“A girl of your sophisticated tastes … ” he used to say to me all the time. It’s so unfair. How I hate that word. It means shallow and superficial and God knows there’s no one in the world who’s more a slave to her passions than I am. Complicated, or rather what the French mean by “compliqué” would be closer. Les Compliqués: Los Complicados: that’s the only club I’ll ever belong to–though not by choice. I may not have been born into it, but I became a member at a very early age. A life-member. (p. 198)
Oh God, there’ve been so many people since I came to Paris. Teddy and Larry and Claude and Jim. Bax and Wheero and dozens and dozens of casuals. I’m so tired. What happens when your curiosity just suddenly gives out? When the will and the energy snap and it all seems so once-over-again? What’s going to happen to me five years from now, when I wake in the night (or can’t sleep in the first place, like now), take a deep breath to start all over again, and find that I’ve no breath left? When I start running again and find I can’t even put one foot in front of the other? Then, from outer space, that librarian who is going to be me, who is me, that dreaded librarian from outer space who is always waiting for me, always ready to pounce, is going to take over. And I’ll be cooked. If I don’t stop it. (Sally Jay – p. 199 – The Dud Avocado)
Absolutely delicious book, btw. xo
Anne-Julia Price 