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Back One White Lie Save as PDF
Chapters (59)
  1. COVER
  2. About the Author
  3. DEDICATION
  4. ONE
  5. TWO
  6. THREE
  7. FOUR
  8. FIVE
  9. SIX
  10. SEVEN
  11. EIGHT
  12. NINE
  13. TEN
  14. ELEVEN
  15. TWELVE
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. TWENTY-FIVE
  29. TWENTY-SIX
  30. TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. TWENTY-NINE
  33. THIRTY
  34. THIRTY-ONE
  35. THIRTY-TWO
  36. THIRTY-THREE
  37. THIRTY-FOUR
  38. THIRTY-FIVE
  39. THIRTY-SIX
  40. THIRTY-SEVEN
  41. THIRTY-EIGHT
  42. THIRTY-NINE
  43. FORTY
  44. FORTY-ONE
  45. FORTY-TWO
  46. FORTY-THREE
  47. FORTY-FOUR
  48. FORTY-FIVE
  49. FORTY-SIX
  50. FORTY-SEVEN
  51. FORTY-EIGHT
  52. FORTY-NINE
  53. FIFTY
  54. FIFTY-ONE
  55. FIFTY-TWO
  56. FIFTY-THREE
  57. FIFTY-FOUR
  58. Acknowledgments
  59. THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING

There it was, what I’d been fearing.

What, at the same time, I’d been praying for.

An email from Davis.

You won’t get away like this. I will find you, I swear to god.

Penguin walking logo

ELEVEN

Our dinner looked almost savage against Vera and John’s big white ceramic bowls – coq au vin in an oxblood sauce. With my fork, I jabbed at a last bit of chicken. Succulent and rich, with just a hint of tartness.

Vera pushed her dish forward and leaned back in her chair. ‘That was perhaps the best take-out we’ve had yet from the French place. Don’t you think?’

I nodded, pulling my cardigan tighter, as a breeze snaked through one of the windows, cracked open a couple of inches. Over the past six weeks, Woodstock had changed almost as much as I had. The sky was darkening earlier now, the late-October air was crisp but not yet cold, and the leaves had lit up with color, splashing the landscape with watercolor hues.

‘Almost makes the ten-dollar delivery charge worth it,’ John said with a laugh. ‘I can’t stand to think how much we’ve racked up in charges lately.’

He was right. We did order a lot of take-out. If Vera was up to it, she’d make lasagna, her pièce de résistance, or John would whip up an elaborate meal, a recipe with a ton of steps and ingredients, using practically every pot in the house, roux and roasted eggplants caked onto cast iron. Occasionally, I cooked for them at my place, things that were simpler, like my mom’s turkey tetrazzini. John would always know which recipes had come from my mother and which hadn’t.

But too often, we’d order something. The steak house that wrapped baked potatoes in foil, the French restaurant whose sauces were like crack. Chinese to-go, paper bags printed with grease.

I never expected our relationship to blossom so quickly. But after the hike where I told all, they invited me to dinner the next night, and then I insisted on returning the favor, and before we knew it, more nights of the week than not, we were eating together.