That Part Was True by Deborah Mckinlay Page B

handed it to him with a broad smile. “And what can I get the young lady?” she asked.
    â€œOh, I’ll have coffee, too,” Adrienne said.
    Jack was pleased. He watched as she lifted her cup and sipped.
    â€œWere you one of those bookish kids, who always wanted to write, Jack?” she asked, and then immediately a slight shadow crossed her features—concern that she’d strayed again into uncomfortable territory.
    Jack felt embarrassed knowing he’d made her feel that way. He had no time for pretension, and although there were certain rituals he’d observed to protect his working life, he wasn’t a writer who thought of himself as an artist. If anything, his pretension lay in trying to pretend the opposite. He’d tried, maybe too hard, to give the impression that he was an ordinary workingman. A tradesman, or a high school teacher, like his father had been.
    â€œI wanted to be a journalist, actually,” he said. “I thought I was gonna break some news story about big business or government that would change the world.”
    â€œAnd did you?”
    â€œI mostly covered sports. And petty crime. And dog shows.”
    â€œSo then you started writing fiction?”
    â€œAfter a fashion. The dog shows hadn’t quite knocked the high-mindedness out of me, so I quit the newspaper and sat and brooded, and chewed a Bic pen and churned out a pile of painful fake Joyce. And then, when that didn’t get me the attention of the international literary set, I started on some painful fake Hemingway.”
    She laughed.
    â€œMy poor wife had to pay the bills and put up with all my clichés and conceit into the bargain. Eventually she got wise and left me for a pediatrician, a real wholesome guy. They live in Connecticut. Happy as clams. Three kids and a gazebo. So at least I don’t have to feel too bad about that.”
    â€œMarnie was your second wife then?”
    Jack, lifting his coffee, paused.
    â€œDex told me about her,” Adrienne explained.
    â€œMarnie was my second wife—two strikes. Apparently I’m not good husband material.”
    â€œNo children?”
    â€œNo. It’s probably a good thing. I reckon I’d be pretty lousy father material as well, and that’s a tougher rap.”
    As soon as he said it, he regretted it. It was too serious a tone for a conversation over coffee with a young woman who was a virtual stranger. He braced himself for some cutesy reply, the kind a lot of women would come out with, “Oh, I don’t know…” A flirtatious sort of reply. But he didn’t get one.
    â€œYes,” she said seriously. “Yes, it is.”
    Â Â 
    Back at the house, he said good-bye to Adrienne outside. They stood, a little stiffly, beside her car for a moment. Then, just before she stepped out and around the hood to get in the driver’s side, she stretched up to kiss his cheek, lightly, simply. “See you, Jack.” She called over her shoulder. “I’m glad I came.”
    â€œMe, too,” he said.

Chapter Four
    Jack was still at the curb when Lisa drove past with her car roof down and turned into her own driveway with a reckless swerve. It was hard for Jack not to come to the conclusion that this, and the nonchalant way she got out of her car and then swung the door with a flourish, was not done with him in mind. It was. Anyway, filled suddenly with purpose, and a sense of decency after Adrienne’s visit, he crossed the road and her front lawn and called out to her.
    â€œLisa.”
    She turned immediately, her heels belying the casual expression that she had adopted.
    â€œJack?” She had a shopping bag in her hands from a boutique in town. Jack recognized the name of it—he had bought presents there a few times for Marnie, her face always brightening at the sight of the bag. Now Lisa lifted it in front of her, like a shield.
    â€œLisa, I wanted to apologize. I