The Liar's Wife Read Online Free Page B

the easy bond she had enjoyed. And so she said, “Right, Suzanne. All good.”
    She felt she’d been standing silently, looking at Johnny for much too long. Finally she thought of something it would be all right to say. If she had been a religious woman, she would have offered up a prayer of thanks. But she was not a religious woman, so she put it down to luck.
    â€œWhat brings you to this part of the world?” she said, in a tone that she believed was light but not dismissive.
    â€œWell that’s a story in itself, Jossie, and like all my stories, as I’m sure you’ve not forgotten, not a short one.”
    She turned on the living room light. She would have to offer them something to drink.
    â€œA beer would just hit the spot,” he said, settling back into the couch.
    She put her hand to her throat, feeling his request as an accusation.
    â€œI’m afraid I don’t have beer,” she said. “We’re not beer drinkers, my husband and I. Wine, though, we’ve got lots of wine. Or scotch, vodka, or bourbon, any of those. Only we just don’t have beer. My husband has to worry about his weight. Or not really, he’s not heavy, but, you know how men of a certain age put weight on in the gut, and that’s a danger, increases the risk of heart disease.”
    She felt her words had a slightly hysterical edge, and she sat in what had been her mother’s chair to calm herself.
    â€œWhat are you having, then? Let’s just be easy. But I’d say you don’t have to worry about weight, you’re as slim as a girl.”
    She knew that wasn’t true. She’d put weight on in the thighs, in the midriff, in the upper arms, but she could dress to conceal it. She wondered what he thought of her, in one of her fifty identical Eileen Fisher outfits, neutral colors, linen or cotton, loose pants, flowing tops. There was nothing loose or flowing about Linnet and Johnny in their jeans and T-shirts. She admired them for it; she was sick of those ads for Viagra showing older couples in matching white outfits, heading, hand in hand, for twin bathtubs with a beautiful view of the sea.
    â€œNeither of us seems to gain an ounce,” Linnet said. “It’s all that good living, I guess.”
    â€œWe’re very happy to drink whatever you’re drinking, Jossie,” Johnny said. “Whatever’s easy.”
    What in the world would make you feel this could be easy? she wanted to say, but mentioned, instead, Pinot Grigio.
    â€œIs that a dry wine?” asked Linnet. “I like a dry white wine.”
    â€œYes, yes, quite dry,” Jocelyn said, in the same slightly hysterical tone. “It’s one of the driest, really.”
    â€œBecause I just can’t stand sweet white wine. It just makes me feel terrible.”
    â€œNo, no, it’s not the least bit sweet. It’s very dry. I’ll just get you some.”
    She had to keep herself from running into the kitchen.
    She wanted to phone Richard and demand that he come down from Nantucket, instantly, to rescue her. But of course that wasn’t possible. This will be over soon, she told herself. She thought of her mother’s words, when she was trying to instill courage in her timid daughter. “Think of it as an adventure,” her mother had said. Well, she had thought of her marriage to Johnny as an adventure, and it hadn’t turned out well.
    â€œI didn’t know you were back in America,” she said, placing the glasses of wine on the coffee table.
    â€œOh, Joss, the truth is, I wasn’t long following you back here. I’ve been back and forth home and here over the years, but mostly here. Harder to make a living there, even now.
    â€œSláinte,”
he said, raising his glass. The Irish toast she hadn’t heard since she’d left Dublin, fifty years before. She hadn’t thought aboutDublin; she had not thought about it at all. She would