Page 211 - A Little Life: A Novel

longer.”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“Thirty.”

“Fine.”
Willem, meanwhile, had been ensnared by Edie Kim, who looked
basically the same as she had when they were in college: a little rounder,
maybe, but that was it. He hugged her. “Edie,” he said, “congratulations.”
“Thanks, Willem,” said Edie. She smiled at him. “You look great. Really,
really great.” JB had always had a theory that Edie had a crush on him, but
he’d never believed it. “I really loved The Lacuna Detectives. You were

really great in it.”
“Oh,” he said. “Thanks.” He had hated The Lacuna Detectives. He had
despised the production of it so much—the story, which was fantastic, had
concerned a pair of metaphysical detectives who entered the unconscious
minds of amnesiacs, but the director had been so tyrannical that Willem’s
costar had quit two weeks into the shoot and had to be recast, and once a

day, someone had run off the set crying—that he had never actually seen the
film itself. “So,” he said, trying to redirect the conversation, “when—”
“Why’s Jude in a wheelchair?” Edie asked.
He sighed. When Jude had begun using the wheelchair regularly two
months ago, the first time he’d had to in four years, since he was thirty-one,
he had prepped them all on how to respond to this question. “It’s not
permanent,” he said. “He just has an infection in his leg and it makes it

painful for him to walk long distances.”
“God, poor guy,” said Edie. “Marta says he left the U.S. Attorney’s and
has a huge job at some corporate firm.” JB had also always suspected Edie
had a crush on Jude, which Willem thought was fairly plausible.
“Yeah, for a few years now,” he said, eager to move the subject away
from Jude, for whom he never liked to answer; he would have loved to talk

about Jude, and he knew what he could and couldn’t say about him, or on
his behalf, but he didn’t like the sly, confiding tone people took when
asking about him, as if he might be cajoled or tricked into revealing what
Jude himself wouldn’t. (As if he ever would.) “Anyway, Edie, this is really
exciting for you.” He stopped. “I’m sorry—I should’ve asked—do you still
want to be called Edie?”
Edie frowned. “Why wouldn’t I?”