That Part Was True by Deborah Mckinlay

the fast, heavy, pecking style of a well-built, forty-nine-year-old, successful male author. Not in his usual style. More like a child picking up a crab. As if danger lurked there. He’d tapped out a few words, and stopped. Then he’d sat motionless for a moment fighting the blank. Then he’d shaken his fingers out intently and decided it was just late, he was tired, and then he’d reread Eve’s letter about the plums. It was his favorite so far, longer.
    It was strange how these missives from Eve, so recently added, were fast becoming part of the fabric of his life. When he read them, he felt like himself. Like his best self. He detected on her ivory-headed notepaper the fine, fresh scent of herbs.
    He wanted to solidify the friendship. Deepen it. So at 1:00 a.m., he wrote:
    I am better at cooking than I am at most anything else. At writing I can cross the finish line well enough, but not in any particular style. And with people I have a tendency to trip at the first hurdle. When I say people, I mean women. I am only just becoming aware of how consistently I fail them. Maybe, with the realization, I will redress some of my debt to your sex.
    He signed off, took the letter and his empty glass down to the kitchen, and went to bed.
    Â Â 
    â€œWell, the good news is your heart is fine.” The doctor beamed at Eve when she said this. She had skin the color of caramel and a fine gold chain at her neck. She shimmered against the municipal blue and dun veneer of the hospital room.
    â€œYes, thank you,” Eve said, doing her best to respond to the smile. What she thought was, At least if it were my heart, something could be done about it.
    â€œBut you should see your own GP soon. Your own GP may want to run some more tests, to be able to discover what is the cause of your symptoms.”
    What is the cause? Eve thought, mentally repeating the slight misphrasing. What is the cause?
    â€œYes,” she said.
    â€œWe have only done an EKG here today,” the doctor went on. “So all we know is that there is no immediate danger of a heart attack. But you do not have any other symptoms of heart problems at this stage. The lungs are clear, too. Are you in any discomfort now?”
    Eve wanted to shout, Yes! Yes, I am in extreme discomfort. “No,” she said.
    The doctor looked at her, sympathetic. “Anxiety can sometimes produce these sorts of symptoms. That is something your own doctor might be able to help you with. There is a great deal that can be done,” she said.
    â€œYes. Yes. Thank you.” Eve stood to leave, lifting her bag, suddenly terribly heavy, and bracing herself to face Izzy and Ollie, who were waiting outside. And the doctor, taking the signal from her, stood and walked with her to the door.
    â€œI’m fine. I just haven’t been sleeping,” Eve said in the corridor, where Ollie and Izzy stood now in front of their hard plastic chairs. Ollie’s had scraped and marked the floor when he got up. “And I was perhaps a bit dehydrated.”
    â€œThank heavens,” Izzy said. Then, “We’ll hit terrible traffic on the way back now.”
    Â Â 
    Jack wished he hadn’t said that stuff to Eve; it sounded pretentious in the daylight. But it was too late. Rick had seen the letter lying addressed on the table in the kitchen and mailed it. Rick was a demon for washing things and mailing things.
    Damn, Jack thought, once he realized there was no going back; he could foul things up with a woman without even meeting her. He felt irrationally depressed about the possibility of getting things wrong with Eve. There was something about her that made him want to please her. He hadn’t felt like that for a long time—for the past fifteen years women had been trying to please him. Not many had managed it.
    He decided to go to Hatty’s to cheer himself up, and he was ready to leave when he heard footsteps on the front porch. He