Page 11 of Happiness for Beginners

“If you say so.”

“I rescued Pickle, didn’t I? And I let people through in traffic. And I always clap really loud at plays.”

“That’s your version of nice? Clapping at plays?”

“That’s not myonlyversion of nice.”

“What about nice to Duncan?” he asked. “What’s your version of that?”

How had we gone from silence to this? “Are you picking a fight with me?”

“No, I’m just making conversation.”

“You weren’t making conversation ten minutes ago,” I said.

“I wasn’t finished with my book ten minutes ago.”

I glanced over at the closed book on his thigh. “Don’t you have another one?”

“Nope.”

“SoIhave to talk about Duncan becauseyoudon’t have anything left to read?”

“It’s a long drive to Evanston.”

“And you’re making it longer.”

“It just seems like a rich topic,” he said.

“Well, it’s not,” I said. “It’s a poor topic.”

He tilted his head at me like we both knew that wasn’t true. “Is it because of what happened in your family?”

I felt a sting of alarm. Did he know about that? I glanced over. “What do you mean?”

He studied me, like he wasn’t sure how to put it. “The tragedy,” he said at last.

The tragedy. So he knew about our family tragedy. Of course he would. He was Duncan’s best friend.

“Iswhatbecause of our family tragedy?” I asked.

“The fact that you don’t like Duncan.”

With that, Jake stumbled into a restricted area. “I like Duncan!” I snapped. “And I’m not going to talk about our family tragedy with you.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t talk about it with anybody.”

“Maybe you should,” he said with a cheery shrug.

I tried to keep my voice un-irritated. “What are you,” I demanded then, “a therapist?”

“No,” Jake said. “But that’s actually not a bad idea.” He considered it for a minute. Then he pushed on. “So what’s the deal with you guys?”

I sighed. Between “Duncan” and “the Tragedy,” Duncan was no doubt the lesser conversational evil. “The deal is,” I said, “Duncan’s a pain in the ass.”

“Granted.”

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