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A N D R E A H O L L A N D E R B U D Y Permission When you have stood at the door longer than two friends ought to, one of your mates upstairs tucking children in, the other out of town; and when you stand not gazing off into any distance at all, recognizing that there isn’t any distance that wants attention, except the three or four inches between your face and his, that that is the distance you’d like permission to disclaim, erase, void, you stop. You step back, find something simple and unnecessary to do with your hands, hoping you won’t touch his arm or his face, hoping he won’t move any closer, that he’ll discover something in the way, something that will sway him somewhere else; or you hope words will come, right words that will shape what is necessary to shape, so you can keep this the way you want it: the wanting and the stepping back. Not the finishing, not that. As though the right words, if you could find and say them, could really The 1990s ❚ 217 save you, save you from saying what is not right, like yes or yes or especially the yes that is not spoken, which—with or without permission—you seem already to be saying nonetheless. 218 ❚ The 1990s ...

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