Charlene plotted and schemed and traded on the black market; she pushed people around, drove like the devil, swept into rooms, popped pills, raised money; she was a dynamo. She laughed readily at other people’s foolishness, and while she might suppress her anger at their stupidity—confining her fury to two impatient fingertips flicking each other under her cigarette like a flint against a stone—she did not let that stupidity pass. When her husband belittled her, good-naturedly, of course—it was the way all husbands belittled their wives in those days—she replied silently; she ducked her head
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The way this builds! The concretion of the fingers as flint amidst the litany of adjectives. Wow.
