The Air We Breathe by Christa Parrish Read Free Book Online

nodded, squeezed her hand, and gave her a box of unopened noodles. “You boil. I’ll brown.”

5
    C LAIRE S EPTEMBER 2002
    They met in the basement of the Avery Springs Public Library the first Saturday of every month—the Puzzle Junkies, eight men and four women, mostly over thirty but a couple of eager college kids, too. Claire sat in her regular chair, at the end of the third folding table, where someone had carved three holes, each the diameter of a Bic pen, in the laminate top. Eyes and nose, she always thought, the picture made clearer by the fact someone had scratched a wide smiley arc beneath the holes. She liked to stick her pencils in the holes, point side up, while she worked her puzzle.
    Heidi burst into the room, travel mug in one hand, canvas bag slung over her forearm, and a pile of papers flapping in her other hand. “Oh my goodness. There was such a line at Kinko’s.”
    “That’s what happens when you wait till the last minute,” Claire said.
    “It’s only last minute because of the lines. Had there been no one there, I’d have been here at least ten minutes early.”
    “When is there ever not a line at Kinko’s on Saturday when you need copies made?”
    “I like to think of each day as full of new possibilities,” Heidi said, dropping her things on the seat. “Here. Your newsletter. Fresh from the copy machine.”
    Claire took it, folded it in half the long way. “Where did you get that one?” she asked, motioning to Heidi’s blazer with black crossword puzzle squares and numbers printed on the white fabric.
    “On eBay,” Heidi said. “Got a pair of pants, too, but I thought it would be too much to wear both at the same time.”
    “Along with your socks, your beret, tote bag, and earrings,” Claire said.
    “And my coffee.” Heidi held up her cup, shook it around eye level, and laughed. “You know me too well.”
    The club’s unofficial president banged his own ceramic crossword-motif mug on the table, and everyone quieted. The members took a few moments to share some of the most difficult clues they’d come across during the month—obscure foreign words and clever puns—and then all settled into solving the same puzzle. Claire finished first, in three minutes and forty-nine seconds. They discussed the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in February, all trying to convince Claire to enter. She wasn’t interested.
    Though she did enjoy accumulating crossword-inspired accessories, Heidi didn’t care a thing for working puzzles. She came to the meetings because Claire did, never finished even half the clues. And most of the ones she did fill in were wrong.
    A good friend .
    “Lunch?” Claire asked, packing away her mechanical pencils.
    “Of course,” Heidi said. “It’s my turn to treat, your turn to pick.”
    “I don’t think I paid last month.”
    “Yes you did,” Heidi said, though Claire knew she hadn’t.
    “Okay, then, how about Scallions?”
    Heidi looked at her watch. “I knew you’d say that.”
    They walked there, Heidi leaving her car in the library parking lot, noting the time she needed to leave the lot to avoid a ticket for breaking the three-hour rule. Last month she’d argued with the meter maid, trying to get out of the ticket the woman had been tearing off the pad just as Heidi ran to her car, pressing the automatic car door opener and throwing her tote bag onto the passenger seat. “But I’m right here,” she had said, but the meter maid slapped the citation under her wiper and told her to take it up with city hall.
    Claire always walked to the library, only a mile from her home.
    She only recently began driving again.
    They sat outside, at the tables on the sidewalk, the sun warm on Claire’s shoulders, her dark hair, the autumn wind brushing her neck, sending shivers down her back, like a lover’s breath. Daniel used to kiss her neck, little light puffs of lip from her earlobe down and around to her jugular notch. His thumb had fit in the