“In my mind, I said the best things to Elton. I wrote countless excellent notes that I never sent. I came up with clever and highly detailed imaginary situations in which we were thrown together and it somehow made him realize that life without me was a hollow shell. But he didn't look like a hollow shell. He looked like he was back on the soccer team, all calf muscles and lean body.”

“I'm scared," she said. "These days I feel like a snail without a shell." "I'm scared too," I said. "I feel like a frog without any webs." She looked up and smiled. Wordlessly we walked over to a shaded part of the building and held each other and kissed, a shell-less snail and a webless frog.”

“He never liked me. So I never liked him. A long time ago I made a decision that made things a lot simpler for me: I wasn't going to like someone who didn't like me. If someone had a problem with me, I wouldn't argue with him or try to change his mind. If he demonstrated he didn't like me, I came to the conclusion that life was too short, so fuck him. This included quite a few people I ran across in the music business, as well as my own brother and the whole nation of France. I wasn't going to turn into Sally Field ("You like me! You really like me!"), but I wasn't going to waste my time with assholes, either.”

“If he said anything to me, I would gather the sentences like a shell seeker.”

“You are like a shell,” he said. “A seashell. Hollow but beautiful.”“Hollow.” She nodded. For the rest of the day, they sat not far from each other, gazing out the window at the light shifting almost imperceptibly. They sat about and let themselves be objects on which dust might settle, air might past, light could play.“I am just an emptiness,” she said.“No,” he told her. “You are a resting place.”

“You coming?” he asked her, leaning in through the door. And then he finally really looked at me. He came to a complete halt—not just his body, but his energy. His eyebrows went right up. “Oh,” he said. I sort of flicked my hem at him, assuming what I fondly considered an enigmatic look. “This okay?” I asked. “Oh,” he said again, stepping inside the house. The screen door hit him when it closed. “Yeah. Yeah, that works.” It kind of looked like he was beginning to sweat.”