Read Online Shadow Traffic by Richard Burgin - Free Book Online Page B

carrying her honesty to an uncomfortable degree. I protested but she cut me off.
    â€œDon’t tell me you’ve enjoyed it,” she said. “That’s what you said last time, but it couldn’t possibly be true now because tonight I’ve had about as much personality as a slug, I’d say, you can’t deny it.”
    â€œI think we’re both a little nervous, that’s all.”
    â€œDo you? That’s a more hopeful way to look at it. Is it too awful that I’m so blunt? Wouldn’t it be better if I were a smidgen more diplomatic?”
    I shrugged reflexively.
    â€œDon’t bother to respond, I already know the answer.”
    At last my new drink came, which I made short work of. I noticed she was making progress on hers, too, and I felt a flicker of hope.
    â€œAre you wondering what you’re doing taking this crazy British bird to a restaurant and listening to her adolescent prattle all night?”
    I laughed, then said, “You’re way too hard on yourself.”
    â€œAm I?”
    â€œYou’ve been through a lot lately. So have I.”
    â€œYou mean with your father?”
    I nodded.
    She asked me to talk about him and for a while I did. The same few friends, especially Phil, who’d told me not to go to London so soon after my father died, also advised me to talk to a therapist about him, but I didn’t listen to that advice either, so this was the first time I’d really talked about him to anyone. When I stopped, Paulette’s face was flushed with emotion. It’s strange how something that would have embarrassed me was so appealing when it happened to her. Our eyes locked, and she slid her arm across the table and held my free hand. I don’t know if my face flushed too, but other, unseen parts of me definitely did.
    I don’t remember what we said during the rest of our dinner, only that she continued to hold my hand for several minutes. On the street after dinner, we stopped touching and talking as well. My inhibition frustrated me. What was the point of drinking if it ultimately kept me shy and silent? I realized vaguely, while I was walking her home, that I was behaving a bit like my father or how I imagined he’d behave. It was almost as if he were living through me, like a kind of ghost.
    When we reached her block, she turned to me and said, “Are you feeling sad now?”
    I shrugged. “I’ll miss you again, a lot.”
    â€œWould you like to come up to my flat and talk a bit more? I don’t have much to offer you. Just tea and some chocolates,” she said, as if my decision would be based on the quality of the food she had. I said yes, I’d like that and followed her up the stairs, feeling my true self already returning.
    Her place was small and had a somewhat disheveled look that reminded me of my own apartment in St. Louis. It had the look of a place whose occupant stopped caring about it several days before, which fit her story.
    â€œOf course I’m horribly embarrassed by my flat.”
    â€œShouldn’t be. It’s much neater than mine.”
    â€œDo you mean your place in London or St. Louis?”
    â€œBoth,” I said, lying fairly convincingly, I thought. “Every place I live in starts to look like every other place I’ve been in after a week or so.”
    â€œWell, you’re a man, and that’s to be expected, but I have no excuse.”
    I let that remark pass as I followed her into her kitchen, not wanting to risk her focusing on her recent romantic tragedy again. She opened her tiny refrigerator to remove some candy, and I thought I saw the top of a bottle of beer.
    â€œShall I fix you some tea?”
    â€œWas that beer I spotted in your fridge?” I said.
    â€œOh, is that what you want, then?”
    â€œIf it’s all right.”
    â€œYou have a way of asking for things that makes it hard to refuse,” she said, removing the