BooksBarbecue
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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

“Uh-huh?” yawned Rachel, curling away from her, her whole body facing the side of the sofa.

“Tell me about your husband.”

She would have sat bolt upright if she hadn’t felt so tired. “Oh, come on. You knew him well enough.”

Ruby shrugged her shoulders. “I fucked him. I didn’t know him. I’m not really very interested in him, to be perfectly honest. I’m interested in you. So anything I want to know about Scott is in reference to you, okay?”

“Jesus, Ruby, this is all getting a little bit strange. I’m not quite sure what’s going on here.”

“No, neither am I. But I like you and I think you like me. I think, perhaps, we might be able to help one another.”

“Perhaps.”

“Listen, you know I’m screwy. Everybody knows that. But I know something not everybody knows. And that is that you’re screwy too. You hold it together well, with your shiny hair and all. It is shiny, I’m not denying it for a second. Well done. Congratulations on your hair. But it’s supposed to deflect something, right?”

Rachel snorted as if this were all too ridiculous. But she could not look away from her pasty-faced interrogator.

“He did something to you, didn’t he? We’re friends now, Rachel. Tell me how he hurt you. Tell me what would have happened to me if I had been the one he married.”

Twenty-five

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Rachel’s story

As Ruby set coffee and toast down in front of her, Rachel drew deep on her cigarette. The toast was burned and the coffee was too weak. Rachel almost cried then and there, for the state of the toast seemed to be an accurate representation of her, while her young houseguest’s problems were encapsulated by the coffee.

Pushing the toast away, Rachel exhaled a stream of smoke, admitting with the exhalation: “He took things from me.”

“What did he take?” asked Ruby, gossipy eyes agog.

“He took my curve,” she answered matter of factly and stubbed her cigarette out, half-smoked, in an ashtray stolen from a Parisian bistro. “I didn’t notice it at first. Until one night, five A.M., when we were lying in bed, and I happened to run my fingers across my left hip. Scott lay beside me, asleep. Valium, champagne, and Temazepam asleep. And I was awake. Coke, coke and cookies awake. Staring at the ceiling, hearing him breathing so slow, so languorously, as if he were too jaded and self-important to bother with air. Let it come to him.