Life Expectancy

had been sitting by the phone.
        "Hi, it's Jimmy," I said. "I'm sorry if I woke you."
        "I only got home fifteen minutes ago. I'm not in bed yet."
        "I had fun tonight."
        "Me too," she said. "I love your family."
        "Listen, this isn't something that should be done by phone, but if I don't do it, I won't sleep. I'll lie awake worrying that my window is closing and that I'm missing my last chance at the mountain."
        "All right," she said, "but if you're going to be this cryptic, I better take notes so later I'll have a chance of puzzling out what the hell you were talking about. Okay, I've got pen and paper."
        "First of all, I'm not much to look at."
        "Who says?"
        "Mirror, mirror, on the wall. And I'm a lummox."
        "So you keep saying, but I haven't seen a whole lot of evidence of it- except in moments like this."
        "I couldn't dance before I had these steel plates holding my leg together. Now I'll have about as much ballroom grace as Dr.
        Frankenstein's first made "All you need is the right teacher. I once taught a blind couple to dance."
        "And anyway, I'm a baker, and maybe one day a pastry chef, and that means I'll never be a millionaire."
        "Do you want to be a millionaire?" she asked.
        "Not particularly. I'd be worried all the time about how not to lose the money. I should want to be a millionaire, I guess. Some people say I don't have enough ambition."
        "Who?"
        "What?"
        "Who says you don't have enough ambition?"
        "Probably everybody. Another thing, I'm not much of a traveller.
        Most people want to see the world, but I'm a homebody. I think you can see the whole world in one square mile, if you know how to look. I'm never going to have great adventures in China or the Republic of Tonga."
        "Where's the Republic of Tonga?"
        "I don't have a clue. I'll never see Tonga. I'll probably never see Paris or London, either. Some people would say that's tragic."
        "Who?"
        In a rush of self-judgment, I said, "And I am utterly without sophistication."
        "Not utterly."
        "Some people think so."
        "Them again," she said.
        "Who?"
        "Some people," she said.
        "We live in one of the most famous ski resorts in the world," I plunged on, "and I don't ski. Never cared to learn."
        "Is that a crime?"
        "It reveals a lack of adventurousness."
        "Some people absolutely must have adventure," she said.
        "Not me. And everyone's into hiking, running marathons, pumping iron.
        I'll never be in that loop. I like books, long dinners full of talk, long walks full of talk. You can't talk going fifty miles an hour down a ski slope. You can't talk when you're running a marathon. Some people say I talk too much."
        "They're very opinionated, aren't they?"
        "Who?"
        "Some people." Do you care what anyone thinks of you, outside your family?"
        "Not really. And that's strange, don't you think? I mean, only sociopathic maniacs don't care what anyone thinks of them."
        "Do you think you're a sociopathic maniac?" she asked.
        "Maybe I could be."
        "I don't think you could be," she disagreed.
        "You're probably right. You have to be adventurous to be a good sociopathic maniac. You have to like danger and change and taking risks, and none of that's me. I'm dull. I'm boring."
        "And this is what you called to tell me-that you're a dull, boring, talkative, unadventurous, failed sociopath?"
        "Well, yes, but all that's preamble."
        "To what?"
        "To something I shouldn't ask over the telephone, something I should ask in person, something that I'm probably asking way too soon, but I've worked myself up into this weird terrifying conviction that if I don't ask you tonight, I'll be foiled by fate or storms, and my window of opportunity will close, so the question is… Lorrie Lynn Hicks, will you marry me?"
        I thought her silence meant she was speechless with surprise, and then I thought it meant she was teasing me, and then I thought it might mean something darker, and then she said, "I'm in love-with someone else."

PART THREE
        
    Welcome to the World Annie Tock

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        The events of September 15, 1994when a significant portion of the town square was blown up- encouraged me to take seriously the rest of