There was one particular girl whom he never failed to wave to when she jogged by, and one morning he set out to meet her. Always she waved back and smiled, and then forlornly he watched her run on. This time he stopped her. He called out, "Miss, miss, I want to talk to you," and instead of shaking her head no and breezing by with a "Can't now," as he fully1 imagined her doing, she turned and jogged back to where he was waiting, by the plank2 stairs that led down to the beach, and stood with her hands on her hips3 only a foot away from him, damp with perspiration4, a tiny creature perfectly5 formed. Until she fully relaxed, she pawed the boardwalk with one running shoe like a pony6 while looking up at this unknown man in the sunglasses who was six feet three and had a full head of wavy7 gray hair. It turned out, fortuitously, that she had been working for seven years at an ad agency in Philadelphia, lived here at the shore, and was currently on her two-week vacation. When he told her the name of the New York agency where he'd worked for nearly a lifetime she was terrifically impressed; his employer was legendary8, and for the next ten minutes they made the kind of advertising9 talk that had never interested him. She would have to be in her late twenties and yet, with her long, crinkly auburn hair tied back and in her running shorts and tank top, and small as she was, she might have been taken for fourteen. He tried repeatedly to prevent his gaze from falling to the swell10 of the breasts that rose and fell with her breathing. This was torment11 to walk away from. The idea was an affront12 to common sense and a menace to his sanity13. His excitement was disproportionate to anything that had happened or that possibly could happen. He had not just to hide his hunger; so as not to go mad he had to annihilate14 it. Yet he doggedly15 continued on as he had planned, still half believing that there was some combination of words that would somehow save him from defeat. He said, "I've noticed you jogging." She surprised him by responding, "I've noticed you noticing me." "How game are you?" he heard himself asking her, but feeling that the encounter was now out of his control and that everything was going much too fast — feeling, if it were possible, even more reckless than when he'd draped that pendant necklace costing a small fortune around Merete's neck in Paris. Phoebe the devoted16 wife and Nancy the cherished child were home in New York, awaiting his return — he'd spoken to Nancy the day before, within only hours of her getting back from summer camp — and still he'd told the saleswoman, "We'll take it. You needn't wrap it. Here, Merete, let me do it. I teethed on these clasps. It's called a tubular box clasp. In the thirties, it would have been the safest one around for a piece like this. Come, give me your throat." "What do you have in mind?" the jogger boldly replied, so boldly that he felt at a disadvantage and did not know how forthright17 to make his answer. Her belly18 was tanned and her arms were thin and her prominent buttocks were round and firm and her slender legs were strongly muscled and her breasts were substantial for someone not much more than five feet tall. She had the curvaceous lusciousness19 of a Varga Girl in the old 1940s magazine illustrations, but a miniaturized, childlike Varga Girl, which was why he had begun waving to her in the first place.
He'd said, "How game are you?" and she'd replied, "What do you have in mind?" Now what? He removed his sunglasses so she could see his eyes when he stared down at her. Did she understand what she was implying by answering him like that? Or was it something she said just to be saying something, just to be sounding in charge of herself even as she was feeling frightened and out of her depth? Thirty years ago he wouldn't have doubted the result of pursuing her, young as she was, and the possibility of humiliating rejection20 would never have occurred to him. But lost was the pleasure of the confidence, and with it the engrossing21 playfulness of the exchange. He did his best to conceal22 his anxiety — and the urge to touch — and the craving23 for just one such body — and the futility24 of it all — and his insignificance25 — and apparently26 succeeded, for when he took a piece of paper from his wallet and wrote down his phone number, she didn't make a face and run off laughing at him but took it with an agreeable little catlike smile that could easily have been accompanied by a purr. "You know where I am," he said, feeling himself growing hard in his pants unbelievably, magically quickly, as though he were fifteen. And feeling, too, that sharp sense of individualization, of sublime27 singularity, that marks a fresh sexual encounter or love affair and that is the opposite of the deadening depersonalization of serious illness. She scanned his face with two large, lively blue eyes. "There's something in you that's unusual," she said thoughtfully. "Yes, there is," he said and laughed, "I was born in 1933." "You look pretty fit to me," she told him. "And you look pretty fit to me," he replied. "You know where to find me," he said. Engagingly she swung the piece of paper in the air as though it were a tiny bell and to his delight shoved it deep into her damp tank top before taking off down the boardwalk again.
She never called. And when he took his walks he never saw her again. She must have decided28 to do her jogging along another stretch of the boardwalk, thereby29 thwarting30 his longing31 for the last great outburst of everything.
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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plank
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| n.板条，木板，政策要点，政纲条目 | |
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hips
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| abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的 | |
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perspiration
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| n.汗水；出汗 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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pony
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| adj.小型的；n.小马 | |
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wavy
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| adj.有波浪的，多浪的，波浪状的，波动的，不稳定的 | |
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legendary
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| adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学） | |
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advertising
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| n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的 | |
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swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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affront
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| n./v.侮辱，触怒 | |
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sanity
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| n.心智健全，神智正常，判断正确 | |
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annihilate
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| v.使无效；毁灭；取消 | |
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doggedly
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| adv.顽强地，固执地 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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forthright
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| adj.直率的，直截了当的 [同]frank | |
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belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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lusciousness
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rejection
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| n.拒绝，被拒，抛弃，被弃 | |
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engrossing
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| adj.使人全神贯注的，引人入胜的v.使全神贯注( engross的现在分词 ) | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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futility
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| n.无用 | |
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insignificance
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| n.不重要；无价值；无意义 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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thwarting
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| 阻挠( thwart的现在分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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