Page 212 - A Little Life: A Novel

“Well—” He paused. “I didn’t know how far into the process you were,
and—”
“What process?”

“Um, the transition process?” He should’ve stopped when he saw Edie’s
befuddlement, but he didn’t. “JB said you were transitioning?”
“Yeah, to Hong Kong,” said Edie, still frowning. “I’m going to be a
freelance vegan consultant for medium-size hospitality businesses. Wait a
minute—you thought I was transitioning genders?”
“Oh god,” he said, and two thoughts, separate but equally resonant, filled
his mind: I am going to kill JB. And: I can’t wait to tell Jude about this

conversation. “Edie, I’m so, so sorry.”
He remembered from college that Edie was tricky: little, little-kid things
upset her (he once saw her sobbing because the top scoop of her ice cream
cone had tumbled onto her new shoes), but big things (the death of her
sister; her screaming, snowball-throwing breakup with her girlfriend, which
had taken place in the Quad, and which everyone at Hood had leaned out of

their windows to witness) seemed to leave her unfazed. He wasn’t sure into
which category his gaffe fell, and Edie herself appeared equally uncertain,
her small mouth convoluting itself into shapes in confusion. Finally, though,
she started laughing, and called across the room at someone—“Hannah!
Hannah! Come here! You’ve got to hear this!”—and he exhaled, apologized
to and congratulated her again, and made his escape.
He started across the room toward Jude. After years—decades, almost—

of these parties, the two of them had worked out their own sign language, a
pantomime whose every gesture meant the same thing—save me—albeit
with varying levels of intensity. Usually, they were able to simply catch
each other’s eye across the room and telegraph their desperation, but at
parties like this, where the loft was lit only by candles and the guests
seemed to have multiplied themselves in the space of his short conversation

with Edie, more expressive body language was often necessary. Grabbing
the back of one’s neck meant the other person should call him on his phone
right away; fiddling with one’s watch-band meant “Come over here and
replace me in this conversation, or at least join in”; and yanking down on
the left earlobe meant “Get me out of this right now.” He had seen, from the
edge of his eye, that Jude had been pulling steadily on his earlobe for the
past ten minutes, and he could now see that Marta had been joined by a

grim-looking woman he vaguely remembered meeting (and disliking) at a