BooksBarbecue
Back Thin Skin Save as PDF
Chapters (55)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Acknowledgments
  6. Cast of Characters
  7. Part One
  8. One
  9. Two
  10. Three
  11. Four
  12. Five
  13. Six
  14. Seven
  15. Eight
  16. Nine
  17. Ten
  18. Eleven
  19. Twelve
  20. Thirteen
  21. Fourteen
  22. Fifteen
  23. Sixteen
  24. Seventeen
  25. Eighteen
  26. Nineteen
  27. Part Two
  28. Twenty
  29. Twenty-one
  30. Twenty-two
  31. Twenty-three
  32. Twenty-four
  33. Twenty-five
  34. Twenty-six
  35. Twenty-seven
  36. Twenty-eight
  37. Twenty-nine
  38. Thirty
  39. Thirty-one
  40. Thirty-two
  41. Thirty-three
  42. Thirty-four
  43. Thirty-five
  44. Thirty-six
  45. Thirty-seven
  46. Thirty-eight
  47. Thirty-nine
  48. Forty
  49. Forty-one
  50. Forty-two
  51. Forty-three
  52. Forty-four
  53. Forty-five
  54. Forty-six
  55. A note on the Author

I only half listened, tipping back glass after glass of red wine. Soon I was quite drunk and it was time to go home. I rolled up the sleeves of my jacket and pulled back my bangs. We both looked at my arms, him horrified, me amused. Seemingly reacting with the wine, the white lines on my arms were bubbling up, as if inflated by a children’s party entertainer. “White lines,” I chirped gaily. “Don’t do it.”

Nine

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Best Policy

“Ruby is the worst client I ever had.”

Ten

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Change of address

“This is, um, ughh—” Sean cleared his throat, his hand on my knee as he sat next to me on the sofa in my trailer. From the awkwardness with which he sat and the tiny, darting glances he kept shooting at me, one might have guessed he was going to ask if he could kiss me. Instead, he asked if I could stop being such a royal pain in the ass. Except, because he is sweet Sean, with his sweet, old-fashioned head, his doting wife and two children, he asked if I needed help.

“Um, ah, I … I can’t pretend to know what you’re going through.”

“Please. Just for pretend. Just for a minute.”

“Nooo.” He shook his head as though he knew his reluctance to method-feel my pain was a great shortcoming. “Nooo, I can’t pretend, but I can get you help if you want it. I’m pretty sure you’re bulimic, aren’t you?”

“I am,” I answered firmly, with inappropriate good cheer.

“And I know you’ve been cutting yourself,” he added, gathering courage.

“That too,” I agreed, smoothing out my skirt.

“Well, if you know what you’re doing, well, then why?”

I raised my arms up above my head and, in bringing them back down, let the backs of my fingers rest on my closed eyelids. I didn’t move my hands as I answered his question: “I’ve started so I’ll finish.”

Sean closed my trailer door as quietly as he could, as if fearful of waking a beast. He let me go for the rest of the day. But when I got back to the Chelsea, he had left me a message insisting that I must, if nothing else, move out of the hotel and back to my apartment. I spent one last night in my mint-green suite. I intended to watch TV all night, but when it came to it I ended up looking out the window for most of the evening. It’s hardly a lovely view: just traffic trying to get from Eighth Avenue down to Seventh, movie patrons leaving the cineplex, ripped off and grimy, bums thrusting styrofoam cups in the startled blond faces of Swedish backpackers. It’s nothing to look at. But I did anyway.