The Time of Her Life Read Online Free Page A

was laden with neat piles of research notes across its surface. He turned on his draftsman’s lamp
     and sipped his coffee andstudied the tidy stacks of paper. He needed to bring all his wits to bear on this book in order to make it interesting. He
     had grasped hold of an idea that was just beginning to be tossed around with great seriousness now that discussions of the
     greenhouse effect had finally filtered down to the cocktail party level. His book would be an investigation of the notion
     that the more civilized a culture, the less adaptable it is to environmental and climactic changes. He knew so much to say
     about it. He would reexamine the ancient cultures—the Anasazi Indians in particular—and bring the narrative forward to encompass
     humankind in the space age. And he knew how to string his words together in pages full of wit and grace so that the message
     unfolded with an ease that assured him of a large audience. It would require great concentration to get the arrangement of
     information just right.
    He swiveled his chair to one side and looked out the tall window that flanked his table on the left. There was nothing there
     to see except the long slope of the hill above the house and the autumn trees wound around with trumpet vine. He missed their
     orange flowers, which he had looked out upon through the summer. He turned from his window to his papers and then to the window
     again. He moved some notes from one pile to another, and he thought about this and that. He sat still and quiet and now and
     then picked up a pencil and twirled it thoughtfully between his thumb and forefinger, occasionally leaning over to jot a note
     to himself on his legal pad. And what he had decided by late morning was to make some of his homemade chili for lunch. He
     left his study, still dressed in his pajamas and robe, and called up the stairs to Claudia and Jane.
    “I think I’ll make some chili for lunch. Hot, this time. Hey, I’m going to make some chili for lunch.”
    In the kitchen he was very busy, and Claudia and Jane hovered about. It was irresistible; they came in and out. It was quite
     a production when Avery made chili. Jane opened and drained and rinsed the beans, and Claudia leaned over a counter where
     the chessboard had been set up and studied the chess puzzle taped to the wall above it. Avery opened a beer and sipped it
     from the can while he stirred and seasoned the meat, and then he joined Claudia and they argued about the solution to the
     chess problem. Avery put forward only gentle disagreements, while Claudia was adamant and went to find the book that had the
     answer.
    Jane saved the chili every time. She stirred the meat up from the bottom whenever she smelled it beginning to scorch. Her
     parents were absorbed, now, in their board game. Avery opened another beer, and Claudia looked around the kitchen for the
     pack of cigarettes she had hidden from herself the day before so she wouldn’t be tempted.
    “Now, look, if you’ll just think about it, Avery,” she said when she came back to the board, “you’ll see what I mean.” She
     bent over to peer at the little chess pieces, and she pushed her hair straight back from her forehead in exasperation, holding
     it there abstractedly, so that her chin was aimed like a pencil point at the game laid out in front of her. There was nothing
     coy about Claudia; she was intense at every moment.
    Jane added the beans and tomatoes to the chili but then turned the heat down under it and left it to simmer. She went out
     of the kitchen to her own room to read a book. She had a book report due Monday, andClaudia and Avery were still peacefully debating some point of chess.
    Avery drank some red wine with his chili and poured a glass for Claudia, too, and they sat at the table to eat with the chessboard
     between them and the puzzle Claudia had taken down from the wall and laid out to one side. Jane didn’t join them for lunch,
     and they didn’t