That Part Was True by Deborah Mckinlay Page A

froze, about to duck out the back, expecting Lisa, and then, shamed, decided to be a man about the thing and speak to her. He blew out hard and went to the door.
    â€œSorry, are you writing? You’re writing, aren’t you?”
    â€œNo,” Jack replied, taken aback.
    â€œI came to apologize,” Adrienne said.
    â€œApologize?”
    â€œYes. I felt so bad about my visit. Quizzing you about your writing. I know better, actually. I know you should never ask an artist about their work. It was intrusive.”
    Jack was too surprised by this development to respond. He waited a moment, while his focus firmed.
    â€œSo,” she said evenly, “I just wanted to say that I was sorry.”
    Jack looked away briefly, toward a cast iron umbrella stand next to the door. It housed a small collection of quirky walking sticks and a Japanese paper parasol. He had never liked it.
    â€œI seem to recall,” he said, looking up again, “that I was the jackass.”
    She didn’t reply to this, just held his eye, smiling lightly. She was even more attractive than he’d remembered.
    â€œAre you out here with friends?” he asked, glancing past her, expecting to see a couple of young women, waiting, in that way young women wait, with their hips askew and their hair caught up in their dark glasses. There were none.
    â€œNo, I drove out to see you.” She turned slightly and nodded toward a black Jeep parked at the curb.
    Jack didn’t know what to say next, so he suggested that she walk into town with him for coffee, and she agreed.
    Walking, they talked about Dex, their common interest.
    â€œI’m glad for him,” Adrienne said. “He’s so talented.” The callback had gone the way that Dex had hoped.
    â€œHe had a brush with this sort of success about ten years ago, but it faded for some reason,” Jack told her, thinking about Dex in those days. He’d always been the same with him, with Jack. But around other people when those early, bigger parts had started to come, and with them the attention, he’d had a live edge. An energy that was palpable. Speaking to him this week on the phone, hearing his news and the sound of a bar, or a party, in the background, Jack had detected that energy again. He envied it.
    â€œHe never stopped working,” he said. “He just kept at it.” He was only just beginning to realize how true this was.
    There was silence for a minute, the ground covered. They walked on, the sidewalk warm under their feet, and the sun on their heads, past half a dozen sprawling shingle houses and two red brick historic buildings on which flags fluttered, and a park. And along farther, under the awnings of the dainty colonial downtown stores, full of wooden boats, striped sweaters, and elaborate swimsuits.
    â€œI love the sea,” Adrienne offered eventually.
    â€œSo do I. But I liked this bit of it more when it was less gussied up.”
    She laughed and Jack felt his ego kick in. The need to keep a woman’s attention—a beautiful woman’s attention. Old habits.
    â€œEverything’s kinda perfect out here these days,” he said. “It’s starting to feel unnatural.”
    The pair of them paused as an extremely tanned, spry elderly woman blocked their way. She was bending forward, a plastic bag protecting her hands and her rings. Near her a bichon frise waited, panting. Its tongue was the color of strawberry candy—the color of its owner’s lipstick.
    â€œNo trash in the streets,” Adrienne said when they’d passed.
    â€œNo, they keep it all indoors.”
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    Hatty made coffee the way Jack liked it, without anything in it that Jack couldn’t identify. He liked to be able to order a coffee and know that it would come in a thick china cup and smell like coffee and look like coffee. When she saw him, she poured some from the Cona pot she kept in the kitchen for herself and