Body Surfing Quotes
"Her afternoons are free. Her entire life, but for a few hours each day of overpaid tutoring, is disconcertingly free."
"Sydney has been married twice: once divorced and once widowed."
"Not quite primary colors, hues seen only in nature."
"Better than electroshock therapy, Mr. Edwards always says, for clearing the head."
"She is buoyant flotsam, shocked into sensibility."
"I’ve been sent with a towel. You’re Sydney, right?"
"How extraordinary if she weren’t. Not another body in the water for a thousand yards."
"The windows out to the porch have to be washed twice a week to provide any appreciation of the view, which is spectacular."
"Sydney sometimes senses that her presence has upset the family equilibrium."
"The brothers will sleep in a room called the 'boys’ dorm.'"
"Contemplating a third year and the possibility of a child, she pictured Andrew’s fiery death and said, Enough."
"Most people, mindful of the sensitivities, do not point out to Sydney the irony of having divorced a man she was afraid would die only to marry a man who perished in the very place he ought to have been saved."
"Sydney feels sorry for the family that lives just a quarter mile down the road on the beach."
"Sydney touches it and rubs the velvet between her index finger and her thumb."
"Drinks on the porch. A lowering sun has turned the water mauve."
"A candle at the center of the teak table flickers in the breeze."
"Washington and Tehran have crucial interests in common."
"Perhaps the man did not get into Princeton, Sydney thinks."
"Sydney sees a fast friendship beginning, though it is not clear yet what Marissa has to offer Wendy apart from riveted attention."
"Sydney is fascinated by the way alcohol blurs the features as well as the consonants."
"Victoria’s mouth has relaxed considerably, and the whites of her eyes have grown pinkish."
"The dinner party cannot be said to be entirely successful."
"Sydney feels the responsibility of a parent."
"Jeff comes in to help, and no one shoos him away."
"Sydney develops an inconvenient revulsion to the leavings of the guests."
"Sydney wonders, but does not ask, about the never-have-unprotected-sex discussion."
"Sydney notes that Victoria is trying to re-create the feel of a bed-and-breakfast meal."
"Sydney wants to explain to Jeff what happens to women who are once divorced and once widowed."
"Jeff’s fingers are distinctly palpable. Insistently there."
"Sydney wonders if Jeff is at this moment thinking of her."
"Sydney cannot say the obvious. To have a thought, a desire, become reality seems an astonishing act of physics."
"Sydney notes that not a single hair falls to her neck."
"Sydney stands and touches her on her bare arm. Her skin is cold and moist."
"Sydney is surprised to see, as they draw closer, a light still on."
"Sydney sits at the edge of a wooden chair, not entitled, this particular evening, to any comfort whatsoever."
"Sydney thinks about capitalizing on Mrs. Edwards’s rare moment of cheer."
"Sydney calculates that there will be eleven tonight at dinner."
"Sydney wonders if Julie knows yet about Victoria."
"Sydney stands. While they have been talking, dusk has turned into evening."
"Sydney notes that he visited Julie while Mrs. Edwards was at a cocktail party."
"Sydney watches as Victoria cuts her French toast with her fork, scraping it against the ivory plate."
"Sydney wonders if she should take this as a small affront."
"Sydney stands, knowing she must return to the house she has so recently fled."
"Sydney feels herself growing lighter and lighter, so light that it seems she might fly."
"Sometimes the name slips out when she least intends it. She would not have mentioned Ben today."
"Tempting fate, Sydney unbuttons her sleeveless white shirt."
"It would be unseemly for her to stay on the beach if her husband-to-be is going up."
"The following Wednesday, Jeff had a meeting at school that would run through the dinner hour."
"What precisely they were laughing about Sydney could not have said."
"In truth, the matriarch was looking more and more windblown, as if having been wildly buffeted by the vicissitudes within the family."
"Sydney, for the wedding, has her old room, a comfort."
"Sydney had been fascinated, during her first visit to Needham, to see the family seat and to view some of Mr. Edwards’s work."
"For the first time since Jeff walked into the house in his bathing suit and life jacket, Sydney begins to cry."
"All that effort on Julie’s part, she thinks as she fingers the different squares. All that love."
"She discovers that if she doesn’t move, the water remains completely still and flat. She is becalmed."
"I’m just stunned," her mother says. "He always seemed like such a nice man. I never thought he would be capable of something like this."
"Sydney nods. She thinks this might be the most useful piece of advice her mother has ever given her."
"Sydney lies back on the bed, her feet on the floor. For a while, she stares at the canopy over the bed and thinks about what Jeff might be doing at this very second."
"Who could know what he had on his mind all those times she saw him looking off into the distance?"
"I was part of a family, and now I’m not. They meant something to me, that family."
"Sydney counts out the days. First there are twenty-two. Then there are fifteen. Then there are ten."
"Sydney sometimes wakes to the memory of Jeff standing in her bedroom on her wedding afternoon, explaining to her why he couldn’t marry her, that it had all been an elaborate game."
"Sydney wakes to a dog nosing at her foot, and instinctively she snatches her leg away."
""I’m so sorry," Sydney says, a sentence more true than he knows. Or perhaps he does. Ben always had her number."
"She removes her shoes and rolls the cuffs of her black dress pants. She locks her car and slips the key into her pocket."
"Sydney has not been north of Boston since the day she said good-bye to Mr. Edwards at his doorstep."
"Sydney liked her work, could even occasionally talk herself into thinking of her research as timely and necessary."
"Scenarios in Montreal and Cambridge had to be played and replayed to watch his face for clues of his subterfuge."
"She wraps her hair in a knot, using an elastic band she finds on the shelf of a nearly empty medicine cabinet."
"She runs the hot water for as long as it takes to warm her body, which seems to have chilled itself to its core."
"Sydney shivers, and when she glances up, she can see that Ben, too, is shaking inside his jeans and his soaked sweatshirt."
"She cries until it is all out of her: the longing for the family, her grief for Mr. Edwards, her anger at Jeff."
"Would a new foundation have been dug already?"
""Ben," she calls again, but the surf is too loud. He can’t hear her."
"She thinks briefly of nuns and young mothers, men who had sons, men who died."