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Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 59 из 425Why not?It was true. My troubles hadn’t started until I’d finished All the yfrom the bp; until then, I had been going on like gangbusters.
In mid-June, I met Frank Arlen for lunch at the Starlite Cafe. The Starlite is in Lewiston, which is the geographical midpoint between his town and mine. Over dessert (the Starlite’s famous strawberry shortcake), Frank asked if I was seeing anyone. I looked at him with surprise.
“What are you gaping at?” he asked, his face registering one of the nine hundred unnamed emotions—this one of those somewhere between amusement and irritation. “I certainly wouldn’t think of it as two-timing Jo. She’ll have been dead four years come August.”
“No,” I said. “I’m not seeing anybody.”
He looked at me silently. I looked back for a few seconds, then started fiddling my spoon through the whipped cream on top of my shortcake. The biscuits were still warm from the oven, and the cream was melting. It made me think of that silly old song about how someone left the cake out in the rain.
“Have you seen anybody, Mike?”
“I’m not sure that’s any business of yours.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake. On your vacation? Did you—”
I made myself look up from the melting whipped cream. “No,” I said.
He was silent for another moment or two. I thought he was getting ready to move on to another topic. That would have been fine with me. Instead, he came right out and asked me if I had been laid at all since Johanna died. He would have accepted a lie on that subject even if he didn’t entirely believe it—men lie about sex all the time. But I told the truth… and with a certain perverse pleasure.
“No.”
“Not a single time?”
“Not a single time.”
“What about a massage parlor? You know, to at least get a—”
He sat there tapping his spoon against the rim of the bowl with his dessert in it. He hadn’t taken a single bite. He was looking at me as though I were some new and oogy specimen of bug. I didn’t like it much, but I suppose I understood it.
I had been close to what is these days called “a relationship” on two occasions, neither of them on Key Largo, where I had observed roughly two thousand pretty women walking around dressed in only a stitch and a promise. Once it had been a red-haired waitress, Kelli, at a restaurant out on the Extension where I often had lunch.
In mid-June, I met Frank Arlen for lunch at the Starlite Cafe. The Starlite is in Lewiston, which is the geographical midpoint between his town and mine. Over dessert (the Starlite’s famous strawberry shortcake), Frank asked if I was seeing anyone. I looked at him with surprise.
“What are you gaping at?” he asked, his face registering one of the nine hundred unnamed emotions—this one of those somewhere between amusement and irritation. “I certainly wouldn’t think of it as two-timing Jo. She’ll have been dead four years come August.”
“No,” I said. “I’m not seeing anybody.”
He looked at me silently. I looked back for a few seconds, then started fiddling my spoon through the whipped cream on top of my shortcake. The biscuits were still warm from the oven, and the cream was melting. It made me think of that silly old song about how someone left the cake out in the rain.
“Have you seen anybody, Mike?”
“I’m not sure that’s any business of yours.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake. On your vacation? Did you—”
I made myself look up from the melting whipped cream. “No,” I said.
He was silent for another moment or two. I thought he was getting ready to move on to another topic. That would have been fine with me. Instead, he came right out and asked me if I had been laid at all since Johanna died. He would have accepted a lie on that subject even if he didn’t entirely believe it—men lie about sex all the time. But I told the truth… and with a certain perverse pleasure.
“No.”
“Not a single time?”
“Not a single time.”
“What about a massage parlor? You know, to at least get a—”
He sat there tapping his spoon against the rim of the bowl with his dessert in it. He hadn’t taken a single bite. He was looking at me as though I were some new and oogy specimen of bug. I didn’t like it much, but I suppose I understood it.
I had been close to what is these days called “a relationship” on two occasions, neither of them on Key Largo, where I had observed roughly two thousand pretty women walking around dressed in only a stitch and a promise. Once it had been a red-haired waitress, Kelli, at a restaurant out on the Extension where I often had lunch.