VACANCY

“ When she worked on a canvas in her top-floor room, she had a habit, when pondering, of standing storklike on her left food and lovingly massaging it with the big toe, its toenail painted aubergine, of the right. Somehow this shade of purple and the echo of contemplative childish masturbation in the way she rubbed at her ankle struck him every time as not merely adorable but profound. The two dozen commonplace childhood photographs - snowsuit, pony, tennis racket, looming fender of a Dodge - were an inexhaustible source of wonder for him, at her having existed before he met her, and of sadness for his possessing nothing of the ten million minutes of that black-and-white scallop-edged existence save these few proofs. ” - the amazing adventures of kavalier and clay