Watching You Read Online Free PDF

position to lecture me, Owen.”
    “Maybe not, but I wonder what your mother would say.”
    “My mother is dead,” says Marnie, trying not to sound annoyed.
    A platform announcement is being made in the background.
    “I guess I’d better go,” says Owen. “It was nice meeting you, Marnella.”
    “You too, Owen, but since we’re on the subject of favors, I want you to keep crossing those bridges.”
    He chuckles. “You too.”

3
    J oe O’Loughlin takes his regular table at the café, ordering his usual breakfast from a waitress who famously never smiles. Every morning he tries to coax some semblance of good cheer from her, using his best lines and trying to engage her in conversation. Each time she curls her top lip and says, “Will that be all, sir?”
    He prefers an outside table, where he can read the morning papers and watch commuters walking purposefully toward the train station—women with wet hair and matching skirts and jackets, men in suits carrying briefcases or satchels. Where are they going, all these people, he wonders? To work in boxes, stacking boxes, ticking boxes.
    He missed London when he moved to the West Country and now he misses the West Country, most notably Julianne and his daughters, Charlie and Emma. Sometimes he tries to convince himself that he’s only living in London during the week and commuting back to Wellow on weekends, but that’s been happening less and less. Home is a hard place to define when you’re separated. His marriage lasted nearly twenty years; the separation has stretched to five. It doesn’t feel like a divorce, not yet, and sometimes it can still seem like they’re together, particularly on those mornings when he wakes and imagines that he can hear Julianne downstairs, making breakfast and answering Emma’s questions. Emma is only seven and she will be a lawyer or a scientist. A lawyer because she argues and a scientist because she explores every answer, demanding to see the evidence. His other daughter, Charlie, wakes early and leaves for school before Julianne gets up. She will have skipped breakfast, but put a cereal bowl in the sink to make her mother think otherwise.
    Joe’s coffee has arrived—a double espresso, muddy and strong. Breakfast comes soon afterwards: poached eggs on sourdough toast. He’s nothing if not a creature of habit. Unfurling the morning paper, he glances at the headlines of the day. So much of what passes as newsworthy makes him feel defeated because the stories never change, only the names and the places. Particular newspapers will favor the left or the right of the political spectrum, reflecting the wishes of their proprietors and pandering to prejudices of their readers rather than moderating them. Meanwhile the columnists will insult those who disagree with their opinions, conflating gossip with real news and amplifying their anger until they sound increasingly like angry wasps buzzing in a jar.
    Joe doesn’t have his first patient until eleven o’clock. Marnie Logan. This café is where they first met, which is a coincidence that should not be mistaken for irony. Marnie had been working as a waitress—one who knew how to smile—and she saw Joe drawing circles around “To Let” advertisements.
    “Are you looking for a house or a flat?” she asked.
    “A flat.”
    “How many bedrooms?”
    “Two.”
    “I know a place.” She jotted down the address. “It’s about half a mile from here, just off Elgin Avenue in Maida Vale. My landlords are looking for someone.”
    Two weeks later he moved into his flat. He went back to the café to thank Marnie, but she wasn’t there. He dropped by again and the café owner told him that she’d quit because her husband had gone missing.
    Joe left a note for Marnie thanking her and adding a message: If ever you need to talk to someone here is my phone number.
    He didn’t expect to hear from her again. He hoped that she didn’t need him. Now he sees her twice a week, talking through