Dorothy Parker Drank Here by Ellen Meister

Author:Ellen Meister
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-01-20T22:00:00+00:00

Baseball was one of the few things Ted Shriver could still lose himself in, and this was a good game. The Yankees were playing the Mets at Shea, and were up by one. It was the bottom of the fifth, the tying run was on second, and Pettitte was pitching.

Someone knocked on his door. He ignored it.

Lo Duca—a hard guy to strike out—was at bat. Pettitte threw a fastball and the scrappy Met was all over it. He swung and hit a high fly to deep right field and it sailed over the fence.

The knocking came again.

“Goddamn it,” Ted muttered, and kept his eyes on the screen as the runners rounded the bases and the Mets took the lead.

The person outside the door rapped about ten times in fast succession, and Ted couldn’t help feeling like the intruder had somehow ruined Pettitte’s pitch.

“Drop dead!” he called.

“Ted,” he heard a familiar female voice say. “It’s me.”

He muted the television and listened. It couldn’t be, could it?

“I need to talk to you,” she said.

It was her. He hadn’t heard that voice in decades, but there was no mistaking it. He ran a hand through his overgrown hair and straightened out his shirt. He wasn’t trying to look good, just less pitiful.

Ted opened the door, and there stood Audrey. She looked small and frail. Still pretty, but older, with a deep crease in her brow. And those eyes were the same—intense, worried, unforgiving. As sick as he was, her daintiness still made him feel bulky and potent.

“Oh my God,” she said, “you look—”

“Like shit. I know.” He stood straighter in the doorway.

“I didn’t mean that. They told me you were sick.”

“They were right.”

She eyed him up and down. “Your clothes,” she said. “It looks like you slept in that shirt.”

He glanced down. There were sharp creases everywhere. “I did.”

Audrey squinted, like she was trying to think of something to say. She smoothed her hair, and he understood that she felt self-conscious and unattractive. “I got old.”

“You look fine, Audrey.”

She glanced away for a second and then stared back at him, a hint of hurt and accusation in the tension around her eyes. He knew exactly what she was thinking, and it was the word fine that had done it. Ted had always held back, never giving her the compliments she craved. Why did he do that? Why couldn’t he tell her she looked pretty, or even good? But no, he had said she looked fine, a weak and noncommittal word, devoid of flattery.

And he knew she wasn’t just insulted, she was disgusted that he hadn’t changed. She shook her head slightly, and there was communication in that, too. She was letting it go.

Audrey adjusted the shoulder strap on her bag—a big red satchel—and he saw that there was a small puppy inside.

“What’s that?” he said.

She pulled out the tiny dog, which was about half the size of a meatball hero. “He’s a Cavalier King Charles spaniel,” she said, kissing it on the head.

“I thought you hated dogs.

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