Read Online Not Your Ordinary Housewife: How the man I loved led me into a world I had never imagined by Nikki Stern - Free Book Online Page B

them was one from Dory, complete with The Age crossword puzzles. I was thrilled, because Dory wrote that a friend of hers had seen one of my glass sculptures in an exhibition at the Sydney Opera House. Apparently, there was even a photo of it on the cover of the catalogue. Paul was particularly impressed.
    Dory had also received a photo of Paul I’d sent her. She said he had an ‘expression of defiance’, but then she qualified this by stating it was only her impression. And then she wrote, ‘Oh, I forgot to say: he’s good-looking.’
    ‘Well, I can’t wait to meet her,’ Paul said. ‘I’ve always wanted a Jewish mother-in-law. I’m gonna write and ask for her chicken soup recipe.’

    I was practising my new signature when the phone rang. It was Richard Brautigan, wanting to catch up. He invited himself over, offering to cook a spaghetti dinner for us. He told us the last person he had made this meal for was his friend, Francis Ford Coppola, and we could get the recipe from the book he had given us.
    Indeed, on page 69 of our galley proof was a delightful story with the requisite list of ingredients. Entitled ‘Cooking Spaghetti Dinner in Japan’, it was about Richard in his friend’s kitchen with a bucket of live eels nearby.
    The story was masterful and I told Paul he should read it. ‘He says he’s prepared this meal dozens of times over twenty years, so it should be edible.’
    Paul set about writing the shopping list: ‘There’re no eels in the recipe, are there?’
    ‘No. But it says we need two bottles of red wine. You don’t think he’s gonna put them in the spaghetti?’ I joshed. Knowing Richard, anything was possible.
    Looking a little like a latter-day General Custer in his cowboy hat and boots, jeans and plaid shirt, the poet arrived bearing gifts: two bottles of whisky and a fluoro-orange hunting vest. This second item puzzled me—I could not fathom what possible use it would have in downtown Amsterdam. It was obviously designed to increase the wearer’s visibility, thereby avoiding shooting accidents. I figured it was connected with the subject matter of his latest book—possibly autobiographical—in which twelve-year-old Richard accidentally shot and killed his friend.
    Richard talked relentlessly, stopping only to refill his whisky glass. His anecdotes were witty and he was a raconteur par excellence. He said he’d have a quick drink before commencing cooking, but I soon realised that the meal wasn’t going to eventuate unless I cooked it. By late evening, my head was spinning from all the talk—ranging from the American Civil War to life in Japan—and it looked like Richard was intending to stay the night.
    ‘Where’s he gonna sleep?’ I asked Paul. ‘It’s less than a week since our wedding and I’m not giving up my bed so this drunkard can pass out. I don’t care how famous he is.’
    Paul promised me everything would be fine: he’d borrow a foam mattress and stick Richard in the bathroom.
    I protested that the door wouldn’t shut then. ‘What happens when I want to go to the loo? I’m not having him in our room,’ I said firmly.
    And so Richard slept in our tiny bathroom with his head under the toilet bowl and his feet in the shower recess with the mattress curled up so we could shut the door. It would have been an uncomfortable night except for the fact that he’d passed out.
    In bed, Paul was getting frisky, but I was edgy. ‘I just can’t get into sex with Richard a few feet away,’ I said. ‘It’s distracting.
    It’s one thing to have Chaimie scurrying around in his cage, but Richard . . .’
    Paul assured me that Richard was out cold and wouldn’t hear a thing. ‘Just don’t scream too loudly when you come,’ he chortled.
    And so we made love, but all the time I was thinking Richard might be awake listening.

    The next morning, Richard seemed remarkably rejuvenated. He had brought with him the treatment for a movie he was planning with his friend