Page 650 - A Little Life: A Novel

bumping against the table. “Leave me alone,” he tells Andy. “If you’re not
going to be here for me, then leave me alone.”
“Jude,” Andy says, but he has already pushed past the table, and as he

does, the waitress arrives with the food, and he can hear Andy curse and see
him reach for his wallet, and he stumbles out of the restaurant. Mr. Ahmed
doesn’t work on Fridays because he drives himself to Andy’s, but now
instead of returning to the car, which is parked in front of Andy’s office, he
hails a taxi and gets in quickly and leaves before Andy can catch him.
That night he turns off his phones, drugs himself, crawls into bed. He
wakes the next day, texts both JB and Richard that he’s not feeling well and

has to cancel his dinners with them, and then re-drugs himself until it is
Monday. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. He has ignored all of
Andy’s calls and texts and e-mails, all of his messages, but although he is
no longer angry, only ashamed, he cannot bear to make one more apology,
cannot bear his own meanness, his own weakness. “I’m frightened, Andy,”
he wants to say. “What will I do without you?”

Andy loves sweets, and on Thursday afternoon he has one of his
secretaries place an order for an absurd, a stupid amount of chocolates from
Andy’s favorite candy shop. “Any note?” his secretary asks, and he shakes
his head. “No,” he says, “just my name.” She nods and starts to leave and
he calls her back, grabs a piece of notepaper from his desk, and scribbles
Andy—I’m so embarrassed. Please forgive me. Jude, and hands it to her.
But the next night he doesn’t go to see Andy; he goes home to make

dinner for Harold, who is in town on one of his unannounced visits. The
previous spring had been Harold’s final semester, which he had failed to
register until it was September. He and Willem had always spoken of
throwing Harold a party when he finally retired, the way they had done for
Julia when she had retired. But he had forgotten, and he had done nothing.
And then he remembered and he still did nothing.

He is tired. He doesn’t want to see Harold. But he makes dinner anyway,
a dinner he knows he will not eat, and serves it to Harold and then sits down
himself.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Harold asks him, and he shakes his head. “I ate
lunch at five today,” he lies. “I’ll eat later.”
He watches Harold eat, and sees that he is old, that the skin on his hands
has become as soft and satiny as a baby’s. He is ever-more aware that he is

one year older, two years older, and now, six years older than Harold was