I'm Glad About You(74)

“Okay, but no bread.”

“I traveled a thousand miles just to see you, of course I’m allowed to have bread.”

“I’m not kidding, you can’t do it to me. If I eat one piece of bread I’ll blow up as big as a house. And I can’t have it here or I’ll eat it. Order lentils, or rice.” Why was he here? All of this too-friendly banter was starting to wear on her nerves. The cheerful indifference to facts. A plummeting guilt racked her for a moment but she ignored it. What’s done was done and for three years it had never come up. But then why was he here?

“I want bread,” he announced.

“Dennis, what did you come here for, to make me fat?” She made it sound light. This bit you had to keep light.

What did he come here for? Dennis had spent very little time considering that. But he was moving forward now, it was a good mode for him, people generally did whatever he wanted them to when he just pushed a little. His whole life, it had been that way. A little flattery, a little fun, a little alcohol. Voilà.

“Yes, hi, I want to place an order for delivery,” he informed the Indian voice on the telephone. “We’re going to want lots of bread, what’s that kind of bread that you deep-fry, it poofs up?”

“If you order bread, I’m telling you, I’m going to make you go out into the hall to eat it.”

So she wasn’t going to eat any bread. But otherwise you’d have to say things were going well enough. She had lost interest in the question of how much he was drinking virtually as soon as she raised it. That was the lovely thing about alcohol; everyone really did want to drink it. The man takes the drink, the drink takes the drink, then the drink takes the man. That was the mantra of some old lush he’d met at a meeting and he knew every syllable was true, and not just for raging alcoholics. Even so-called social drinkers got taken in the end. The whole human race was nothing but a bunch of drunks. And the ones who didn’t drink were nothing but dry drunks.

“Nice place,” he informed her.

“Oh, it’s awful. It’s not awful. It’s just a bit plain. I haven’t even painted. And there’s not enough stuff on the walls. It’s just, I never have people over and honestly I’m never here. I can’t believe you just showed up like this. The odds of me being home on any given night are not good, in general.” She swept through the small living room, clearing magazines off the coffee table.

“What are you reading?” She was so clearly embarrassed by the fact that there were so many celebrity rags lying around that he simply couldn’t let her off the hook without catching her on it, just a little.

“It’s just stuff my publicist sends over. You have to look at it and make sure they’re at least pretending to be accurate, otherwise the whole thing gets too weird too fast. You end up with three-headed babies, shit like that.”

“You’re in these? You have to let me see.”

“No. No—Dennis, come on! You’ll just make fun of me, stop!”

“I won’t make fun, it’s so impressive, you’re in trashy magazines, Alison, well done, you’ve made the big time.” And of course she had let him wrest at least a few off the top of the pile. He plopped onto the Naugahyde couch and started leafing through page after page of gorgeous girls in couture gowns, standing on a faux red carpet and smiling inanely at some photographer. “Oh, yes, very nice. Ooo, look at her.”

“I told you it was stupid, you’re the one who insisted on looking at it.”

“I’m looking for you!”

“So, seriously, Dennis. What are you here for?” Dennis glanced up at the sudden shift, but her smile was simple. Which was interesting, considering what a simple girl she wasn’t.

“Kyle asked me to come find you and bring you back to him.”

“Ho ho ho,” she said. “I saw him, and I met his family. He seemed really happy.”

“There you are! That’s a pretty dress.” He waved an open magazine at her; he had in fact found a photo of her on some receiving line. She was wearing a daring black gown with a plunging neckline and a gold cinched waist. “I can’t believe they let you out in public in this thing. You could start a riot.”

“That is generally the idea,” Alison admitted. She took the magazine out of his hands, grabbed the rest of the pile, and carried them all into the teeny bedroom just behind him.

“Aw, come on. I want to see the pictures. I think you look pretty!” Alison reentered and dropped into her chair. He grinned at her. “You know, Alison, I have to say, you really have turned into a looker.”

“Oh yippee.”

“I also have to say, you know very well that Kyle is not happy.”

“He has a gorgeous wife and a gorgeous house and two gorgeous kids and he’s a rich doctor, and my impression, from that dinner party, is that he is happy.” This was a colossal lie but so what, human beings lied all the time. “And I have a very hot movie director boyfriend, and I’m happy too,” she lied.

“Tell me about your big-shot boyfriend.”

“Well, he’s really talented. And handsome.”

“Do you love him?”

Alison momentarily regretted having dumped the subject of Kyle, thus opening the door to this line of inquiry. “Okay, you don’t love him,” Dennis said. “Moving on. What do you like about him?”