"Lisa Goldstein - Cassandra's Photographs" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goldstein Lisa)

somehow—that I was seeing scenes from my future, but the idea no
longer frightened me. I saw nothing bad in these pictures, no death
or grief or pain. In fact, the future seemed to hold only good things
for me. A job, a house, a beautiful woman, perhaps a child.
If Cassie had hoped to frighten me with these photos, hoped
somehow to win me back, she had badly miscalculated. It was with
a feeling of profound satisfaction that I put the photographs in the
manila envelope and put the envelope carefully back in the drawer.
After graduation I got a job with an aircraft company in a suburb
of L.A. Feeling a little foolish, I carefully studied the briefcase in
the photograph and then went out and got one just like it. I was
looking at the photos about two or three times a week now, noting
small details. The woman seemed to have small freckles scattered
like stars across her face. The boy looked vaguely familiar, though
if he were my son that wouldn’t be surprising. A car was parked
directly in back of him. There was a poster on the wall of the
kitchen on which, after a week of effort, I could read the words
“Save the Whales.”
Laura and I had several arguments around this time. None of
them was very serious—I had thrown out a pamphlet she had given
me without reading it, for example, or she disapproved of my choice
of restaurants—but each time I would think, “The woman in the
photograph wouldn’t act this way.” The woman in the photograph, I
thought, was wise and loving and giving. After a while Laura and I
drifted apart.
I began to date women for a week or a month and then drop
them, secretaries from the aircraft company or women I’d pick up
in singles bars in the Marina. One morning I woke up in an
unfamiliar bed next to a woman I could barely remember and saw
by her alarm clock that I had to be at work in an hour. I staggered
out to her kitchen and poured myself a cup of coffee. It was only
after I drank the coffee that I turned around and saw the Save the
Whales poster tacked up on the wall.
I was buoyant all that day. Several people at work even asked me
what I was smiling about. If another one of the pictures had come
true, I thought, the rest couldn’t be that far behind.
The next few months were probably the happiest in my life. I
lived in a state of almost constant anticipation. At any moment I
might see her, turning the corner or buying a pair of shoes. I
invented names for her, Alexandra, Deirdre. I fantasized taking her
home and showing her the photograph, telling her the story and
seeing her eyes open wide in amazement. I worked hard, dated
some, and spent long evenings running the photographs back and
forth through my hands.
You can only anticipate for so long, though. Gradually, so
gradually I barely noticed it, the photos became less and less
important. I only looked at them once or twice a week, then once a
month. I stopped holding my breath whenever I saw a woman with
short blond hair. I still felt that my future held something
wonderful, that my life was more intense than most people’s, but I