“It did.”
“And now?”
“Now it doesn’t.”
“Good.”
She was quiet for a moment.
Then she said,
“There’s something I should have told you years ago.”
“What?”
“I’ve been paying attention for forty years.”
“Since I came here at eighteen with nothing.”
“And the most important thing I’ve learned is this.”
She looked directly at me.
“The people worth knowing are always more complicated than the category someone puts them in.”
“And the people worth being close to are the ones capable of seeing that.”
She paused.
“James sees it.”
