So Much for That by Lionel Shriver Read Free Book Online Page A

have been more than five calories apiece; it was pure suggestion. All her classmates on antipsychotics and antidepressants and every other anti-be-difficult prescription were porkwads.
    Jackson was disheartened to detect that already at eleven Heather showed signs of being a joiner. He’d never understood this impulse to be just like everybody else when everybody else was a fucking moron. Even as a boy, Jackson had always wanted to stand out; his daughters’ peers seemed driven to blend in. The sole exceptions, the only truly ambitious kids determined to draw attention to themselves as a cut above, clinked to school with an arsenal under their trench coats.
    On the other hand, maybe he was more of a conformist than he liked to admit. Take Heather’s name. They’d picked it because they thought it was unusual. Now there were three other Heathers in her class. What was it with this name thing? You think you’ve never heard it before, but it’s in the air or something, like a smell or a gas, and meanwhile every other pregnant couple on the block is deciding to name their kid Heather because it’s unusual . At least by some miracle their firstborn’s high school wasn’t chockfull of Flickas. Thank fuck for Carol’s hang-up on stupid horse books as a kid. Look at you, he kicked himself. Flickaagain. You can’t keep thinking about your second daughter for ten seconds. Still, there was sure to come a time, no telling how soon, when he would have to think about Heather because Heather was the only daughter he had.
    “Jackson, should I go ahead and feed the kids? It’s getting late.”
    “Yeah, probably. Shep and Glynis likely got into a thing. If I know Glynis, she won’t let him go without a fight. No telling when he’ll get here, really.”
    “Sweetheart,” Carol said gently. “You should prepare yourself for the possibility that he gets cold feet. Or sobers up and realizes that he has a son and a wife and a life, and this Pemba thing is ridiculous. Cloves. I mean, really.” It was a particularly female form of condescension: men and their juvenile notions, their vain, impractical little projects.
    Jackson glared. It was one more of those moments when looking at his wife was an outright torture. She was unbelievably beautiful. It sounded mean-spirited, but he’d been a little exasperated that as she’d grown older she’d remained as sexy as ever, tall—taller than he was—with long amber hair and perfect round breasts the size of halved grapefruits. She never gained an ounce. Not from dieting or jogging either, but from hauling eighty-five pounds of writhing, gagging human flesh to an upstairs bed or emergency room. He was no longer sure whether Carol’s face had always been set in that serene, impassive expression, as if carved in marble, or if she had developed that stillness and infuriating composure in order to project a soothing, tranquil presence for Flicka. In any event, for years now she’d been so hard to rile that she inspired him to try.
    He was always proud to be seen with her in the company of other men and their washed-out, lumpy wives, but here at home the only adult for Carol to be better looking than was her husband. He wasn’t outright ugly or anything, but he worried that they were one of those couples about whom other people wondered in private, Carol’s a knockout, but what did she ever see in him? Why would such a fox pick a short, stocky working-class stiff with hair on his shoulders? He’d read somewhere that one of the things that made for a successful marriage was that bothparties were roughly the same level of physical attractiveness, which had made him nervous. Most men would think him crazy, but he wished she were a shade homelier. The fact that homelier and homier shared so many letters didn’t seem a coincidence.
    Jackson laid out plates for the kids, catching Flicka’s look of dread. Sausage and peppers was one of Carol’s signature dishes, always a crowd-pleaser, but