Her life her life had taken on the shape of a terrible mistake. She hadn't been given the proper tools to make a real life with, she decided, that was it. She'd been given a can of gravy and a hair-brush and told, "There you go." She'd stood there for years, blinking and befuddled, brushing the can with the brush.

Pleasantness was the machismo of the Midwest. There was something athletic about it. You flexed your face into a smile and let it hover there like the dare of a cat.

The thing to remember about love affairs," says Simone, "is that they are all like having raccoons in your chimney." ... We have raccoons sometimes in our chimney," explains Simone. And once we tried to smoke them out. We lit a fire, knowing they were there, but we hoped the smoke would cause them to scurry out the top and never come back. Instead, they caught on fire and came crashing down into our living room, all charred and in flames and running madly around until they dropped dead." Simone swallows some wine. "Love affairs are like that," she says. "They are all like that.

She smiled at him, with longing. 'Where do you live,' she asked, 'and how do I get there?

Those are the love killers. They love you and then they kill you. They're from another planet. Supposedly.

She was afraid, and the afraid, she realized, sought opportunities for bravery in love.

This is what happened in love. One of you cried a lot and then both of you grew sarcastic.