nathan’s Reviews > Three Days in June > Status Update

“Cats are not coldhearted!” I said. “They’re only protecting their dignity, in case they get rejected. ‘I’ll just reject you first,’ they’re saying.”

“Great, Gail. The old ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ line.”
“No,” I told him. “This is more like ‘It’s not you; it’s the me that I am when I’m with you.’ ”
“What?”
“I used to be…” I began.

I have had a lifelong education in what not to do.

Anger feels so much better than sadness. Cleaner, somehow, and more definite. But then when the anger fades, the sadness comes right back again the same as ever.

I felt distinctly hostile toward her. Even though I believed her story, it seemed that in some way she had caused the story, merely by reporting it.

“She couldn’t ‘countenance’ it, could she?”

People don’t tap their watches anymore; have you noticed? Standard wristwatches, I’m talking about. Remember how people used to tap them? My father, for instance. His watch was a Timex with a face as big as a fifty-cent piece, and whenever my mother kept him waiting he would frown down at it and give it a tap. Implying, I suppose now, “Can this possibly be correct? Could it really be this late?”