Sweet Water by Christina Baker Kline Read Free Book Online Page A

that mean?”
    I sat down at the table and looked up at him. “It means I’m going down there to live, Drew. On my land.”
    “Holy shit,” he said. “I’ve got to check the fish.”
        “You’ll be cruising convenience stores for excitement.” We were sitting across from each other at the small kitchen table, a low-burning candle and the empty bottle of wine between us. “You’ll meet an auto mechanic named Joe who’s a Really Nice Guy.” Drew got up to clear the plates. “Is that what you want out of life, Cassie?” he said over his shoulder. “Three squares a day and a home entertainment center?”
    “Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic? I just want to try something different. I want to have a studio, do my own work for a change.”
    “You don’t have to go a thousand miles to find studio space. There has to be some other reason.” He glanced over at me sharply. “You’re not pregnant, by any chance?”
    I rolled my eyes.
    “And this has nothing to do with Adam.”
    I sighed. “Not really.”
    “Not really.”
    “God, Drew, you sound just like my father. What is it with you men? You can’t imagine a woman setting off on her own if she hasn’t been spurned first?”
    “I was just asking,” he said, opening the freezer. “And you are a little touchy about it, if you don’t mind my saying. I’ve got Ben and Jerry’spolitically-correct-but-very-fattening ice cream or good-for-you dictator-grown grapes.”
    “What kind of ice cream?”
    “Um, Chocolate Fudge Brownie.”
    “Well, then, I think we should boycott those grapes.”
    “I admire your conscience,” he said. “And you take milk, right?” He poured two mugs of coffee and brought them over to the table. “Look, Cassie, maybe I could understand if it was a villa in Tuscany. I could see the appeal. But we’re talking a shack in Tennessee.
Tennessee,
for God’s sake.”
    “It’s not a shack. I don’t think.”
    “Let’s face facts,” he said patiently. “You’ve never been there. Your relatives haven’t bothered to get in touch with you, now or ever. You have no idea what this place looks like except everybody expects you to tear it down. And think of this,” he said, sitting down with the ice cream. “Your own mother got out of there as fast as she could.”
    “I know, I know.”
    “Well?”
    I got up, restless, moved the dishes from the counter to the sink, and turned on the tap. “Haven’t you ever wanted to do something just for the hell of it? Just because it’s like nothing else you’ve ever done?”
    “Yes, Cassandra. In my youth I had a great need to test boundaries.”
    I made a face. “Look, my life here is just ordinary, you know that. Go to work, try new restaurants, run around to openings. All I’m doing is filling a little space I’ve carved out for myself.” I poured dishwashing liquid into the sink as it filled with water.
    “I hate to be the one to break it to you, darling, but that’s the way life is. No matter where you are.”
    “But nothing I do really
matters
here. When I leave there’ll be half a dozen twenty-seven-year-olds with severe haircuts and Danishbags to take my place. Look at Veronica at the gallery. It’s as if I never worked there.”
    “Now we’re getting into philosophy,” Drew said. “Leave those dishes alone and come sit down. Your ice cream is melting.”
    I turned around to face him.
    “Look, Cassie, it’s the same everywhere. It just seems different in small towns because you recognize people on the street and they act like they’re happy to see you. Maybe. If someone hasn’t been spreading malicious, narrow-minded rumors about you that everybody’s heard because the whole place is the size of a parking garage.”
    “But they know you, at least,” I insisted. “That’s something.”
    He sighed. “I just think you have an incredibly romanticized idea of what it’s going to be like. Too much
Little House on the Prairie
as a kid or