See You in Paradise Read Online Free PDF Page B

second bridge, not the left after the first … and then go 2.3 miles …” The map is absurdly, counterproductively detailed, so that if they miss a single landmark they’ll be eating roasted possum off the end of a stick in the woods tonight. Still, somehow, they manage to find the place. The Breeces’ driveway is a couple of ruts that snake through a half-reclaimed farm field and plunge into an untrimmed copse of box elders. And beyond the treeline: Taliesin. Or something like that. Massive, slabbed, lit like a pumpkin; you can see everything inside—the furniture and art and a gigantic fireplace—and right through the back windows onto the lake and the blazing sunset reflected there. Alison suppresses a wave of hatred for the rival real-estate agency that sold it: she could have bought a baby on the black market with that commission.
    They park in a gravel lot the size of a tennis court. Theirs is the only car. It is Linda who comes to the door, looking awfully tall without Harlan. She leads them inside.
    Harlan’s in front of the fire (as they’ve got the AC pumping pretty hard in here) with a drink in his hand. A mesquite smell fills the room. “Harlan, dear,” his wife calls out, and he theatrically snaps to attention and a grin spreads across his face, a wide face for such a thin guy. Edward notes a bear rug. Wow!
    “Welcome, welcome!” says Harlan. He sets down the drink on a coffee table made of petrified wood and throws his arms wide.
    “Howdy, pardner,” Edward says, and imagines he sees a flicker of irritation on the judge’s face. They shake hands. This time Harlan uses his free hand to seize Edward’s forearm, so Edward does the same. For a moment the two men are locked in a Boy Scout Death Grip. It is Harlan who lets go. Edward notices Linda and Alison attempting to greet one another. Al is a handshaker, and he just bets Linda is a kisser. The two stare nodding at one another from a distance of several feet.
    “What’s your poison, Ed?”
    “Does hizzoner drink tequila?” Edward says impulsively.
    “Hell yes.”

    Linda is talking about their failed foster-child experiment. Alison listens with alarm. It is a sermon, really, a testimonial, delivered with the strained alacrity of an introductory economics lecture. There is no room for question or comment.
    “He was the sweetest little boy, a little black boy,” she says. “His momma was hooked on the drugs, and he never had no daddy to speak of. His daddy wasn’t ever around—well, I suppose it could have been anyone. His momma went to prison because of picking up drugs at somebody’s house with the little boy in the back seat. And well, Harlan and I saw him and we thought, He’s the one. He had the sweetest kinky hair and his skin was so smooth and dark. Well.
    “We brought him back to the ranch and gave him all the advantages, don’t you know. He had a nanny of his own kind who was just as sweet as a biscuit, and we gave him riding lessons and Harlan took him out on the little golf course we used to have, just four holes. This was in the days before black boys played golf. And he went to a wonderful little school we found for him outside of Dallas, with children from all different races, they had the Mexicans and the Chinese and the Indians and all that. Well, we thought it would be just perfect. Except he had some trouble with reading, and they found out there was something wrong with his eyes, and also his ears, which explained why he didn’t seem to be listening to what we were saying to him sometimes. If you ask me, it was the drugs, the drugs his momma took when he was in her belly. And then poor Angeline, that’s the colored girl who was his nanny, she had to go back to Trinidad to take care of her momma, and the next one we got was a Mexican, name of Armada—”
    “Amara,” Harlan says, staring hard into his tequila. Alison can’t help but notice that Edward’s glass is empty and that his eyes are casting about for the