Read Online Tell Me No Secrets by Joy Fielding - Free Book Online

rapidly, once, twice, three times, before the feeling finally disappeared. “Take deep breaths,” Don used to tell her, so she did, filling her lungs with air, trying to keep from doubling over with the pain.
    Nobody noticed her suffering. Pedestrians continued to file past, one even asked her the time. Not so different from California Avenue after all, she thought as a bus pulled to a halt in front of her and opened its doors, several people disembarking, pushing past her as if she weren’t there.The driver waited several seconds for her to step in, shrugged his shoulders when she didn’t, closed the doors, and drove on. Jess felt the warm gust of dirty air from the bus’s exhaust against her face as the bus departed. It filled her eyes and nostrils. She found it oddly soothing.
    Soon, her breathing started to normalize. She felt the color returning to her cheeks, the paralysis beginning to lift. “You’re okay now,” she told herself, pushing one leg in front of the other, stepping gingerly off the curb, as if stepping into a too hot bath. “You’re okay now. It’s over.”
    The car came out of nowhere.
    It happened so fast, was so unexpected, that, even as it was happening, Jess had the strange feeling it was happening to someone else. She was somewhere outside her body, watching the events alongside the half dozen spectators who quickly gathered at the scene. Jess felt a rush of air beside her, saw her body spinning like a top, took fleeting note of the white Chrysler as it disappeared around the corner. Only then did she return to the body kneeling on the side of the road. Only then did she feel the stinging at her knees and palms. Only then did she hear the voices.
    “Are you all right?”
    “My God, I thought you were a goner for sure.”
    “He came this close! Missed you by not more than two inches!”
    “I’m fine,” someone said, and Jess recognized the voice as her own. “I guess I wasn’t paying attention.” She wondered momentarily why she was accepting responsibility for something that was clearly not her fault. She’d almost been run down by a maniac in a white Chrysler who’d sped by and hadn’t even bothered to stop; she’d bruised her handsand scraped her legs when she hit the pavement; her tweed jacket was streaked with grime; her panty hose were shredded at the knees. And she was feeling guilty about causing a scene. “I must have been daydreaming,” she apologized, rising shakily to her feet. “But it’s okay now. I’ll be fine.”
    “I’ll be fine,” she repeated, limping toward the opposite corner and hailing a passing taxi, crawling inside. “I’ll be fine.”

FOUR
    J ess pulled her red Mustang into the driveway of her sister’s large, white, woodframe house on Sheraton Road in Evanston at precisely three minutes before six o’clock. “You’ll be fine,” she told herself, turning off the ignition and gathering up the shopping bag containing wine and gifts from the seat beside her. “Stay calm, stay cool, don’t let Barry draw you into any silly arguments,” she continued, sliding out of the car and walking up the front walk to the large glass-paneled door. “Everything will be fine.”
    The door opened just as her hand reached for the bell.
    “Jess,” Barry said, his voice blowing down the tree-lined street like a gust of wind. Leaves swirled at her feet. “Right on time, as always.”
    “How are you, Barry?” Jess stepped into the large cream-colored marble foyer.
    “Never better,” came the instant reply. Barry always said “never better.” “How about you?”
    “I’m fine.” She took a deep breath, thrust the bottle of wine in his direction. “It’s from Chile. The man in the liquor store said it came highly recommended.”
    Barry examined the label closely, clearly skeptical. “Well, thank you, although I hope you won’t mind if we save it for another time. I already have some expensive French on ice. Here, let me help you off with your