Read Far-Flung for Free Online Page A

these.”
    Sigourney studied a canvas that, thanks to Olivia de Havilland, was hung at her eye level. “I can do better than that,” she said.
    There was much tense laughter, followed by tense silence. Jack turned to Barbara. “How about dinner when this is over?” he asked.
    “What’s up?” asked Barbara.
    “Nothing,” said Jack. “I just thought it might be nice.”
    “With or without?” asked Barbara.
    “With or without what?”
    “Les enfants,” said Barbara.
    “Oh,” said Jack. “With.”
    “If I’d known, I’d have brought the dog,” Barbara said.
    Barbara suggested a restaurant called Cafe Wisteria in Tribeca. The twins devoured a plate of cornichons and radishes and disappeared beneath the table. For a while Jack and Barbara concentrated on their food, and listened to the murmurings at their feet. Barbara was the most relaxed person Jack had ever met. Nothing seemed to faze her, which drove him crazy. The rumor was that she was addicted to Valium, but Jack knew for a fact that she wasn’t. She just inhabited her life disinterestedly.
    “How is Roger?” Jack asked. Roger was Barbara’s new—well, not new anymore—second husband.
    “Roger’s fine. He’s in Madrid at the moment. We’re buying a house there.”
    “In Spain?”
    “Outside of Barcelona.”
    “Why?”
    “Why?” she repeated, as if she had never considered the question before. “I don’t know. No reason, really. We plan to spend half the year there.”
    “Oh,” Jack said. “You’ll take the twins?”
    “They’re a little too young to fend for themselves.”
    “Of course,” said Jack. “I just meant …”
    “What?”
    “I don’t know. What will they do in Spain?”
    “Learn Spanish, I hope. I don’t know. What do they do in New York? Play. Grow up. Don’t tell me you’re developing an interest in them?”
    Jack didn’t say anything. A small hand was rolling his sock up and down his ankle. “Actually,” he said, “I have been thinking about them. I was wondering if I could take them to visit my grandmother.”
    “How is she doing?”
    “Well. She’d like to see the twins.”
    Barbara raised the tablecloth and addressed the floor. “Honeys,” she said, “would you like to go visit your great-grandma? Jack wants to take you to Bedford.”
    “Where’s Bedford?” a twin asked.
    “Not far,” said Barbara. “In the country. You get there on a train.”
    “Are there cows?”
    “No, it’s not a farm.”
    “Is there a trampoline?”
    “No. Just a big house with your great-grandma, who wants to see you very much. And Jack will take you. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
    “Who’s Jack?”
    “You know Jack. Your father. Not Daddy, but your father.”
    Jack leaned his head down and looked under the table. “It’s me,” he said. “I’m Jack.” The twins looked up at him with identical, confused expressions on their small, perfect faces. “I’m Jack,” he said again, and reached his hand down toward them, tentatively, as if to wild dogs.
    At the hotel there was a message for him to call Langley Smith. Langley had originally been Jack’s student, when he taught painting and lectured on modern art for one ill-fated semester at Bryn Mawr immediately following his exodus from New York. He had met her again, several years later, at the opening of a show of his in Los Angeles. By then she had switched from painting to acting. Her biggest claim to fame was as a guest star on “L.A. Law,” playing a woman (unjustly) accused of child molestation.
    “Hi baby,” Langley said. “How did it go?”
    “Not bad,” Jack said. “Julian Arnotti bought the two big ones.”
    “Great,” she said.
    “How are you doing?” Jack asked.
    “Not bad. I was called back again for the part in that pilot.”
    “What pilot?”
    “The one for Lorimar. About the American family in Russia. You know, the dum-dum daddy’s an ambassador, the ditsy mother’s an alky, there are kids and a dog and a lot of funny