The Books: “Because They Wanted to” – ‘Orchid’ (Mary Gaitskill)

Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction

Because They Wanted to: Stories – – by Mary Gaitskill. This excerpt is from the story ‘Orchid’. Another killer of a story with what I see as a familiar Gaitskill “plot”: running into an old friend, someone you knew years ago – and lost touch with, either because of a dust-up, or just moving on. And when you see that person, all kinds of stuff is stirred up. Memories of who you were back then, the gap between who you were then and who you are now … or, conversely – the frightening realization that you haven’t changed at ALL. That you have just gotten older.

Margot – a spinsterish lesbian – who had always had relationship problems, due to being kind of weird and intense – runs into Patrick – her roommate in college. Patrick had been a beautiful boy – strangely beautiful, so that people were drawn to him. A cloud of girls hovered over him. He wanted to be an actor. They lived together – with Patrick’s sister – who had been in a mental institution – and for a couple of semesters, Margot was drawn into Patrick’s intense circle. She would watch the girls come and go from his room – it was always a drama … and Margot, although a young woman, was already on the way to having a quiet narrow little life … and was amazed by how much drama one man could withstand. They were friends, though – he was a deep friend. They lost touch. Years pass. And Margot runs into him on the streets of Seattle. Gaitskill just so gets that feeling of disorientation in such situations … the memory of the closeness, the awareness of the present-day desolation – and the worry: How does this person see me? What do I SEEM like to my old friend now? How is he judging me? You can walk around in your everyday life and never ask those questions. But run into an old friend, and suddenly you are confronted by all of these identity crises.

Here’s a brief excerpt. Margot returns home from her run-in with Patrick.

I love how Gaitskill coldly tells us what she does. A list of details and objects. It isn’t until we get halfway through the first paragraph that Gaitskill lets us in on the inner life of Margot.

EXCERPT FROM Because They Wanted to: Stories – – by Mary Gaitskill – ‘Orchid’.

Margot’s apartment was cold when she arrived. She turned on the heat and then went through all the rooms, turning on the lights. She put her pink flannel robe over her clothes and made herself a dinner of sliced carrots, a ham sandwich, and a Styrofoam cup of take-out vegetable soup. She put the sandwich and the carrots on a turquoise plate and the soup in a burgundy bowl. She put out a folded napkin and a spoon and vitamin capsules. She poured herself half a glass of red wine. She sat down, and suppressed pain oscillated through her in a slow, hard wave. When she had told Patrick that Roberta had left her, she had seen a faint look of satisfaction move in his eyes – satisfaction not at her loss but at seeing the Margot who was familiar to him, stalwart in a state of loss. His look almost made her bitter. But at the same time, she felt that something in her voice had invited it.

She poured lots of salt on her ham sandwich and allowed her little dinner to comfort her. It was one of the things she and Roberta were good at: small, comforting dinners. Roberta had been gone for six months, and it was still difficult for Margot to sit down to eat by herself. Still, she was determined to do it, and her determination felt good to her. It made her feel like a tenacious animal, burrowing a home in hard, dry soil. And that, of course, had been what Patrick had heard in her voice.