That Part Was True Read Online Free Page B

disorder for a while,” Lisa announced in response. “But I found this great therapist. Cured me like that .” It was a joke, but the delivery, ill-timed and lacking backbone, crippled it. She clicked her fingers, and in the silence that the remark had engendered, the sound carried.
    Dex, saving her, laughed. And Lisa, bestowing on him in return a weak, grateful smile, lifted her glass and took another earnest step toward complete intoxication.
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    At some point after the discussion about the Kingston School and Dex’s second too-long Hollywood anecdote, at which Lisa grinned uncomfortably, while Adrienne toyed impassively with her water tumbler, Jack felt his mood dulling. He had done very little work since Marnie had left and he had drunk too much—never a good combination for him. But it was several hours afterward that the nadir came.
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    When the coffee was finished, they walked back along the beach to the house, Adrienne carrying her tan leather sandals by their straps, dangling them from her long fingers.
    Lisa—her tendency to chatter extinguished finally by alcohol, Jack’s casually pally manner toward her, and the taunting inner voices that plagued her thirty-eight-year-old, single status—grew mute and fell behind. And Jack, noticing, conscious of a growing thud in his left temple and a groggy sensation of afternoon hangover regret and hopelessness, was struck by the sadness in the downward line of her small jaw. He reached to pull her back into the group and let his arm lie across her shoulders, affectionately, lazily, for long enough to reignite her.
    By the time they reached the wooden steps that rose from the sand to the back of Jack’s garden, his desire to climb them alone was close to overwhelming, but Lisa, spurred by refreshed optimism, tripped swiftly up ahead of him, her pert little rear—an apricot in stretch Capri pants—almost at his nose as she ascended the steep first part of the flight. And then Dex stood back to let Adrienne pass, too. Jack resigned himself to the rest of the evening. He had lost all interest in it.
    Adrienne, at the house, made leaving noises, but Dex, discouraging, pulled a chair back for her on the deck, where they’d been when she arrived. It was after five by then, and Jack, seeking comfort and solitude, retreated to the one place he knew he could always find it, the kitchen.
    â€œYou need something, chief?” Rick asked.
    â€œNo, Rick. It’s fine. Why don’t you take off for the day?”
    Rick looked at his boss, suspicious. But he looked at Jack that way a lot, so Jack ignored it.
    â€œTake the rest of that ham, if you think Christa could use it.”
    They both knew that Christa could use it. Rick’s wife was feeding her own family and about half a dozen others as far as Jack could tell—cousins, friends, a constant influx of relatives looking for work in America.
    â€œOkay, chief,” Rick said. He removed the white jacket he always wore at Jack’s house and hung it on a hanger on a hook inside the door of a large walk-in cupboard. Then he took the ham out of the refrigerator and wrapped it.
    â€œDon’t forget the girls are coming to clean tomorrow morning,” he said.
    â€œNo,” Jack said. It was the sort of thing he always forgot immediately.
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    Jack wanted to sober up. And he figured Dex and Lisa could do with it, too. He could hear them laughing outside and he knew Dex had opened another bottle of wine. Adrienne was the only one still in full possession of her faculties. She was not a person, Jack thought, whom it was easy to imagine in any other state.
    He took two long loaves from a basket, and lay them on a chopping board and turned the oven on. He had some provolone; he’d make crostini now to sop up the booze, and then later ratatouille. Adrienne could eat that, if she stayed.
    â€œMy father buys all your books,” she said then from