Bridge of Sighs

been about him that had attracted them, or any woman. “You’re incapable of love,” his second wife had once told him. She’d actually said this shortly after they’d finished
making
love, pretty damned successfully, as Noonan recalled, so the remark, not to mention its timing, had surprised him. Would Sarah have arrived at the same conclusion and said the same thing? It was possible, maybe even probable. One thing was for certain. He’d have minded it more, coming from her. On the other hand, maybe she’d have been just what he needed. Maybe she’d have been good for him. Noonan considered this possibility for about two seconds, then dismissed it. The best he had in him came out only as paint on canvas. To imagine a different life was to imagine a different self with which to live it.
    Beside the point, in any case. Art, he’d come to believe, was little more than the principle of one thing leading to another, whereas love, insofar as he understood it, depended on a thing remaining forever what it was, which in Noonan’s experience it militantly refused to do. What people called love was the perfect recipe for disappointment and recrimination at the benign end of the emotional spectrum, homicide at the malignant end. Like all the other women who’d had the misfortune to swim into his orbit, Sarah would have learned, when he finally betrayed her—when all was said and done, he was his father’s son—to find comfort and solace in other men, much as Evangeline had done when she took stock of her marriage and life.
    She’d avoided all that by marrying Lucy. Which meant that at least she wouldn’t have to worry about things changing. With Lucy, one thing didn’t lead to another. He would remain Lucy—steadfast, slow of movement, wit and tongue (precisely where Noonan was quick) and, yes, unfailingly kind. Dull virtues, all, but not nothing, especially to someone as deeply conflicted as Sarah. And what of Lucy’s own drama? By the time Noonan had left Thomaston, Lucy, like Jerzy Quinn, had seemed to have arrived at resolution. In Sarah, he seemed to have more than he’d dared to hope for, and his second act was as difficult to imagine as Jerzy’s. What was at stake? Where was the suspense?
    Yawning, Noonan put the envelope back on the nightstand and turned out the light. A moment later he turned it back on again, aware that he’d solved one minor mystery. The envelope had been addressed in Sarah’s hand because, at some point, it had contained a letter from her. It was powder blue, for one thing, and distinctly feminine for another, utterly unlike the sturdy business envelopes Lucy always sent his clipped photos and newsprint in. Had he steamed the letter open, read it, then replaced it with contents more to his liking? Speaking of unknowable second acts.
    When Noonan turned off the lamp this time, he left it off, and fell asleep smiling.

LOVE
     
    W HAT HAPPENS when the victor unexpectedly quits the field? Had Bobby Marconi not been sent to military school, there can be little doubt he would’ve ruled Thomaston junior high. But his sudden, inexplicable retreat created a vacuum, and the boy who filled it was Jerzy Quinn himself. It didn’t seem to matter that he’d been vanquished. Bobby’s disappearance had the effect of first undermining, then mitigating and finally expunging his great triumph from the public record. It was a gradual process, of course, an evolution, but by the start of eighth grade, a year after their battle, Jerzy Quinn had carried the day, and Bobby’s reputation lay in tatters.
    Kids still remembered the fight, of course, and talked about it. Not even West Enders denied that Bobby had won, but there his disappearance was perceived as cowardice. No one said this so openly, at least not while there was a chance he might return, but there were whispers, and no one to contradict them. It didn’t seem to matter that Bobby’s father had banished him. His absence was all anyone needed to know. Yeah, sure, he’d won the fight, but Jerzy had never said uncle, never given in or admitted defeat. Even as he’d lain on his back on the sidewalk, face bloodied and eyes glazed over, his wolfish grin proclaimed, it was decided, that nothing had been settled. Round one had gone to Bobby Marconi, but so what? Next Friday night after the dance, or when the Bijou matinee let out on Saturday afternoon, Jerzy would have met him again, and this time, well, he could be taken by surprise