Under the Influence Read Online Free PDF Page A

fabulous life,” she said. “And not because of this house, or the Tahoe place, or the boat, or any of the rest of it.” She waved her long, slim arm in the direction of the gardens, the guesthouse, the pool. “None of that matters, really.
    â€œFunny how it works,” she said. “I never would have known what two people could experience together. The level of connection.” She devoted herself to Swift now—to loving and being loved by him. And then there were the dogs.
    Was there a dog in my life? she asked me. (Ava never used the phrase “have a dog.” A relationship with a dog was a mutual one, with no ownership. Most human beings were unlikely to ever experience—even with a lover, a parent, or a child—the kind of unconditional acceptance and devotion a dog will offer to the human in his or her life. Though what she had found with Swift came close.)
    There was only one problem with loving a dog, of course, and giving your heart to a dog rather than to a child.
    Dogs died.
    Just speaking these words out loud appeared difficult for Ava.
    Promise you won’t die, my son had begged me once. Well, no, I couldn’t do that. I might like making up stories, but I wasn’t a liar.
    Out on her patio that day, her wheelchair angled toward the sun the way she liked it, Ava had not seemed to mind doing all the talking.
    â€œTake Sammy,” she said. He was eleven years old, the oldest of their three. Because of the care Ava gave to his diet—and the emotional health that came from being so well loved (a factor that should never be overlooked)—he would live many more years. Ava hesitated for a moment. Well, several, anyway.
    But most people didn’t have to live with the knowledge that they’d outlive their children. Whereas with a dog—she couldn’t finish that sentence.
    â€œWe’ve had to deal with it in the past, of course,” she said. This was when she led me into the dining room to show me the portrait Swift had commissioned for her of the two dogs—a boxer and a mutt—who’d preceded the current group. The painting filled most of one wall of the room, facing the long walnut table.
    â€œAlice and Atticus,” she said. “Two of the best dogs ever.”
    I stood there studying the painting and nodded.
    â€œCome over again soon, will you?” she said to me. “I’d like to see some of your photographs. And maybe you can take some portraits of the dogs. You can have dinner with Swift and me.”
    I loved it that she was interested in my photography. But more than that, what made me happy was simply knowing Ava wanted to see me again. I put away the question as to why a person as extraordinary as Ava would want to be my friend. She said there was something she saw in me—something she’d seen in the face of that Parisian prostitute she’d pointed out to me. Maybe it was simply that I needed rescue, and Ava had a habit of taking in strays.

7.
    W hen I was very young, and the other kids in my class would ask where my father was, I made up a story. He was a spy, I told them. The president had sent him on an assignment to South America. Then he was one of a small team of scientists selected to spend the next five years in a climate-controlled pod in the desert, doing experiments for the good of humankind.
    Another time—different year, different school—I said my father had drowned in a tragic accident, rescuing American prisoners of war who’d been stranded on an island in the Pacific after the Vietnam War. He’d loaded them on a raft that he pulled single-handedly, holding a rope between his teeth and swimming through shark-infested waters off Borneo.
    Later, in college, I was simply an orphan, left without family after a plane wreck of which I’d been the sole survivor.
    The reason that I made up stories about my family was simple. Even when they involved great tragedy, the