The Lovers by Vendela Vida Read Free Book Online

she now lived from New Mexico, where she had been raised. The boy studied the map with great seriousness and carried it to his father, who glanced at the image and then said something stern to the boy. Yvonne knew hewas instructing the boy not to bother her, and she didn’t know how to tell the father it was okay, that it was the simple company of kids she now missed. That it was her children’s childhoods she missed. The boy sat down on the couch, his legs straight out, and picked at a scab on his elbow. From the kitchen came the clank of dishes being washed by hand.
    Yvonne knew she needed to leave. She felt uncomfortable letting the woman clean a clean house, and she felt more uncomfortable watching the man watch TV while his wife scrubbed and mopped and did whatever else she was going to do.
    Yvonne retreated to the bedroom and changed into her new swimsuit. In the catalogue, the one-piece had appeared to be an innocuously pale yellow. But the package had arrived at her door two days before her trip—too late to be exchanged—and the swimsuit had turned out to be the pungent yellow of a yield sign. She called her next-door neighbor, Anita, and asked her to come over so she could get her opinion. Anita, who was wearing a hat rimmed with flowers, had pronounced the suit “fun.”
    Fun , Yvonne repeated to herself as she stood in front of the mirror in Datça, tightening the straps, lifting the suit higher on her chest. She pulled on a shapeless turquoise sundress Aurelia had dubbed her “missionary attire,” packed a bag, and set off in the car with no destination in mind. She drove down the hill to the main road with the air-conditioning on high and the windows down low. Despite the maid, or perhaps in part because she had escaped from witnessing themaid, Yvonne was in good spirits. Upon further consideration, she attributed the bulk of this feeling to her conversation with Özlem. While she suspected Özlem of lying to her about being hit, this only made her more intriguing. Özlem was not Yvonne’s problem to solve, and so she could listen, gasp, advise—all without having to watch the consequences unfold.
    Since Peter’s death, Yvonne had come to value friendship more than romance. On the phone with old classmates, she asked probing questions, far more curious about her friends’ jobs and children than she’d ever been before. But Yvonne was certain she wouldn’t love again—not a man, not sexually. She couldn’t picture a man other than Peter lying next to her at night. It seemed as natural as sleeping next to a bear. Nor could she imagine adjusting to the feel of another man’s thumb on her nipple, those particular pink marks etched onto his skin by the waistband of his underwear, the frequency of how often he rose in the night to pee.
    Seventeen months after Peter’s death, she had agreed to go on a date set up by a woman who owned the neighborhood health-food store. This was the same woman who had told Yvonne about a website that e-mailed subscribers a new vocabulary word every morning, and Yvonne had signed up for the service because it was free, and she liked the non-surprise of its arrival in her inbox. She could never be sure what any other e-mail might say, which long-lost friends or colleagues would have only just learned of Peter’s passing, and written to offer their condolences, their platitudes. Butthe word of the day was uncomplicated in its anonymity and consistency.
    Edward had seemed promising: a former mayor of a small town, he had broad shoulders and hair that appeared to always have just been washed. Yvonne soon understood that Edward was also a subscriber to the word-of-the-day e-mail, most likely at the store owner’s prompting as well. Each time they had gone out together—to a Sunday brunch, to dinner, to a graduation ceremony for Seeing Eye dogs for the blind (his daughter was an instructor at the school)—he had incorporated a recent word-of-the-day into his conversation.