See You in Paradise Read Online Free

couple is intercepted by an organizer.
    “Whoops,” says Edward.
    The organizers are wearing white tee shirts with an insignia on the breast. This organizer, a plump, youngish woman, has her hand stuck straight out to be shaken. The man and woman right themselves to clasp it. They are led to a buffet table and given name tags. The black-haired boy watches until he’s handed the dice. Then he turns back to his game. The woman, narrow-faced, wan, thin-haired, continues to stare at the boy until her husband pulls her away.
    “I can’t do this,” says Alison.
    “It’s a walk in the park,” Edward tells her, then realizes the unintended joke and says, very loudly, “Ha!”
    He gets out of the car; she follows.

    The head organizer is named Greta. Edward misses the name when she introduces herself and ends up having to lean close to read her name tag. But not too close; he doesn’t want her to think he’s checking out her boobs, though of course he is. Consequently he reads it as “Great.” Can that be right? She is tall and unbalanced, like a stack of colorful wooden blocks.
    “I am simply thrilled to see you all here today,” says Great. She has herded the couples onto a patch of grass that is burdened by direct sun, where they have been asked to sit. Behind them the children play, stealing glances. “A few guidelines. One, we have brought no forms to fill out, nothing like that. Today is just for kicks. If you hit it off with a particular child, let us know, and we can arrange a meeting. Two, don’t talk about why you’re here, please. The children already know, and they are a little nervous! So talk about something else—doggies, sports, airplanes, church.”
    Edward begins thinking about how he might incorporate all these subjects into a single sentence.
    Alison thinks that the other couples look better qualified, wealthier, tougher than she and Edward. They probably have connections: she always believes all other people know one another. What if our child turns out to be religious? she wonders. A Baha’i? A Jain? There would be time to get books out of the library.
    “And third, and this is most important, please: do not, under any circumstances, ask a child if he or she wants to come home with you, okay? Okay! Terrific!” Great claps her hands. The couples stand up.

    Edward heads straight for the tallest child, an ugly, pale boy with stretched features: a long nose; narrow, slanted, almost Asian eyes; a pointed chin. He is sitting in the shade watching the other kids. Edward sits beside him.
    “You don’t want me, man,” the kid says.
    “Thanks for the tip,” Edward tells him, and the kid looks surprised. “Why, what’s wrong with you?”
    “My folks were no good. Also people tried me out before and it didn’t work.”
    “You were bad?”
    The kid laughs. “Uh-huh.”
    “What’d you do?”
    “Smoked weed.”
    “Mmm,” says Edward.
    “I never did it before. Their freakin’ real son gave it to me, except they didn’t believe me when I told them.”
    Edward reads the kid’s name tag in an ironic, obvious way. Nate. “Oh, I believe that. Kids have no boundaries, Nate.”
    Nate stares at Edward for a moment. He says, “What’s your name?”
    “Ed.”
    “Do you let kids call you Ed or do they have to call you Mister something?”
    “It’s just Ed,” Edward says. “Like Cher.”
    Edward thinks maybe he’s gone too far. Nate is squinting at him like he’s mad.
    “Like who?” Nate says.

    Alison watches Edward take off alone and feels sick to her stomach. They’re in this together, she thinks. But she imagines what Edward would tell her if she said so: “We can cover more ground split up,” he’d say, as if it were a scavenger hunt. And then she hears him say, “It is a scavenger hunt, Al.” He calls her Al. Most of her boyfriends called her Allie, and the worst of them, a long-lashed pec-pumper named Lou, called her Alison, as if this formalized respect would fool her.