Bird in Hand by Christina Baker Kline

Author:Christina Baker Kline
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Psychological fiction, Domestic fiction, Family Life, General, Psychological, Marriage, Fiction, Friendship
ISBN: 9780060798901
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-06-29T00:53:20.116996+00:00

Chapter Four

May 1998

When Alison opened the door at 32 Barton Road to find Charlie standing there, the first thing she noticed was his blond wavy hair. The second was that he looked unabashedly American, tan and robust, with a white T-shirt under his frayed oxford, sleeves rolled to the elbows. His shoulders were broad, though he was quite thin, and his face was a little soft, as if he hadn’t outgrown the last traces of baby fat. His eyebrows were blond caterpillars over light blue eyes.

At dinner that night she watched him. He and Ben were a study in contrasts: Ben lanky and angular and slightly awkward, with his glasses and dark hair and air of suppressed whimsy, Charlie as loose-limbed and sandy haired as a golden retriever. Right away she was suspicious: easy charm like his tended to come wrapped around a roguish core. This M.O. was prevalent in southerners of a certain type—affluent, entitled, fraternity bred—and it wasn’t a type she usually went for. But as they started talking she realized that there was something else, something in his character that she couldn’t pin down. He wasn’t cocky, and his humor was gentle. He had a mild confidence, a lack of self-consciousness, an ironic take on the world that wasn’t caustic or bitter. Despite his social ease, he had a solitary air.

At one point, when Ben was gesturing animatedly, Charlie leaned back in his chair, laughing, and caught Alison’s eye. She knew he’d seen her studying him.

“What?” he said, an expectant half smile on his face. It was an expression she would come to know well—seemingly guileless, more guarded than it appeared.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Tell me.”

He seemed familiar to her, like a fond memory or a recurring dream. “I feel like I’ve met you somewhere before.”

“Ever been to Kansas?” he asked jokingly.

“He’s like that, Alison,” Ben said. “Not just with you. He has this protean face, or something—I don’t know. It’s misleading. You think you know him and then you make assumptions about his likes and dislikes, and more times than not you’re wrong; you’ve misjudged him. It’s bloody annoying.”

“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” Charlie said.

Falling in love with Charlie was like traveling to a foreign country and feeling unexpectedly at home. It surprised Alison to discover that he didn’t wear deodorant; he showered every day and that was enough, he said, and it was. He had a clean midwestern smell, as sweet as hay. He didn’t like pills or lotions or creams; he washed his face once a day, in the shower, with shampoo. He toweled off quickly, like a dog shaking off after running through a sprinkler. Like a dog, too, he was refreshingly unneurotic—he ate what he liked until he was full, and then he stopped; he worked on a paper until he decided he was done, and then he put it aside. He didn’t second-guess everything. He once told Alison that he couldn’t remember being picked on as a kid. She imagined that

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