the way a guy's face contorted so violently and then relaxed, as if some terrible mystery had just been solved.
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mystery
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Tom Perrotta |
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237fdf3
|
He spun on his heels and jogged backward across the goal line, the ball raised triumphantly overhead, a gesture that looked arrogant when the pros did it on TV but felt right just then, allowing him to watch his teammates as they came charging joyfully down the field to join him. Todd spiked the ball and waited for them, his arms stretched wide, his chest heaving as if he were trying to suck the whole night into his lungs. All he wished was..
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Tom Perrotta |
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f961f03
|
No matter what she was doing-baking cookies, walking around the lake on a beautiful day, making love to her husband-she felt rushed and jittery, as if the last few grains of sand were at that very moment sliding through the narrow waist of an hourglass. Any unforeseen occurrence-road construction, an inexperienced cashier, a missing set of keys-could plunge her into a mood of frantic despair that could poison an entire day.
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harried-life
old-self
stop-and-smell-the-roses
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Tom Perrotta |
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d31fcc3
|
And right now he was feeling the weight of all those losses, and the weight of the years that were behind him, and the weight of the ones that were still ahead, however many there might be - three or four, twenty or thirty, maybe more.
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still-ahead
years
weight
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Tom Perrotta |
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ac8cfbb
|
Something that had possibly caused the distance between us, but might also bring us back together.
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Tom Perrotta |
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8146dba
|
What a beautiful bird, they kept telling one another, which was a weird thing to say about a dead thing without a head.
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Tom Perrotta |
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ab61cbe
|
we read fiction to satisfy a more basic need--to imagine our way into other lives, to explore characters and situations that tell us something new about the world, and maybe about ourselves, or to remind us of something important that we may have forgotten.
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Tom Perrotta |
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35357e3
|
Some subjects mixed well with weed, but Chemistry wasn't one of them.
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subjects
weed
|
Tom Perrotta |
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0513940
|
All through that winter and into the spring, when our Tuesday and Thursday-night dinner shifts were done, Matt and I would sit at the long table near the salad bar and plan his end-of-the-year party, our voices echoing importantly in the cavernous wood-panelled dining hall.
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Tom Perrotta |
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dc25632
|
Because that's what privilege is-the license to treat other people like shit while still getting to believe that you're a good person.
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Tom Perrotta |
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02101bf
|
These days he was like a zombie, all grim business, just another jerk with an erection.
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|
erection
jerk
zombie
|
Tom Perrotta |
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115c73b
|
In the far corner of the yard, two squirrels raced up a tree trunk, their little feet scrabbling frantically on the bark. He couldn't tell if they were having a good time or trying to kill each other.
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killing
squirrells
tree-trunk
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Tom Perrotta |
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a8c2d6b
|
Actually, he hadn't just complained; she'd come home from school one afternoon and found him stabbing his paperback edition with a steak knife, the tip of the blade penetrating the cover and sinking far enough down into the early chapters that he sometimes had trouble pulling it out. When she asked him what he was doing, he explained in a calm and serious voice that he was trying to kill the book before it killed him.
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|
kill-the-book
paperback-edition
steak-knife
|
Tom Perrotta |
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a27c469
|
Except for a small strip of shin that poked out from between the top of his socks and the bottom of his pants, his legs were purely theoretical.
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Tom Perrotta |
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871b75a
|
On the first day of Human Sexuality, Ruth Ramsey wore a short lime green skirt, a clingy black top, and strappy high-heeled sandals, the kind of attention-getting outfit she normally wouldn't have worn on a date---not that she was going on a lot of dates these days---let alone to work.
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Tom Perrotta |
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4b05e96
|
the cause of what they called the "Sudden Departure" remained unknown,"
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Tom Perrotta |
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42c056e
|
She was the kind of woman who always surprised you with the realization that she was just as lovely as you remembered, though it hardly seemed possible in her absence.
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Tom Perrotta |
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90df991
|
You talk to them. And look at their faces. Cows have very expressive faces." I knew her well enough at that point not to be surprised by this. The first few months we'd worked together, I'd found her distant and intimidating, not just because she was Professor Preston's girlfriend, but also because she'd cultivated a very adult reserve that made her seem years older than the rest of us. She was all business at our editorial-board meetings, ..
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Tom Perrotta |
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7deee80
|
It was like traveling back in time, meeting the person you used to be, and recognizing her as a friend.
