GLASS SOUP by Jonathan Carroll (funny books to read .txt) 📕

Simon Haden had enthusiastically pursued Isabelle for years, trying every method he knew to get her into bed. Usually he was very good at seduction, a real pro. He used dying, he used love, he used sneaky in numerous, original ways. To his great dismay, none of them worked on her. When they were together, Isabelle was charming and funny and great company, but she always, always knew what Haden was trying to do. Smiling, she invariably stopped him miles from any bedroom door. All of this flashed through her mind now as she stared at Flora Vaughn and digested the fact that Simon was dead.

“What was he doing in Los Angeles?” Leni’s question broke the ice that had formed over the moment.

“Who cares? But you know what really annoys me? What really bugs me? Now that that villain is dead, I keep thinking sweet things about him. Like the time he brought me lilies, or the time we stayed in bed all morning and ate chocolates. It’s not right, damn it. Simon does not deserve sweet thoughts, whether he’s dead or alive. The man was a selfish pig who just happened to be handsome enough to be irresistible. But once you’d fallen for the temptation, he treated you like a piece of old gum on the bottom of his shoe.”

Leni closed her eyes and nodded in agreement. “I felt more like an empty stained pastry box after he left me. But I agree. Who said you can’t speak ill of the dead?”

Isabelle was only half listening to what her friends were saying. She was feeling sick again and was waiting to see if her stomach was going to hold down the meal she had just eaten or throw it back up. That was one of the only things about pregnancy that bothered her: she would suddenly feel horribly ill, or diarrhea would abruptly come hurtling down her guts like an avalanche. When these things happened she would have to drop everything and bolt for the nearest toilet. It was embarrassing and sometimes frightening to feel that you were not always in control of your own body and its most basic functions.

After a few seconds of waiting and listening to her body, Isabelle knew this was going to get worse so she stood up quickly. Both friends looked at her.

“I’m going to be sick.”

Instantly concerned, Flora half rose from her chair and pointed across the restaurant toward the toilets. The room was large and Isabelle had a long way to go.

“Do you want me to come with you?”

Isabelle shook her head and started away from the table. Walking fast, she put a hand over her mouth.

Flora slowly sat back down but kept watching her friend cross the room. “Do you think I should go anyway? Maybe she needs someone to hold her head.”

Leni moved her cane a few inches to the right. “Forget it. You know how embarrassing that stuff is. Who wants someone watching while you puke? I still can’t believe that Simon is dead.”

Two good-looking women at a chic restaurant, talking about a lover they’d once shared. Both of them had stories about Simon Haden that the other hadn’t heard. Now that he was dead, they could tell them.

Time passed while they spoke and laughed. Isabelle did not return to the table. Flora and Leni were both aware of this but it didn’t concern them at first. Isabelle was vain—it was not uncommon for her to take a while.

Eventually too much time passed and Leni mentioned it. Flora got up immediately and went to the ladies’ room. Pushing the door open, she fully expected to see Isabelle standing at one of the mirrors over the sinks, primping and looking at her reflection. She wasn’t.

“Isabelle?” She looked at the two toilet stalls. Both doors were closed. A toilet flushed with a hard whoosh and Flora was momentarily relieved. She was sure her friend was in there. But she wasn’t. Instead, a nondescript middle-aged woman opened the stall door and glared at her as if she were doing something fishy. Flora ignored this and went up to the other stall door. The suspicious woman went to the sink and washed her hands. She kept a careful eye on this tall redhead who was now knocking on the stall door with a flat palm.

“Isabelle?”

“Excuse me—what are you doing?”

Flora looked at this woman for three seconds, and then turned back to the stall door. “Isabelle, are you in there?”

“Don’t do that. What are you doing?”

Flora turned and looked witheringly at the woman. “Have you finished in here? Mind your own business and leave.”

In true Viennese fashion, the woman huffed and puffed but then fled.

When she was gone, Flora knocked hard again on the stall door. This time the force of it pushed the door open. No one was inside.

Flora turned around and walked back into the restaurant. She could just make out across the dimly lit room that Leni was sitting at their table talking to someone. A man… Vincent Ettrich.

As was the case whenever she saw Vincent, Flora froze for a beat. Before he met Isabelle, Vincent and Flora had had a wonderful short affair that left her dizzy with surprise, desire, and longing. It had not gone the way she planned. For two years after it ended (her doing), Flora could not stop wondering in her secret heart if this was the man she had been waiting for her whole life. When it was happening, both of them had treated their relationship as something delightful but insubstantial—a classic fling. For a few days here and there together now and then, two married people being naughty away from the world among crumpled bedsheets and hotel room service.

When the end came, Flora was initially glad, then sad, and in due course dumbstruck by how much their affair had meant to her. A month after she had ended it, she saw Vincent again in New York. But she