Read On a Night Like This for Free Online

He sat at her bare desk and picked up the telephone.
    A year ago, they had taken their last ski trip. To Squaw. With Dana and Brady. Emily had been miserable, said she had a project and a deadline and too much pressure from the client. They went home a day early.
I’ll be home tomorrow.
    He dialed the number. A man answered.
    “I’m calling from PacBell,” Luke said. “I’d like to tell you about some new services—”
    “It’s Sunday, buddy. Leave us alone.” And the man hung up the phone.
    Luke didn’t recognize the voice.
    Luke raced from the house and into his truck, tucking the ski lift ticket into the back pocket of his jeans.
    “You’re imagining things,” Dana said.
    Luke had caught her walking out her door and had followed her into her car and off to the farmers’ market. Now he seemed to be serving as some sort of grocery boy, carrying baskets full of produce that she bought at each stand along the way.
    “Just listen to me,” he insisted. “She wrote it down on her lift ticket. Gave it to you. It said: ‘Just tell him:
I’ll be home tomorrow.
’”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    Luke raced to keep up with her as she tossed a bag of tangerines in his basket, then moved on to a stand of Asian vegetables.
    “You do, Dana. You would know. She told you everything.”
    “There wasn’t anything to tell. Who knows what that stupid lift ticket means. It could mean anything.”
    “It means she was having an affair.”
    Dana stopped and turned toward Luke. They watched each other for a moment. She seemed about to say something—then she shook her head.
    “Would it be easier to imagine she left you for another man? That some other man lured her away from you? Is that better than thinking that you lost her all by yourself? Then yes, I called that number. I said, ‘She’ll be home tomorrow.’”
    Luke stood, in the middle of the marketplace, not speaking, not moving.
    Dana looked around, embarrassed, as if watching for spectators. “My God, you’re a fool.” She turned away from him, grabbing handfuls of purple eggplants and bok choy.
    Luke left her baskets on the ground, turned and walked away.
    By the time he made it back to his car in Pacific Heights, then across town to Potrero Hill, it was almost six in the evening. Sweetpea needed a walk. Then he needed food. He was about to prepare something to eat from the cans in the pantry when the phone rang. He should remember to disconnect the phone, he thought. He should remember to sell the damn house, he thought.
    “Luke?” the voice asked.
    “Speaking.”
    “Trish Keller. From Reese? The good old days?”
    “Trish Keller,” Luke said, climbing onto a bar stool at the kitchen counter. “How the hell are you?”
    “I’m OK. Old. Like all of us, I guess.”
    “You’re not old, Trish. You’re always seventeen.”
    “Yeah, then you better not come to the reunion meeting tonight.”
    “What meeting?”
    “I heard you were coming.”
    “How?”
    “Harrison Driver. I got your number from him. I tried the number he gave me at your mountain cabin first. Then I called here.”
    “Oh, Christ. Harrison Driver. I forgot about that.”
    “You’re not coming.” Her voice lowered with disappointment.
    “I don’t know. No. I’m not coming. I don’t even live here anymore. I’m leaving in five minutes.”
    “You could just come by and say hello before you head out of town.”
    “You live in San Francisco? Last I heard you were in Boston. Married. To a fucking banker or something.”
    “No, the banker fucked me,” Trish said, and laughed. “Divorced now. I don’t know where I live. I’m out visiting Ruth Vargas—she convinced me to go to this shindig.”
    “If I come, can we ignore everyone else and just talk for an hour or two?”
    “Oh, God. You haven’t changed.”
    “No, I’m not seducing you. I’m just curious. Twenty-five years is a long time.”
    “Then come,” she said, and she sounded shy. Trish