Читать онлайн «Hold tight»

Harlan Coben

Hold Tight

Acknowledgments

The idea for this one came to me when I was having dinner with my friends Beth and Dennis McConnell. Thanks for sharing and debating. See what it led to?

I would also like to thank the following for contributing in one way or another: Ben Sevier, Brian Tart, Lisa Johnson, Lisa Erbach Vance, Aaron Priest, Jon Wood, Eliane Benisti, Françoise Triffaux, Christo- pher J. Christie, David Gold, Anne Armstrong-Coben, and Charlotte Coben.

1

MARIANNE nursed her third shot of Cuervo, marveling at her endless capacity to destroy any good in her pathetic life, when the man next to her shouted, “Listen up, sweetcakes: Creationism and evolution are totally compatible. ”

His spittle landed on Marianne’s neck. She made a face and shot the man a quick glance. He had a big bushy mustache straight out of a seventies porn flick. He sat on her right. The overbleached blonde with brittle hair of straw he was trying to impress with this stimulating banter was on her left. Marianne was the unlucky luncheon meat in their bad-pickup sandwich.

She tried to ignore them. She peered into her glass as if it were a diamond she was sizing up for an engagement ring. Marianne hoped that it would make the mustache man and straw-haired woman disappear. It didn’t.

“You’re crazy,” Straw Hair said.

“Hear me out. ”

“Okay, I’ll listen. But I think you’re crazy. ”

Marianne said, “Would you like to switch stools, so you can be next to one another?”

Mustache put a hand on her arm. “Just hold on, little lady, I want you to hear this too. ”

Marianne was going to protest, but it might be easier not to.

“Okay,” Mustache said, “you know about Adam and Eve, right?”

“Sure,” Straw Hair said.

“You buy that story?”

“The one where he was the first man and she was the first woman?”

“Right. ”

“Hell, no. You do?”

“Yes, of course. ” He petted his mustache as if it were a small rodent that needed calming. “The Bible tells us that’s what happened. First came Adam, then Eve was formed out of his rib. ”

Marianne drank. She drank for many reasons. Most of the time it was to party. She had been in too many places like this, looking to hook up and hoping it would come to more. Tonight, though, the idea of leaving with a man held no interest. She was drinking to numb and damn it if it wasn’t working. The mindless chatter, once she let go, was distracting. Lessened the pain.

She had messed up.

As usual.

Her entire life had been a sprint away from anything righteous and decent, looking for the next unobtainable fix, a perpetual state of boredom punctuated by pathetic highs. She’d destroyed something good and now that she’d tried to get it back, well, Marianne had screwed that up too.