QUESTIONS
KATE KIMBALL
Oliver wasn’t worried about the cancer; he was worried about his characters. He honestly couldn’t think of one person he could trust to take care of them. What if they made Amelia Wineheart into an alcoholic? He supposed she was borderline anyway. She had an occasional drink now and then, and she spent her evenings in bars. But, still. She wasn’t addicted or anything. She just liked to have fun. She had been seeing Thomas Call, a literature professor at a state university. He drove a Volvo and smoked from a pipe. He cut his hair himself and ate bruschetta for breakfast. They had met one snowy evening at the bar, when Thomas was scheduled to meet a colleague. He would be immediately taken back by Amelia’s long, curly red hair, and would never guess that she was pushing fifty. They wouldn’t fall in love. They wouldn’t even enjoy sex. However, they were people who would love to stay up until all hours of the night to complain about their misfortunes, and there was something gothically beautiful about this. Their misery would be textured with intimacy. Also worrisome was the situation with Phillip Namarov, who still hadn’t mastered Russian and had still not come out of the closet to any of his friends. On his last date, he had given in to the woman’s lips on his neck, though he found them to be completely repulsive. He was in love with Drew, the local waiter at his favorite restaurant. Drew was twenty-five years
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