The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian Read Free Book Online Page B

thought was adorable. She wished she got to see more of the girl. His children were his priority, especially since his ex-wife was getting remarried in November, and Laurel respected that.
    David was the editorial page editor for the city newspaper. He had a glisteningly modern, beautiful co-op apartment overlooking Lake Champlain, but because of the time he wanted to devote to his girls and because his first marriage had wound up a train wreck there was no chance he was going to pressure Laurel into moving in with him anytime soon. Consequently, she spent no more than two or three nights a week at his place. The other evenings he either had custody of his daughters, a sixth-grader named Marissa and a first-grader named Cindy, or he was working late so that on those days when he did have them he could lavish his full attention upon them. Thus she only saw the girls a couple of times each month, usually for picnics or movies or (one time) to go skiing. Twice she had convinced David to let her have Marissa alone for a Saturday, and both times they’d had a spectacular day shopping at the vintage clothing stores Laurel frequented and experimenting at the endless cosmetics counters at the one elegant department store in the city’s downtown.
    He was always careful to drop Laurel off at her apartment first when his children were with them. She never left any sign of her occasional presence—a toothbrush, a robe, a couple of tampons—at his co-op.
    David was known professionally for tough, sardonic editorials when he felt there was either a colossal injustice or a monumental stupidity that needed to be addressed. He was firm-jawed and tall, easily six feet and change, and despite his age he still had thick, straw-colored hair: He kept it cut short now, but when he had been younger—before he became the editorial page editor and had a persona to project—he had actually looked a bit like a surfer. Laurel had seen the photographs. He didn’t swim, but he ran, and so, like his girlfriend, he was in excellent shape.
    Sometimes when they were together at a restaurant, a young waiter would say something that would suggest he presumed that David was Laurel’s father, but this happened less often with the two of them than it had with her other boyfriends in the years since the attack. After all, he wasn’t quite two decades her senior; most of the others had been at least that. Moreover, she was getting older, too.
    She had a date with David the night Katherine shared Bobbie Crocker’s photographs with her, and it was the first time they had seen each other in four days. They went to a Mexican restaurant not far from the newspaper’s offices. Whenever they tried to talk seriously about what they had done in the days they had been apart, however, Laurel found herself steering the conversation back to the once-homeless man and his pictures. She grew a little light-headed and excited whenever she contemplated the images that existed in the box. Over coffee, she brought up Crocker again, and David said—his tone characteristically dry, every syllable distinct—“I think it’s fine that you’re interested in this fellow’s work as an artist. As a photographer. I applaud that. But I hope you see that Katherine is foisting on you a serious time sucker. From what you tell me, this project has the potential to eat every spare moment you have—and then some.”
    “She’s not
foisting
it on me.”
    He smiled and sat back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. “I have known Katherine a long, long time. Years longer than you. I have watched her in board meetings, at fund-raisers, at phonathons. I’ve stood beside her and read the names of the homeless at the annual BEDS service at the Unitarian church. I’ve probably interviewed her a dozen times for stories.
Foist
may not be the right word for her methods. She’s far too seductive to be a…foister. But she’s a seducer, and she’s very good at getting what she