Making Babies. Wendy Warren

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ “The apartment you’re looking at is vacant. Are you hunting?”

      Taller than Elaine had first thought, the woman looked first at her then at the duplex as if the question didn’t quite compute.

      “Hunting?” Then she burst out, “You mean apartment hunting? Here? God, no!” She surveyed the old wooden eaves, the broad concrete porch with its hairline fractures and actually shuddered. “I’m looking for Mitch Ryder. He left this address on my answering machine.”

      Elaine took another, longer look at the brunette, who appeared to be in her early thirties, and glanced at her watch. “Ah, he was here, about…hmm…an hour ago? Maybe?”

      The other woman frowned, and Elaine knew she should wash her own mouth out with soap. Could she be a bigger fake? She knew darn well Mitch had been in the apartment as recently as fifty-two minutes, forty-five seconds ago, because her watch had a sweep second hand and that was when the hammering had stopped. But she wasn’t going to parade her interest in front of a woman whose long neck and lithe body could make Audrey Hepburn look stumpy.

      “Do you know when he’s coming back?”

      “No.” At least that was the truth. “No idea. Sorry.”

      “Thirty-six years of impeccable reliability, and he has to screw it up now—” peeking through the window again, Mitch’s visitor appeared to be speaking mostly to herself “—when I am absolutely, freakishly starving.”

      “Would you like an apple?” Elaine held it up, feeling a bit like the wicked stepmother in Snow White. Was this woman Mitch’s girlfriend? Come to think of it, she couldn’t remember his ever bringing a date to the office get-togethers.

      The brunette looked at the apple, but shook her head. “Nah. I don’t want to kill my appetite. I want beef. I hope he brought clothes to change into.” Still mumbling, she tried the front doorknob, surprising both of them when it turned easily and she was able to wait inside. As she crossed the threshold, Elaine heard her say, “Jeez, what was he thinking? He could have had two condos in Lakewood for the price of this place.”

      Elaine fought a terrible desire to go back into her apartment, station herself behind the curtains and wait for Mitch to return, but that nosy image was just too awful, so she directed herself down the porch steps. She was halfway to the sidewalk when she heard, “Oh, hey!” She turned. “Thanks, uh…”

      “Elaine.”

      “Elaine. Right.” And with that the brunette disappeared inside the apartment again and shut the door.

      Elaine stared at the closed door for a time. Well, obviously he did see women and obviously he liked them slender as grass, tall as elms and surprisingly offbeat. Fine. Wasn’t any of her business.

      Setting off down the steps, Elaine prepared to outrun the emotions she wanted no part of. By the time she reached the corner, she was practically sprinting.

      When she returned an hour later, the porch steps looked like the side of Mount Hood. Her pronounced limp was the result of a rather painful attempt to jump over a Chihuahua that had crossed her path at the park. Elaine’s knees were not what they used to be, apparently; she’d successfully avoided crushing the tiny canine, but her knees had buckled upon landing. Neglecting to warm up hadn’t helped.

      Before she’d jogged ten minutes, her chest had felt like thick rubber bands were holding her ribs together. Lord, how would she work and care for a baby on her own when she was this out of shape? Plus, now she was starving. Her stomach growled, her legs groaned. She was too tired to go out for food and too hungry to think that tofu anything would satisfy her tonight.

      Trudging to her door, she saw that the light was on in the vacant apartment. Vacant, but not empty. Mitch and the woman were seated on the floor, smiling and laughing as they helped themselves to bags of food laid out between them on the carpet.

      She watched the woman take Mitch’s burger and help herself to a big bite. The gesture was natural, as if they’d done this many times in the past.

      Apparently preferring his burger to her own, she handed Mitch her sandwich and kept his. He pulled a comically woeful expression then reached out when she wasn’t looking to pull a piece of bacon from the sandwich she’d appropriated, popping the strip into his mouth before she could snatch it back.

      Then they both laughed, and it all looked so cozy, Elaine had the most awful impulse to bang on the window and shout, “Knock it off in there!”

      Getting a second wind, she gave in to her next awful impulse: hobbling back down the porch steps and around the house to peep through the side window. Since it was still fairly light out, this seemed like a good plan for a budding voyeur. The shrubbery on this side of the house was tall, terribly overgrown and made good camouflage.

      It was also scratchy. Branches poked and scraped at Elaine’s arms and legs while she wedged herself into position.

      These old-Portland-style homes had windows that were relatively high off the ground to accommodate daylight basements and tall front porches, so Elaine had to stand on tiptoe and jump a little to get a good view. Mostly what she could see was the back of Mitch’s head and the woman’s profile as she reached into a bag, pulled out several long, skinny fries and ate with unabashed enthusiasm. They spoke the entire time they ate, and though Elaine couldn’t make out words through the closed window, she could see that the conversation flowed easily. They laughed frequently.

      At one point, Mitch’s shoulders shook. The man she regarded as rigid, self-righteous and a stick-in-the-mud was sitting on the floor with an idiosyncratic but lovely woman, scarfing burgers and fries and, unless Elaine missed her guess, fresh marionberry milkshakes from Burgerville.

      A wave of sadness washed over her, and she began to wonder whether, in fact, she was the stick-in-the mud? Because, criminy, she was legally single, as footloose and fancy-free as she was ever going to get, and she hadn’t even flirted with anyone since her divorce. Here it was, Saturday night, and the only thing waiting for her at home was a little light reading about artificial insemination and half of a cold soybean sandwich, hold the canola mayo.

      She was about to detangle herself from the shrubbery, if not the humiliation of being a Peeping Tom, when she saw Mitch’s friend look at her watch, scoop up a bag of food and stand. Mitch rose, too. Elaine’s heart pounded, as anyone’s heart might when she realized she was about half a minute away from looking like a complete idiot. A complete idiot with questionable morals.

      She had mere seconds to make a decision: attempt a run to her front door and risk running smack into the happy couple and, worse, being seen coming from around the corner, or stay where she was until Mitch returned to the apartment. Mitch decided for her when he opened the door and stepped onto the porch.

      Elaine froze, hoping the scratchy bush would freeze, too.

      “So I’ll see you tomorrow, right?” The woman’s distinctively deep voice carried easily.

      “Is there any way I can avoid it?”

      “No. If you don’t show up, I’ll hunt you down.”

      Mitch laughed. “I’ll be there. In fact, I’ll pick you up, and we’ll go to the airport together.”

      There was a moment of quiet. What was going on? A hug, a kiss? Elaine strained to hear.

      “Love СКАЧАТЬ