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Bunny had heard again and again of the Contract of the Century, without knowing exactly what it was. Something about oil, different companies working together, revitalizing decrepit wells, blah blah blah. It was as impenetrable to Bunny as the warren of pipes and factories that ran through the Black City, the industrial east of Baku where she had been told not to go. [...]
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After they had finished Lale’s food, they watched several of the Friends episodes from the tape Bunny had been given. Bunny loved Rachel’s and Monica’s outfits—so sleek and put-together. [...]
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Maryellen spoke again after a few minutes. “Sue found out she had some kind of inner ear thing, vertigo. She had to quit.” She turned down Poirot. “I felt so bad for her; she was devastated. But then she did this travel-booking certificate program they had instead, and she ended up managing a high-end guest house in Bora Bora for years,” said Maryellen. “She married an Australian guy out there. Now she’s retired. Never had any children,” she said, the matter finished. Bunny admired the way that Maryellen and Ted knew so many people with very interesting lives.
how do you admire 'the way that'
Bunny had even come to love the long Repro nights and their time-and-a-half pay, the way she imagined an athlete would love an away game at a distant stadium. When she looked at her bank account every two weeks and saw that $1,072 was deposited there, she felt a miserly happiness. She spent money on nothing but gas, Zumba, Starbucks, and her share of groceries. She packed spartan and sensible lunches, sating afternoon hunger with salted almonds and La Vache Qui Rit. She was always slightly hungry, the hunger forming a slender iron rebar that held up the habitual laxity of her character and flesh. She ate her peanut butter sandwiches with smug slowness while her colleagues went to Buffalo Wild Wings. Her bank account fattened as her body attenuated.
i dont like the way this is written [too obvious] but the details are interesting
Ready for her party, her disastrous ombré flowing in sculpted waves around her shoulders, Bunny raced down I-10 until she reached the industrial zone east of Houston, after which the tall towers rose up like Oz. The afternoon sun gleamed off the black mirrored windows of the soaring structures, sleek buildings radiating grandeur, permanence, stability, the solidity of guaranteed infrastructure, piercing the sky and dwarfing the faded beauties behind her in downtown Beaumont. Houston. The City. After more than a year at Miles Engineering Consultants, she thrilled to it, had gotten herself a cheap motel room near the site of the party, planned to treat herself to a nice brunch before driving home the next day.
this is kinda nice
“You want to talk about technology. You know how they used to get oil?” Frank was explaining to them animatedly. “The Burmese dug a big ol’ hole. And then they climbed down there and dug some more till they hit sands. They couldn’t stay down there more’n a minute at a time, and then they had to recover for twenty once they got back up top. They had the women stay up top and hoist up the cuttings they dug up. They were catching oil centuries before any Rockefeller ever thought to do it. They had to do it naked, with rags around their mouths, these little brown guys, but by god they did it.” He laughed. “Took two years to dig one hole.” Bunny held her face in her fixed expression of listening.
kinda fun
Bunny was surprised at this. Obama was heroic to her, a symbol of the victory of good over evil. And he had gotten Osama bin Laden, whatever that was worth—although after the disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan, it did seem a little beside the point. Frank Turnbridge had said, “Finally, something good out of Obama-nation,” and Bunny bristled within.
lmao. hate this. too obvious. like a wikipedia page in simple english
“Well, not exactly destitute,” John said pedantically. This was true, monetarily speaking. The judge or arbitrator had taken the attorney’s tallying up of what Maryellen would have earned in twenty-six years of TWA salaries had she not moved every one to four years in support of Ted’s career, while also raising his children. Incredibly, Ted’s attorney’s returned fire with charts showing that due to airline deregulation and Carl Icahn’s restructuring of TWA, which led to furloughs and bankruptcy following the explosion of Flight 800, Maryellen would have earned much less, had she retained her job at all. “I’m surprised the sonofabitch didn’t try to argue that I would have been on Flight 800,” Maryellen had told Bunny bitterly. The judge had taken the numbers and performed his own calculations and named a monthly sum that Ted was obliged to pay. This was Maryellen’s income, with which she could live and make payments on the home equity loan that had gotten her through the first years.
this is pretty funny
Sofie laughed again. “I’m sorry, but this is such an American tragedy! You work for the oil complex so you can have health insurance and a place to live!”
not wrong
“Anyway, sorry,” said Sofie brightly, understanding that the evening’s festivities had taken a direct hit. “I’m a journalist; these are the stories I think about; it’s hard to leave work at home.” She picked up her drink, and each man was forced to reveal whether he would act like a dick in the face of such truth, and then such graceful accommodation, or whether he would stay and drink. Bunny considered the way Sofie was like a man in that she could speak confidently and at length, but like a woman in that she could read and direct the energy produced by the things she said. And one by one they clinked, and stayed. “Now what should we talk about,” said Bunny, laughing and taking Sofie’s cigarette gently to light her own.
interesting characterisation