Beautiful Addictions by Season Vining Read Free Book Online

practiced
     smile.
    “I’ll have the huevos rancheros,” he said.
    “I want a strawberry milk shake, order of bacon, and coffee,” Josie said, closing
     her menu and not looking up as the waitress left.
    “This Canadian food company did a survey and found out that forty-three percent of
     people would rather have bacon than sex.”
    “Canadian bacon or regular bacon?” she asked.
    “It didn’t say.”
    “Well,” Josie said, “it would really make a difference.”
    Tristan took a cautious sip of his coffee while they waited for the waitress to return
     with hers.
    “Are you saying that standard breakfast bacon may be better than sex, but Canadian
     bacon is lacking?”
    “That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Josie answered.
    “Would you equate it with any kind of sexual act, or is it just not that good?”
    “I might have Canadian bacon instead of giving a hand job.”
    “But you get no pleasure from that,” he said.
    “Exactly.” Josie gave a shrug of her shoulders.
    “Maybe the Canadians don’t know what they’re doing,” Tristan said.
    “Hardly. Their bacon-making skills are, as you put it, lacking.”
    Tristan nodded in agreement. When the waitress returned, Josie dumped sugar into her
     coffee, stirring counterclockwise. She turned to the wall and traced an outline of
     intricate text permanently etched there.
    “More of your work?” Tristan asked.
    “I’ll never tell. You might report me.”
    “So…” Tristan started, for once having no plan to finish his sentence.
    “So?”
    “I haven’t seen you in almost nine years. Why don’t you remember me? Why were you
     reported dead? How did you end up here?”
    Josie looked around at the air above his head, as if the questions hung there and
     she was deciding which one to pluck down and begin with.
    “You’re from New Orleans?” she asked.
    “Yes,” Tristan answered.
    “Look, I’m not really supposed to talk about it. Legal issues, blah blah blah. My
     safety, blah blah blah. What the hell do I care? I can’t even give you details, because
     I don’t have them.”
    He gestured for her to continue, letting his eyes roam over her face, traveling from
     her sepia eyes down the gentle slope of her nose and finally resting on her lips.
     When she began to speak, Tristan found himself captivated by her story.
    “My father and I left Louisiana when he took a new job in Brooklyn. We moved into
     an apartment. We only lived there for about six weeks. No one knows what went down,
     but it was a few days before the landlady noticed we were missing. Three days later,
     my father’s body turned up in the harbor. A few days after that, a witness saw me
     stumble into a subway station, where I collapsed. I woke up in a hospital two days
     later, surrounded by FBI agents, with no memory of who I was or where I’d been.”
    Tristan noticed that she wasn’t telling a story; she was simply reciting the words.
     They were void of emotion, as if she’d memorized an official report of the happenings.
    “You had amnesia.”
    The waitress appeared, refilling their coffee cups and moving on, clearly uninterested
     in the conversation.
    “Have. I have amnesia. Retrograde dissociative amnesia,” she clarified, repeating
     the clinical term she’d heard so many times before. “I have no idea what happened
     in New York or anything before that. Doctors say I probably never will.”
    Tristan dissected the words in his head, working out her diagnosis.
    “So ‘retrograde’ meaning all preexisting memories are lost, but you’re able to remember
     everything since.” Josie nodded. “‘Dissociative’ means it was likely caused by psychological
     events, as opposed to injury.”
    She shrugged, suddenly avoiding his gaze. They both reached for the sugar, their fingers
     intertwining around the glass container. Tristan pulled back, gesturing for her to
     go first. Josie poured her sugar before sliding it over to him.
    “Are you some kind of doctor