Page 431 - A Little Life: A Novel

“He’s far too old to play Elena,” Jude had added, affectionately, and
everyone had laughed again.
Vanya was an efficient shoot, just thirty-six days, and was over by the last

week in March. One day shortly after it had ended, he met an old friend and
former girlfriend of his, Cressy, for lunch in TriBeCa, and as he walked
back to Greene Street in the light, dry snow, he was reminded of how much
he enjoyed the city in the late winter, when the weather was suspended
between one season and the next, and when Jude cooked every weekend,
and when you could walk the streets for hours and never see anyone but a
few lone people taking their dogs out for a stroll.

He was heading north on Church Street and had just crossed Reade when
he glanced into a café on his right and saw Andy sitting at a table in the
corner, reading. “Willem!” said Andy, as he approached him. “What’re you
doing here?”
“I just had lunch with a friend and I’m walking home,” he said. “What’re
you doing here? You’re so far downtown.”

“You two and your walks,” Andy said, shaking his head. “George is at a
birthday party a few blocks from here, and I’m waiting until I have to go
pick him up.”
“How old is George now?”
“Nine.”
“God, already?”
“I know.”

“Do you want some company?” he asked. “Or do you want to be alone?”
“No,” said Andy. He tucked a napkin into his book to mark his place.
“Stay. Please.” And so he sat.
They talked for a while of, of course, Jude, who was on a business trip in
Mumbai, and Uncle Vanya (“I just remember Astrov as being an
unbelievable tool,” Andy said), and his next project, which began shooting

in Brooklyn at the end of April, and Andy’s wife, Jane, who was expanding
her practice, and their children: George, who had just been diagnosed with
asthma, and Beatrice, who wanted to go to boarding school the following
year.
And then, before he could stop himself—not that he felt any particular
need to try—he was telling Andy about his feelings for Jude, and how he
wasn’t sure what they meant or what to do about them. He talked and

talked, and Andy listened, his face expressionless. There was no one else in