Women with Men by Richard Ford Read Free Book Online Page B

in the American grain. It was one of the big reasons he'd been knocked out by her years ago and why he knew she would be the best person he or anyone else could ever love. Only he didn't see at that moment what he could do to make her wishes come true, if he in fact knew anything about what her wishes were. So that what he said, after admittinghe was sorry to hear what she'd already said, was: “But I don't think there's anything I can do about it. I wish there was. I'm really sorry.”
    “Then you're just an asshole,” Barbara said and nodded again very confidently, very conclusively. “And you're also a womanizer and you're a creep. And I don't want to be married to any of those things anymore. So.” She took a big emptying swig out of her glass of gin and set the thick tumbler down hard on its damp little napkin coaster. “So,” she said again, as if appreciating her own self-assured voice, “fuck you. And goodbye.” With that, she got up and walked very steadily and straight out of the Hai-Nun (so straight that Austin didn't wonder about whether she was in any condition to drive) and disappeared around the bamboo corner just as another fat lick of yellow flame swarmed into the dark dining-room air and another hot, loud sizzling sound went up, and another “Oooo” was exhaled from the dazzled diners, a couple of whom even clapped.
    This was certainly an over-response on Barbara's part, Austin felt. In the first place, she knew nothing about Joséphine Belliard, because there was nothing to know. No incriminating facts. She was only guessing, and unfairly. In all probability she was just feeling bad about herself and hoping to make him responsible for it. In the second place, it wasn't easy to tell the truth about how you felt when it wasn't what someone you loved wanted to be the truth. He'd done his best by saying he wasn't sure what he could do to make her happy. That had been a place to start. He'd sensed her opening certitude had just been a positioning strategy and that while a big fight might've been brewing, it would've been one they could settle over the course of the evening, ending with apologies, after which they could both feel better, even liberated. It hadgone like that in the past when he'd gotten temporarily distracted by some woman he met far from home. Ordinary goings-on, he thought.
    Though women were sometimes a kind of problem. He enjoyed their company, enjoyed hearing their voices, knowing about their semi-intimate lives and daily dramas. But his attempts at knowing them often created a peculiar feeling, as if on the one hand he'd come into the possession of secrets he didn't want to keep, while on the other, some other vital portion of life—his life with Barbara, for instance—was left not fully appreciated, gone somewhat to waste.
    But Barbara had stepped out of all bounds with this leaving. Now they were both alone in separate little cocoons of bitterness and self-explanation, and that was when matters did not get better but worse. Everyone knew that. She had brought this situation into existence, not him, and she would have to live with the outcome, no matter how small or how large. Drinking had something to do with it, he thought. His and hers. There was a lot of tension in the air at the moment, and drinking was a natural response. He didn't think either of them had a drinking problem per se—particularly himself. But he resolved, sitting at the teak bar in front of a glass of Beefeater's, that he would quit drinking as soon as he could.
    When he walked outside into the dark parking lot, Barbara was nowhere in sight. A half hour had gone by. He thought he might find her in the car, mad or sleeping. It was eight-thirty. The air was cool, and Old Orchard Road was astream with automobiles.
    When he drove home, all the lights were off and Barbara's car, which she'd left at her office when he picked her up, was not in the garage. Austin walked in through the house, turning on lights