Treasure Island!!!

what would I do? “He was a boy, and like you, very interested in pirates.” I had never said I was interested in pirates! Pirates were beside the point! Mere accessories!
    The lights snapped on again.
    “All right, I’m going to bed,” said Lars.
    “You just got the lights back on.”
    “I have to work tomorrow.”
    That night I tossed and turned so much that Lars sat up and asked what was the matter with me, but before I could refine the point he said I had to talk to someone who had read the thing. That’s what he called the book: “the thing,” as if it were not a masterpiece but a B-grade monster crawling out of a swamp. Then he took the best wool blanket and slept on the couch.
     

CHAPTER 11
     
    L isten,” Rena said in the coffee shop. “There’s something I wanted to tell you.”
As she tore her napkin into long thin strips, I began to worry she would make some complaint. Of course, I too had felt dissatisfactions about our friendship, ones I could trace back to the dorm when she used to borrow my hairdryer without asking, but at the moment I had no desire—none at all—to analyze our relationship. The very prospect filled me with dread. What if she dragged my character into it? A crust of grilled cheese stuck in my throat.
    “I’d better just blurt it out,” Rena said. “Nancy called and asked if I would work at The Pet Library, and I said yes. I’ve been working there for a few weeks.”
    I put down my sandwich and laughed. “I thought you were going to tell me something horrible! I mean, for me.”
    “I’m still freelancing, of course, but the Library gives me a steady paycheck.”
    “Not much of a paycheck. But good for you.”
    “You don’t mind?”
    I swept her little strips of napkin into a tidy pile. “Why would I?”
    “I didn’t know if you were still hoping to patch things up over there, or—”
    “I’m through with that job. I wouldn’t work there if Nancy paid me. You know what I mean.”
    “Well, that’s what I thought.” Rena grew quiet and began to pick at the callus on her thumb. “Do you remember when your
Treasure Island
thing started, and you kept calling in sick so you could shop for a blouse with a lace jabot?”
    “A few times I blew it off, but I hardly think—”
    “That’s when I first subbed for you. It’s not like I
tried
to move in on the job. And I want you to know, when Nancy called and asked for help, I said, ‘I wouldn’t dream of it, what if she’s thinking of coming back?’ I only changed my mind when Nancy goes, ‘Never in a million years—’”
    How dare they? Like girls gossiping behind their hands.
    “Rena, it’s a dead bush.”
    “What?”
    “A dead horse. Quit beating around the bush. I said I don’t mind it.”
    “All right.” She flinched. “Beating a dead horse. What a cruel expression!” After a pause she said, “How’s Lars?”
    “He’s fine.”
    As we drank our coffee I studied the lithograph above the table as if I had never really seen it before, which in a way I hadn’t. It was a boat and a sunset, but the wrong kind of boat—two lovers drifting in a canoe.
    Rena reached into her enormous filthy Turkish Kilim hand-woven expandable purse.
    “Well, here,” she said. “I got the pills you wanted.”
    A photograph of schnauzers was stuck to the prescription bottle. “Eddie and Neddie and Nod!” Rena’s eyes rested on the dogs for a moment with deep affection; then her face went blank and she threw the dogs back into that dark hairy pit of a purse. She slid the bottle across the table.
    “You’re welcome to these. It’s interesting how animals can relax a person. I haven’t touched Xanax since I began at the Library. I’ll be rearranging the gravel in the fish tank, or combing out the dogs, and I get this extraordinary sense of calm. The feeling can stay with me all day long.” Rena gripped the table stiff-armed as a zombie. “Oh my god! I just remembered! I promised to check on Mrs. Minnelli’s box turtle.”
    I slid the check across the table.
     

CHAPTER 12

     
    T he letter arrived, looking innocuous enough, in a small floral envelope. Lars had picked up the mail as we came in, and began to read the letter in the doorway. He froze in the hall like a flamingo. I had to maneuver around him just to put away my coat.
    “I’ve . . . ”
    Long pause; he continued to read.
    “I’ve . . . ”
    “
What
?” I said.
    “I’ve just gotten the strangest letter from my mother. It’s