the last book I ever read (Onlookers: Stories by Ann Beattie, excerpt four)

from Onlookers: Stories by Ann Beattie:

Springtime would be such a—what was the cliché?—a riot of color. Or was that fall? The redbuds would be blooming along the highway—the South’s weedy equivalent of dandelions. After today, Jonah doubted he’d ever see Delusional Folly again.

But that wasn’t what bothered him. What really worried him was that he’d never be as good a writer as Sam Shepard, who’d lived not very far from where Jonah was right this minute, back when Sam Shepard was with Jessica Lange. They’d lived there, and Jonah never even knew it.