Page 224 - A Little Life: A Novel

to help, then you’re not being a friend at all? Talk to me, he sometimes
wanted to shout at Jude. Tell me things. Tell me what I need to do to make
you talk to me.

Once, at a party, he had overheard Jude tell someone that he told him,
Willem, everything, and he had been both flattered and perplexed, because
really: he knew nothing. It was sometimes incredible to him how much he
cared about someone who refused to tell him any of the things friends
shared with each other—how he had lived before they met, what he feared,
what he craved, who he was attracted to, the mortifications and sadnesses of
daily life. In the absence of talking to Jude himself, he often wished he

could talk to Harold about Jude, and figure out how much he knew, and
whether, if they—and Andy—braided together all their knowledge, they
might be able to find some sort of solution. But this was dreaming: Jude
would never forgive him, and instead of the connection he did have with
him, he would have none at all.
Back in his apartment, he shuffled quickly through his mail—he rarely

got anything of any interest: everything business-related went to his agent
or lawyer; anything personal went to Jude’s—found the copy of the script
he’d forgotten there the week before when he stopped by the apartment
after the gym, and left again; he didn’t even take off his coat.
Since he’d bought the apartment a year ago, he’d spent a total of six
weeks there. There was a futon in the bedroom, and the coffee table from
Lispenard Street in the living room, and the scuffed Eames fiberglass chair

that JB had found in the street, and his boxes of books. But that was it. In
theory, Malcolm was meant to be renovating the space, converting the
airless little study near the kitchen into a dining alcove and addressing a list
of other issues as well, but Malcolm, as if sensing Willem’s lack of interest,
had made the apartment his last priority. He complained about this
sometimes, but he knew it wasn’t Malcolm’s fault: after all, he hadn’t

answered Malcolm’s e-mails about finishes or tiles or the dimensions of the
built-in bookcase or banquette that Malcolm needed him to approve before
he ordered the millwork. It was only recently that he’d had his lawyer’s
office send Malcolm the final paperwork he needed to begin construction,
and the following week, they were finally going to sit down and he was
going to make some decisions, and when he returned home in mid-January,
the apartment would be, Malcolm promised him, if not totally transformed,

then at least greatly improved.