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

just about anything outside his sphere of experience. The other was not, not, not, and definitely not.

Leni’s husband also disliked dogs. One day John Flannery showed up at one of their meetings with Luba, his Great Dane that looked like a black and white Jackson Pollock painting in motion. Seeing the giant animal for the first time, Leni clapped her hands with joy. The dog was as calm as a pond. It looked at you with interest and if you were very lucky, rested its massive head on your lap and closed its eyes. The first time it did this to her, Leni laughed and said it felt like there was a watermelon on her lap.

“I always say I’m walking a jumbo jet.”

“Yes, yes, that too! And you travel with her, this big thing?”

Flannery smiled and stroked Luba’s back. “Sure, why not? They don’t mind her on trains. As long as she’s well behaved and I buy her a ticket.”

“You’ve taken her around the world with you?”

“No, only Europe. I got her in Greece when I was there. She’s been with me since then. Haven’t I told you her story yet?”

Leni shook her head and almost purred with pleasure. She’d always assumed Flannery was Irish, with a name like that, and because he told stories like an Irishman did—riveting, funny, self-deprecating. She couldn’t wait to hear him continue.

“Remember I told you that I went to Greece to help a friend build a house there? Her name was Helen Varcoe. We met in Rome in this cooking class we both took and became friends. What she didn’t tell me till much later was that she was dying.

“There were only two things she wanted to do before she died—learn how to cook a few great dishes from a master chef, and start building this house she’d been designing for years on a piece of land she owned in Sifnos.

“Luba was her dog.” As he often did, Flannery suddenly broke off speaking and looked away into the distance. Over time Leni had learned not to say anything when that happened. She assumed a memory was washing over him, or something needed framing in his mind before he continued. She’d never asked what these abrupt pauses meant and eventually she even grew to like them, seeing them as only another facet of John’s interesting and often unpredictable personality.

The truth was the only reason why Flannery made those pauses was for dramatic effect. He’d done it once the first day they were together and seen how she hung on the edge of her seat waiting for him to go on. So he added it to his repertoire.

“Where is this thing going?”

Taken off guard, she honestly didn’t know what he was talking about. She said nothing for a moment—only blinked a few times and tried to guess his context. “Where is what going, John?”

He pointed to her and then to himself, to her, to himself. He looked straight at her but his eyes said nothing. “This. You and me, Leni. Where is this thing between us going?”

Through years of experience and honed method, she had her lie, fib, excuse, backup, detour, already ready on her tongue before she’d even finished digesting his question. Leni Salomon was so good at lying and avoiding, so adept. Secretive people usually are. She already knew to start her maneuvering with a verbal stall: she would ask What do you mean by that, John? I don’t know what you’re talking about. What thing between us? Next, she’d follow whatever he said with—

No.

Her heart stood up and said a loud no—not this time, not with this good man. No lies, no ingenuousness. A shouting match inside Leni exploded: Her heart yelled Tell him the truth! While the scared rest of her yelled back Are you crazy?

She was almost in love with Flannery. She already adored him. That was the truth. No doubt about it—a few more meetings and chats with him and she’d be in for both her penny and her pound. Was she supposed to tell him that? Yes, exactly that.

Looking at her now, he was as still as an owl. Once in a while his eyes blinked but not as often as she would have wished. He really did look like an owl sitting there, waiting for her to tell a truth that would cause trouble all over the place. Her bad leg began to ache which almost made her smile. Because that leg always seemed to start hurting whenever she got in trouble. She didn’t know why, but it happened regularly; as if even her leg were saying Don’t try to deny it, you’re in a fix.

“What do you think, John?”

He answered immediately. “I was married once. I haven’t told you about it, but I was. I was afraid to tell you because some women don’t like to hear that. They think of it as some kind of black mark on your record if you’re divorced. But it was a very good marriage and thinking back, I wouldn’t change one thing about it even if I could.”

Leni didn’t know where he was going with this but chose not to interrupt. She’d always just assumed John had been married—maybe more than once.

“It ended after twelve years because we simply went in different directions—those things happen. Since then I’ve not been very… social in that way. That’s why it was so easy for me to just pick up and leave America. I had no real ties, no obligations to anyone.

“But when I was in Greece with Helen working on her house, it was sort of like being married again and I liked it very much. That kind of close connection and communication you have with someone you really care for is a wonderful thing. It made me realize how much I had been missing, those years I was alone.”

Leni couldn’t resist asking, “Were you together with Helen?”

He slowly shook his head. “No. Neither of us wanted that. We knew we were