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

only meant to be friends but we were both very grateful for just that. It was more than enough.

“Vienna was only supposed to be a stopover for me. A few days here to look at the Klimt paintings, maybe see an opera, eat some Sachertorte… But then I met you and this thing started happening. Now I don’t know what to do about it.” For the first time in minutes he smiled, then patted his dog again. “I asked Luba what I should do, but she was no help.”

Inside, Leni shuddered but couldn’t tell if it was from joy or fear. She could think of nothing to say. She wanted to say something but nothing was in her head, nothing, other than the great hope that he would continue talking about his feelings.

“Do you know why I brought Luba today and not before? Two reasons—one was that I was afraid you weren’t going to like dogs. Isn’t that ridiculous? So what if you didn’t? But silly or not, it was important to me.

“The other reason was when I woke up today, when I was lying in bed I thought, I’m going to bring the dog today. And if the two of them get along, then I’m going to tell Leni about being divorced. Even if it shocks her, it’s time she knew.

“So it’s all your fault and Luba’s. If you two hadn’t liked each other, you would never have heard this stuff.”

Leni was tongue-tied. No, that wasn’t it. Her thoughts, her words, her desire to tell John how she felt were all as lame as her bad leg now. In a flare of understanding she realized that her helplessness with him was due at least in part to inexperience. That’s right—she simply wasn’t used to being honest about how she really felt. Even with her husband who did not know her well enough and worse, didn’t care.

With Flannery she had entered a foreign land where she knew perhaps ten words in the language and could barely decipher the street signs. The foreignness there was exhilarating and frightening in equal measure. Nothing between them had even happened yet, but still—

“Are you going to say anything?” His voice was soft and tentative, careful. Everything was up to Leni now. Both of them knew that. He had said his truth and it was time for hers. She knew that anything she said now would be accepted as the truth. She could tell a lie as big as the moon and he would believe it because that moment between them was so loaded.

A few days before, John had mentioned a quotation that he loved. On hearing it from him for the first time she did too—“Open your hands if you wish to be held.”

She had no words now but did have her hands and arms. She used them to answer his question. Because she suddenly knew what to do, her face relaxed for the first time since their conversation began. Lifting her hands off the table, she slowly began to draw them apart, as if showing him the size of a big fish she’d caught. But then they spread beyond the size of a fish and went out as far as they could go. She was opening her hands because she wished to be held.

Flannery immediately understood her gesture and grinning, nodded his head eagerly. Seeing that, seeing that he understood what she meant so quickly, Leni had no more resistance to this man. Whatever came now would come. If in the end he hurt her then she accepted that. Like him, she wanted to have brilliant, wondrous memories of her life too. And one thing she had never really experienced was—

A strange look grew on her face. Flannery saw it and was about to ask What’s wrong? but kept quiet instead. He could see that something was dawning on her, something crucial.

Leni brought her hand in and covered her mouth. First she’d thought, I’ve never really experienced a great love. But as that sentence, that realization crossed her mind, two different words jumped in front of them and took their place: Real trust replaced a great love. With a shudder she recognized she had never experienced real trust before. Seeing that was both enlightening and dreadful for her. More than any great love, Leni Salomon saw for the first time, she had never experienced real trust in her life.

If she trusted anyone, she sort of trusted them, whether it was her parents, her husband, or even her best friends Isabelle and Flora. She trusted her work only because it was so precise and relied entirely on her skills. But people, one single person? Had she ever felt 100 percent trust for even one single person? No. Hand still over her mouth, she looked at Flannery but didn’t really see him. Her eyes filled with tears and she began to cry.

It was a curious picture: a lovely young woman sitting there with her hand over her mouth, eyes more startled than sad, tears spilling down her face. The middle-aged man sitting near her sees this but does nothing. He does not reach over and touch or speak or in any way try to comfort her. Nor does he get up and walk away because they are fighting. A huge Great Dane sleeps on the ground by the man’s side, oblivious to all of this. If you were watching the couple from afar you’d have to wonder What the hell’s going on? What’s happened between them?

Because their tableau is so mysterious, you stare at them too long. Eventually the man’s eyes slide over to you. Embarrassed, you look away, but not before a moment passes, a flash instant where you two connect. His eyes, his face or demeanor or simply something beyond words, scares the shit out of you. The sensation is so strong that you clumsily stand up, toss too much money on the table for your glass of wine, and hurry off without