And Then Everything Unraveled Read Online Free Page B

that T.K. has done such a good job scaring me about gum disease.
    Now the clock on the bedside table said it was after ten, and the bacon smell reminded me that it had been a long time sinceI’d last eaten. My pajamas consisted of a tank top and sweat-pants, but Charley seemed like the informal type—she wouldn’t even let anyone call her Charity (“I mean, do I look like a Victorian spinster?” she’d said when I asked)—so I decided it would be okay not to get more dressed and went in search of food.
    The loft took up the whole fifth floor of the building, and most of it was a huge open space. My room was down a short hallway, and Charley’s room was down another, but just about everything else was in the main room, including a kitchen area at one end, a big round table in the middle, and a mismatched collection of sofas and chairs at the other end. A long row of oversized windows framed a view of the buildings across the street.
    The kitchen counter was piled with grocery bags, and Charley was at the stove, trying to turn bacon with tongs that still had a price tag dangling from them.
    “Delia, hi,” she said, looking up with a cheery smile. “I hope you’re hungry.” She gestured casually with the tongs, as if trying to imply that she cooked all the time, but just then a drop of sizzling fat flew up from the pan and nailed the inside of her wrist, and she let loose with a few words that neatly proved how wrong T.K. was about swearing and a lack of imagination.
    “Can I help?” I asked.
    “Everything’s under control,” she assured me, apparentlyunaware that the pan was starting to smoke. She chattered on as I tried to remember if I knew anything about putting out grease fires.
    I shouldn’t have worried about the pan, but it would be a while before I realized that just about everything Charley did turned out all right, no matter how inevitably disaster seemed to loom. I learned much more quickly that she liked to talk. A lot.
    “There’s fresh orange juice—do you like orange juice?” she asked. “Some people like grapefruit juice better, and I know it’s supposed to be really good for you, but it makes my mouth feel all puckered. I also picked up bagels and cream cheese. I wanted your first meal here to be authentically New York, so it was either bagels or ordering in from the taco place, and since the taco place doesn’t open for another hour, bagels won. And everyone likes bagels. Except for people on a low-carb diet. But even they like bagels, they just don’t eat them. You’re not on a low-carb diet, are you?”
    I wasn’t sure which question to answer first, but it didn’t matter, because Charley was already on to the next series of topics, which included: her love of carbs, how her love of carbs almost made training for a marathon seem appealing except for what it would do to her toenails, how important toenails were for open-toed shoes, not to mention peep-toes and sandals, and how sore her feet were from standing around the previous night while Dieter shot the same scene over and over again.
    By now, we were at the table with enough food for a small team of sumo wrestlers and Charley took a big bite of bagel, which gave me my first opportunity to say much of anything. And what I most wanted to know was how she and my C-Span-watching, loafer-wearing mother could possibly be sisters, but asking which one was adopted didn’t seem like the most polite way to start a conversation. So since all of the other adults I knew liked talking about their work, I asked about her movie career instead.
    She laughed. “Don’t let Dieter or Gertrude hear you call it a ‘movie,’ whatever you do. It’s an independent film, darling,” she said in a mock-affected way. “And I wouldn’t call it a career, either. It’s just something I’m doing right now.”
    “Oh,” I said, lacking context for this. In Silicon Valley, people tend to define themselves by their profession. It’s not about money,