See You in Paradise Read Online Free PDF Page A

here, of all places, to the Finger Lakes.
    All of this was spoken in code, of course, with occasional frank asides to Edward and Alison, whenever a nugget of information seemed like it might break their spirit. Judge. Money. Experience with foster children.
    The teenager is getting on the bus now, the one Edward had been talking to. Alison says, “You could have been more helpful. Why were you talking to that young man?”
    Edward’s gaze follows the teen until he disappears. “Nate. I don’t know. Nobody else was going to talk to him.”
    Though she knows it annoys him, she can’t help sighing. Edward roots for the underdog. He buys cheap shirts from sale racks and votes for local crackpots every November. It’s one of the things that, when she loves him, she really loves, and when she is angry at him, she finds intolerable. He is intolerable now, but already her intolerance is on the wane. She can’t seem to get worked up about anything these days. It’s a feature of their marriage: as sexual passion has faded, so has pride, so has resentment. Sometimes she feels she may vanish completely into an undifferentiated fog of vague love.
    She isn’t a crier—she prides herself on this—but she begins to cry. Edward pats her leg. The air is cooling down. In fact, it is suddenly ice cold. A chill runs through her. The tears shut off. Edward shuts off the AC.
    “I’m thinking of a word,” he says.
    “Oh, God, not right now.”
    “No, let’s do it. You know you wanna.”
    “I don’t!” But she can’t resist the game. They’ve played it on every road trip they’ve ever taken. They’ve played it naked. They’ve played it in elevators and on the Great Wall of China. She wipes her face, hangs her head, whispers, “Fallopian.”
    “After.”
    “Infertility.”
    He snorts. “Before!”
    “Uh, gum?”
    “Close, in a way. After.”
    “Itchy,” she says, scratching her legs.
    “Itchy comes after infertility.”
    “Edward, I just don’t feel like doing this right now.”
    “It’s between infertility and gum,” he says quietly. “Something delicious.”
    “Hot dogs. Hominy?”
    “Perfect for a day like this. A sweet, refreshing treat.”
    She turns to him. He is holding an invisible ice-cream cone and licking it lasciviously, his eyebrows rising and falling, his eyes rolling back in his head with simulated pleasure. He has not yet noticed the approach of Harlan Breece, who is walking bent over with his hands on his khakied knees, squinting in Edward’s window.
    Edward sees the shadow of the massive hat falling across the dash before he hears the tap on the window, not a tap actually but a small thud, as Breece is using his fingertip, not his fingernail. In fact, Edward notes as he rolls the window down, Breece has barely got any fingernails at all. They are as irregular and receding as his hairline. He counts this as a victory and is able to meet the Texan with a broad and truly genuine smile. A ten-gallon smile, he thinks, that’s how we do it in Upstate New York! He realizes he is still holding the invisible ice-cream cone and releases it. Invisible ice cream splatters his thighs.
    “Harlan, hello!”
    “Hi there, Alison dear,” Breece drawls, glancing past Edward, “and I’m ashamed to admit I’ve forgotten your name.” Breece grimaces calmly at him.
    “Edward. ‘Big Ed,’ if you like.”
    “You’ll accept my apologies then, Ed, and hear me out. I’m pleased to tell you that Linda finds you both mighty charming, and she’s asked me to extend an invitation to dinner up at our little lakeside cottage. We still got a little water left in the lake, in spite of this heat of yours.”
    We got a little water! Heat of yours ? Edward loves it, an honest-to-God member of the privileged class, whose wife finds him and his wife mighty charming. Without turning to Alison, Edward says, “Well, we’re real sorry about our heat, but we’d love to come take a gander at your