Read Online How to Talk to a Widower by Jonathan Tropper - Free Book Online

at you for too long. And I’m sure you get asked out a lot, by older, smoother men than me, but they’re asking you out because you’re good-looking, and there’s nothing wrong with that, I mean, you have to start somewhere, but you see, normally that would be exactly why I didn’t ask you out, so the fact that I am now means that we’ve already passed all of that.” I took a deep breath. “And because I think you would really like me, if you gave me a chance.”
    Her face turned red, and she didn’t smile like I’d hoped she would, but she didn’t look away. She did not look away. “Are you always this honest?”
    I nodded. “Almost never.”
    “But that’s honest too.”
    “I know. It’s tricky.”
    “It’s nothing personal, Doug. I’ve just had some bad luck with men.”
    “That’s because you don’t know the secret.”
    “What’s the secret?”
    “You have to train us when we’re young.”
    And this time her smile was like a ray of sunlight, the kind that pierces the clouds on an angle and makes you think about heaven. And so we drove her car out to Great Adventure, and we rode Nitro and The Great American Scream Machine and The Batman Coaster and Kingda Ka, and I bought her a funnel cake and a sparkler and sang “Happy Birthday” to her on the Ferris wheel and she kissed me at the top. And sometimes that’s all it takes, no epiphanies, no revelations, just funnel cake on a Ferris wheel and one crazy, miraculous day that should never have happened, but somehow did. It was fate, I thought. Destiny. But I only thought those things because I was in love and didn’t know any better.
    I didn’t know about the accidents yet.

9

    CLAIRE SHOWS UP IN HER PIMPED-OUT ESCALADE and her Gucci sunglasses and her three-hundred-dollar jeans. It’s been a few hours since Laney left, and I’ve just woken up from a short postcoital nap to sit on the porch and eat Cap’n Crunch out of the box until my teeth are numb. Good sex, bad sex, right sex, wrong sex; I always wake up with the munchies. Claire barrels up the driveway, sending the rabbits scattering in a frenzied panic, and brakes much too hard, so that I hear the high whine of her grinding discs, but she somehow manages to avoid whiplash. She drives the way she lives, with equal parts zeal, impatience, and ineptitude.
    “What the fuck, Doug!” she says, marching up onto the porch like she owns the place. I don’t take it personally. That’s just Claire. Even when we shared a womb, she was in charge. Two minutes older than me, she’s walking proof that our DNA is much better executed in the female form, with her flowing mane of dark hair shined to a shampoo commercial gloss, flawless olive skin, eyes the color of the evening sky, and a crooked, knowing grin that, when called upon, can effortlessly transmute into a brilliant toothy smile. Our mother wanted her to be in movies, which naturally made it the last thing Claire would ever do. I’ve got the same hair, skin, and eyes, but on me they all seem randomly placed, like rubber features slapped onto Mr. Potato Head, never quite coming together to form a cohesive whole. Claire says she got the brains and the looks and I got the spare parts in case anything ever breaks down.
    “I’ve been trying to reach you all day!” she shouts at me. “Why don’t you answer your fucking phone?”
    “I threw it at a tree.”
    She gives me a look. “Anyone I know?”
    “Mom.”
    She nods. “Next time, just say you have another call and hang up. It works for me.”
    “I’ll try to remember that.”
    “I tried the house phone too.”
    “Yeah. I never pick that up.”
    “No shit, Doug.” She fixes me with a stern look. “But you can’t go silent on me. Not after what happened.”
    “Oh, for God’s sake. Will you let go of that already.”
    “You tried to kill yourself.”
    “I fell asleep in the tub.”
    “You ODed.”
    “They were sleeping pills. I just misunderstood the recommended