Sometimes I am seized with a ferocious desire to eavesdrop.
I see people whispering, and I yearn to know what they’re saying. Are they passionate lovers? Spies? Collectors of celebrity underwear?
Or are they just leaning in to hear through their masks?
Nowadays, correctly masked, do people even produce eavesdroppable content, the way we did in the days before?
I’m a biographer, a professional eavesdropper who did my best work about Grace Metalious, author of “Peyton Place,” the Boomers’ favorite dirty book.
One day, on a leafy college street corner, I asked a starchy fellow professor what he most remembered from the book.
He coughed majestically, then recited the line from the squirming back seat sex scene: “Is it up, Rod? Is it up good and hard?”
There was a whoop of laughter, and a gaggle of blushing students stared at us. Grownups knew about such things? The horror! The students ran shrieking down the street.
Twenty-five years later, one of those students friended me on Facebook. He told his friends I’d taught him everything he knew. Eavesdropping is eternal.
