1 result for (book:tps6 AND heading:"jane s note juli 17 19 1981" AND stemmed:didn)
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These particular events began Friday though now Monday afternoon I’ve nearly forgotten what Friday was really like. I do recall being awakened by Rob later Friday than usual. He told me that Prentice had called about a radio-phone show and that I was to return the call. I was aware of some dismay. I didn’t want to be bothered; now that I’d recently agreed to do some such shows, everyone it seemed would start calling. Resolutely I replaced the issue in my mind by trying to compose a limerick....
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I hemmed and hawed, decided after talking with Rob that I really didn’t want to do any shows at all, so I wrote one letter so informing Prentice. In the meantime I was impatiently waiting Frank Longwell who promised the Tuesday earlier that he’d be here before Sunday with the final plans for extending the living room. He never came.
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Peg told me he was in his forties; he told her he’d written me but probably left before I could answer the letter. I felt defensive and guilty; he was trying emotional blackmail, and I didn’t want to see him. But I thought of him, a stranger, in the newspaper office of a strange town....
“Hello,” I said when he came to the phone, and his voice was dull and flat, full of self pity; he was sure I wouldn’t see him. And instead of rousing sympathy in me his downcast mood had the opposite effect; I don’t care if you came from Timbuktu by refugee ship, I thought. His call reminded me finally of his letter and my response that I wouldn’t be able to see him during his trip. I said some usual polite things in a usual polite voice and that was that. The next day I learned from Peg that he’d come by bus, had to stay the night, didn’t have much money—his reality, I reminded myself firmly, not mine. Still, vaguely uneasy I called off a half-planned evening of company with friends—luckily before I’d actually invited them, and we had a Seth session instead, still another in an effort to get me out of my own physical problems. This one was at Rob’s suggestion.
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