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|
Tom Perrotta |
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d2dfb79
|
Every night was a somber, adults-only slumber party - no giggles or whispers, just lots of coughing and farting and snoring and groaning, the sounds and smells of too many stressed-out of people packed into too small a place.
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Tom Perrotta |
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2cb3ae7
|
As if adult males were completely self-sufficient beings, as if a penis and a five o'clock shadow were all they would ever need to get by.
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|
five-o-clock-shadow
penis
self-sufficient-beings
|
Tom Perrotta |
|
0e18281
|
just a dark shape against an even darker background.
|
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Tom Perrotta |
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1e4ed89
|
It was surprisingly crowded, a bunch of middle-aged people, mostly women, moving enthusiastically, if a bit awkwardly, to Prince's "Little Red Corvette," trying to find a way back to their younger, more limber selves."
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|
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Tom Perrotta |
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076a466
|
Doesn't settle for less than she deserves, or apologize unless it's absolutely necessary.
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Tom Perrotta |
|
7a327f3
|
a regimen of hardship and humiliation that at least offered you the dignity of feeling like your existence bore some sort of relationship to reality, that you were no longer engaged in a game of make-believe that would consume the rest of your
|
|
|
Tom Perrotta |
|
7447864
|
If we'd been on speaking terms, I might've told her that I'd come to think of sex as this long dark tunnel that turns friends into strangers, strangers into friends.
|
|
|
Tom Perrotta |
|
064a972
|
Eve still marveled on a daily basis at the speed with which her own life had changed. A year ago, she'd been lost and flailing, and now she was found. She wanted to call it a miracle, but it was simpler than that, and a lot more ordinary; she'd met a kind and decent man who loved her.
|
|
relationships
love
life-changing-events
middle-age
|
Tom Perrotta |
|
a7fa821
|
Randall kept his eyes glued to the computer screen as she approached. A stranger might have mistaken him for a dedicated Information Sciences professional getting an early start on some important research, but Ruth knew that he was actually scouring eBay for vintage Hasbro action figures...
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Tom Perrotta |
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2a4f211
|
And when Aaron called out for him just then, right on time, there was something beautiful about that, too, the way a little kid needed you for everything and wasn't afraid to say so.
|
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Tom Perrotta |
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d783972
|
Kissing her just then felt perfectly normal and completely self-explanatory, the only possible course of action.
|
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Tom Perrotta |
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e8e602a
|
Unburdening, she'd told Laurie about a vision she'd had when she was four or five years old. Unable to sleep on Christmas Eve, she'd tiptoed downstairs and seen a fat bearded man standing in front of her family's tree, checking items off a list. He wasn't wearing a red suit--it was more like a blue bus driver's uniform--but she still recognized him as Santa Claus. She watched him for a while, then snuck back upstairs, her body filled with a..
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Tom Perrotta |
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cb1862e
|
There was no dignified way to answer a question about your underwear.
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|
underwear
question
|
Tom Perrotta |
|
0b9cb58
|
They were good listeners, worldly yet easily shocked, hungry for details, curious and nonjudgmental at the same time, always happy to give advice, but only if it was requested.
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Tom Perrotta |
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3bed2a5
|
she remained unreconciled to the loss of her electric toothbrush. She'd pined for it for weeks before realizing that it was more than the sensation of a clean mouth that she missed--it was her marriage, all those years of mindless domestic happiness, long, crowded days that culminated with her and Kevin standing side by side in front of the dual sinks, battery-operated wands buzzing in their hands, their mouths full of minty froth.
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Tom Perrotta |
|
0a9ac6a
|
Not that they would, but if any of the other mothers had asked how it was that Sarah, of all people, had ended up married, living in the suburbs, and caring full-time for a small child, she would have blamed it all on a moment of weakness. At least that was how she described it to herself, though the explanation always seemed a bit threadbare. After all, what was adult life but one moment of weakness after another? Most people just fell in ..
|
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|
Tom Perrotta |
|
30a0fb3
|
It's like the Stone Age over there, just sand and rubble and IEDs.
|
|
yemen
|
Tom Perrotta |
|
680c733
|
these leftover memories
|
|
|
Tom Perrotta |
|
e10a5ad
|
if the world were a museum of memories, a collection of places she'd outgrown.
|
|
|
Tom Perrotta |
|
7408d5a
|
We don't smoke for enjoyment. We smoke to proclaim our faith.
|
|
|
Tom Perrotta |
|
5d7b2ec
|
the big day hadn't gone the way she'd hoped, not that big days ever did. Birthdays,
|
|
|
Tom Perrotta |