Cora & Ray

THE thing Cora didn't understand about people like her friend Bud was how they could fall in love with the kind of people with whom you talk all the time about how you love each other so much. What Cora thought you had to discover was someone you could spend enormous amounts of time without disagreeing much, really enjoying that unarguable time together. That five-thirty at the beach sort of feeling all the time. She wanted to warm herself around him and tell stories, including one or two that took a risk, closed the deal, rang the bell. To see the sure thing softly staring from two eyes. To tell it until they were tender enough for spice.

Cora herself had no relationship with her dogs, couldn't bring herself to care deeply about them. This made her, in her mind, a not very good person. In a lot of ways, she didn't feel like a very good person, and she was not about to be conned into believing otherwise.

She felt ill-suited to the mystery of being in a relationship. Relationship - that silk purse turned sow's ear, a corridor you wandered too far down and discovered a door had silently closed somewhere far behind you.

She seemed innately proficient in the overlooked skill of letting people down. A world-class disappointer, she had made her way through the world letting men down without even trying. But when you are uniquely gifted, you are in some ways obligated to that gift.