Read The Body Of Jonah Boyd for Free Online Page B

self-destructive turn was something for which, it appeared, Nancy blamed herself. Perhaps if she had stayed,
     Nancy speculated, and thus not deprived Anne of the outlet that their piano playing provided, Anne never would have left Clifford
     in the first place. For without her, Anne had nothing in Bradford. No children. No friends. Only Clifford, a well-meaning
     if remote mathematician.
    I learned more about Anne. She was younger than Nancy by five years. Because she came from Brooklyn, she often expressed a
     longing for concerts and restaurants and galleries—all categories of experience in which Bradford, especially in the sixties,
     was sadly lacking. All Bradford had was a coffin factory. Anne never fit in easily with the other faculty wives, their malign
     chitchat, the bridge afternoons over which a cigarette haze hung, as well as a faint stink of gin. Clinking noises: ice against
     glass, glass against tabletop, engagement ring against wedding ring on fingers the nails of which were lacquered the color
     of plums. On these occasions, Anne sometimes drank. Too much. She never managed to pick up the finer points of bridge. She
     was tranquil only with Nancy, who somehow kept her recklessness in check. On her own, without Nancy to supervise, Anne became
     obstreperous. She had her ears pierced, and started introducing the word “orgasm” into bridge table conversation. (Usually
     the context was Clifford’ failure to give her any.) Not that there was anything wrong with Clifford to look at, Nancy said.
     He was big and hirsute and possessed of a sort of blond, bland handsomeness that Nancy, at least, appreciated. And yet the
     very qualities that had attracted Anne to him when they had married—his even temper, his tactfulness, the reluctance ever
     to raise his voice that had seemed so refreshing to her, after her loud Brooklyn childhood—began, soon enough, to bore and
     then to vex her. She had a need for stimulation that Clifford could not fathom. “Entertain me! Amuse me!” she would beg when
     he came home from school, and he would tell her about the Fibonacci numbers, a sequence in which each entry is the sum of
     the two that precede it (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 . . .) “The Fibonacci numbers,” he would say, “are often repeated in the
     floral patterns and leaf arrangements of plants.” Then he would show her a fir cone, ask her to examine its spirals. “As if
     I was one of his goddamn students,” she complained to Nancy, who tried to placate her, telling her that she should be more
     patient. Clifford meant well. He was trying. But Anne would have none of it. “I keep expecting him to say, ‘There’ll be a
     quiz on this afterward,’” she said. “I tell you, I cannot bear it anymore. I cannot bear it.”
    Anne and Nancy had this conversation in 1966. Later that year, the Wrights moved west. It was then that things really fell
     apart. Deprived of Nancy’ cautionary influence, Anne started going braless in public. She took to wearing hoop earrings, satin
     blouses in hot colors, and wraparound, tie-dyed skirts. Also sandals. She was a protohippie faculty wife at a time when not
     even the most rebellious female undergraduate would have dared anything more bohemian than tights. Nor did Anne cut a bad
     figure, according to Nancy, for she had a sort of gypsy prettiness that these outfits accentuated. Her hair fell in waves
     over her breasts, which were high and ample. To make it more red, she washed it with henna. To make her eyes darker and rounder,
     she smeared the lids with kohl. She was a graceful dancer, when she got the chance, with agile feet. (Also hands—hence her
     talent for the piano.) Yet she rarely got the chance. Clifford, “with his big clodhoppers,” got in the way. He was like a
     bear, and when he danced—which was rarely—it was with the grim, embarrassed dedication of a dancing bear.
    In September 1968, Anne went to a party in Bradford, a regular event hosted by