So we talked about nothing

on intelligence, part 4

When she called, she didn’t greet me with her mouth full of food as she sometimes does, clearly relishing the minor social transgression. She didn’t try to put someone else on—one of her po-faced roommates, hollering from across the room, or a sullenly pithy staffer—then demand to know if this stranger and I knew each other. She didn’t talk over me, her favorite habit.

These are all things that I might hang up on her for, and have, and will again, I’m sure. But last night she was unusually present, if performatively sniffly. She had obviously been yelling at or with someone, and wanted me to know it. When I asked what was wrong, however, she said she didn’t want to talk about it, which was also unusual.