Page Turning Books: The Book of Paul by Richard Long (Excerpt)

The Book of Paul by Richard Long (Excerpt)

Exercises

He practiced smiling.

Looking in the mirror, Martin pulled up the corners of his mouth, trying to duplicate the expression of the blond-haired man on the TV with the big forehead. Something wasn’t right—the eyebrows? His eyes darted back and forth from the mirror to the television, posing, making adjust- ments here and there…lips down, more teeth…comparing…nope. After a few minutes, his face started to hurt and he gave up.

He did push-ups instead. Push-ups were easy. He did two hundred before he had to stop and change the channel. A show called The Nanny had come on and he leapt up like a cat as soon as he heard her whiny voice. He pressed the remote button with blinding speed-click, click, click, click, click-until he found an old black-and-white movie. Good. He liked those. He went back to his push-ups, his face tilted up so he wouldn’t miss a thing.

In the movie there was a woman who was worried that this man didn’t love her anymore. She didn’t know it, but the man was worried that the woman didn’t love him either. They spent all this time (he couldn’t even count how many push-ups) trying to make each other jealous, hoping that would make the other one love them again. Martin didn’t understand any of it. He looked at them laughing and smiling while they tried to trick and embarrass each other, then went to the mirror and practiced again.

It still didn’t look right.