Read Online Good Things I Wish You by Manette Ansay - Free Book Online

his face as I said this. “Not just you. Not just this.”
    He said, without missing a beat, “I do not find, since Iam living here, so many people I can talk to. I was thinking that perhaps we are two people who can have a conversation.”
    “So call me sometime. We can talk on the phone. Get to know each other better.”
    “Sure, sure.”
    “It’s the way these things go. You told me that, remember?”
    He traced the downward curve of the steering wheel.
    “Only then,” I said, “you didn’t call. You disappeared. Is that also the way these things go?”
    He said, “There is a certain chemistry that must exist between a man and a woman. I am thinking this chemistry does not exist between us.”
    Ibis threaded their way along the narrow strip of grass that divided the parking lot from the sidewalk. I waited to feel something: embarrassment, maybe. Disappointment. But nothing in particular came to the surface, other than the feeling that we’d already had this conversation. That we were just pretending there was a question on the table, a decision to be made, when in fact it had already been settled.
    At last I said, “The chemistry is more like… murky …don’t you think?”
    “No-no-no.” He looked at me, unflinching. “For me, it is not there. When I think of the sort of person with whom I wish to be involved, I am sorry, she is nothing like you.”
    “Fine,” I said. Oddly enough, it was something of a relief, knowing he wasn’t looking at me as a woman. Or atleast not a woman he planned to date. “I mean, it really is fine.” I wiped the sweat from my face and neck. “I’m new to all this anyway.”
    “I know. I am not new to this.”
    “I know.”
    “And yet, there is something about our first conversation. It is difficult to explain. After we met, I arranged to see my daughter in London. I stayed there two weeks. She is a violinist, did I mention this? And she knows all about your Clara. There’s a house in Leipzig where she and Robert—”
    “On Ingelstrasse?” I stepped forward again. “It’s a music school now.” *
    “I must have passed it countless times.”
    “I’d love to get inside it, but I’m not sure it’s open to the public anymore.”
    “It is open for concerts. Friederike has plans to perform there.” A little smile played around his mouth. “It would seem we have another coincidence.”
    She was, in fact, scheduled to perform on the evening of the day I arrived.
    “Friederike will get us tickets. I mean, if you would like that. I am happy to show you around, to be helpful to you. If I may.”
    “As a friend,” I said, understanding him.
    “I think, yes, as a friend,” he said, nodding. “I like to talk to you. I have told you that already.”
    “Men and women can’t be friends,” I said. “You already told me that, too.”

    “I made you very angry when I said that.”
    “You did.”
    “I’m afraid I am still thinking this is true.”
    I started to laugh, I couldn’t help it. “Are you always this complicated?”
    “If we were to leave right now,” Hart said, “I’d have you back by eight. Plenty of time left to chop up your body and bury it deep in the ground.”
    I grabbed my computer case from the floor well beneath Heidi’s car seat, added a short-story anthology I’d been meaning to read. The inside of the Mercedes was leather lined, cool, the color of heavy cream. He was right, I decided, about the chemistry. How could there be chemistry when it was suddenly this comfortable, this easy? No resistance to chafe the match. No rough edges to spark. Getting into this car, sliding into this life, was like continuing a conversation we’d already begun. The smell of the interior was familiar as bread. I recognized the coins in the cup dish, the zippered case for CDs. The beaded bracelet hanging from the rearview. The cubby for the mirrored sunglasses he removed carefully from their sleeve.
    “I do have sunglasses, you see,” he said,