Vincent seems to be speaking again. Bonnie needs to pay attention.
“Though maybe,” he’s saying, “there are some of you out there who can’t imagine any future much beyond tonight’s senior prom.”
Every kid’s tiny chuckle adds up to a laugh. Please, Bonnie prays, don’t let him tell that story about the Latvian girl who ditched him for the Puerto Rican.
“I don’t know what I can tell you about the future,” he says. “Except that it’s both way longer and way shorter than you might think.”
He’s getting metaphysical now. It’s like listening to Meyer. Bonnie wishes Meyer were here to see how Vincent’s got them hanging on every word.
“So you need to act fast,” Vincent tells the kids. “Watch yourself. Do your best. Don’t smoke, don’t drink…well, don’t drink too much. Don’t let your heads get turned around. If something goes wrong, don’t blame it on some…group that makes less money than you do.”
The parents get a big kick out of this, and everyone claps, even those parents who routinely blame everything on their secretaries and maids. The teachers and administrators and staff applaud, a group justifiably attuned to inequities of pay.
“The main thing,” Vincent says, “is that I don’t want you guys becoming guys like me.”
This is a little tough for the kids. They sort of know what he means. That is, most of them know that he used to be a white supremacist. On the other hand, he’s the one onstage, and they’re out in the audience, and they’re listening to him, so what exactly is the part they’re not supposed to be? He can only be talking about what he used to be. And so, no matter what he says, everything about him and his situation—at least at the moment—telegraphs the fact that you can start off as one kind of person and end up as another. Actually, it’s inevitable. Isn’t that what Bonnie just tried to tell them?
They weren’t about to listen to her. But they see it before them now in every cell of Vincent’s body.
“Be fair,” he’s telling them. “Try to do some good.” He’s so simple, so fully present. They’re on the edge of their seats.
Bonnie can’t get over the fact that Vincent has just told them more or less what he said that first day he walked into Meyer’s office. I want to help you guys save guys like me from becoming guys like me. That’s what he claimed he wanted to do. And that’s what he’s doing. Or trying. Are there guys in the room like him? Yes and no. Maybe. Who knows?
Bonnie feels as if she’s zipping back and forth across the chasm between that afternoon and now, between who Vincent was and is, between who she was and is, between everything she believed that day and everything that’s happened since. It’s like trying to recall a dream that slips away, second by second.
Soon the ceremony will be over. Bonnie will look for Danny and see if he wants a ride, which of course he won’t. Then Bonnie and Vincent will be left alone. And what will happen then?
Bonnie is about to find out. But now, for just a few seconds, she wants to leave the present and think back to that afternoon she met Vincent. It’s as if she believes there is something there that might help her step more bravely into the difficult future ahead.
She closes her eyes and thinks of the story that Vincent told her and Meyer that first day, the story about the rave. She imagines the flashing lights, the deafening music, the feeling of an overwhelming love like pounding wings in her head. For a moment, she almost imagines that she can hear the thrumming wings. Then it passes, and Bonnie opens her eyes to find that the roar in her ears is the applause of a crowd of people cheering the messenger who has come to offer them a vision of the meaningful life before them.
About the Author
Francine Prose is the author of thirteen books of fiction, including the novel Blue Angel, a finalist for the National Book Award. Her most recent book is The Lives of the Muses: Nine Women and the Artists They Inspired. A recipient of numerous grants and awards, including Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships, she was a Director’s Fellow at the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. She lives in New York City.
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ALSO BY FRANCINE PROSE
FICTION
Blue Angel
Guided Tours of Hell
Hunters and Gatherers
The Peaceable Kingdom
Primitive People
Women and Children First
Bigfoot Dreams
Hungry Hearts
Household Saints
Animal Magnetism
Marie Laveau
The Glorious Ones
Judah the Pious
NONFICTION
Gluttony
Sicilian Odyssey
The Lives of the Muses
FOR YOUNG ADULTS
After
Credits
Jacket design by Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich
Copyright
A CHANGED MAN. Copyright © 2005 by Francine Prose. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © FEBRUARY 2005 ISBN: 9780061859779
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Prose, Francine
A changed man : a novel / Francine Prose.—1st ed.
p. cm.
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraphs
Contents
Part One
Nolan pulls into the parking...
After Bonnie and Vincent...
What's strange is that Danny...
Meyer and his friend Sol...
Only now that he's lifting the...
On a normal morning, Bonnie...
Mrs. Graber writes on the...
How desperately Meyer...
Any second now, Bonnie...
The freakier Nolan's life...
A huge explosion rattles...
Part Two
Vincent yanks at his bowtie...
Waiting for his dad to drive...
The minute Bonnie spots...
Danny leans across Dad's...
The first voice Meyer hears...
On the way home from school...
A few days later, Bonnie dials...
Part Three
Raymond's afraid to close...
Here's how on top of it...
It's almost five, and Bonnie...
How long has Meye
r been...
Getting high was a huge...
So far Vincent's day off has...
Welcome. You're the first to...
Bonnie knows it's the second...
The line is a problem for...
Danny feels as if he's looking...
In the Jean Moulin Conference...
A merciful swipe of amnesia...
The school guard nearly...
Vincent's chaste little peck...
About the Author
Also by Francine Prose
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher