What Have I Done For Me Lately?. Isabel Sharpe

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СКАЧАТЬ it up, and the miracle she so desperately wanted really came to pass—mercy, she could barely think about it without getting dizzy—maybe soon she wouldn’t have to pay rent at all.

      She laughed again and came away from the door, feeling as if she could float around her apartment. That miracle was so huge and so precious and so out-there, she didn’t like to dwell on it. No point setting herself up for devastating disappointment. She’d plan and celebrate one small step and one small victory at a time.

      The phone rang, and she drifted dreamily toward it, imagining Ryan’s deep voice. I can’t wait until tomorrow, care to come over for a nightcap now? Don’t bother changing….

      “Chris?”

      Fred. Her fantasy burst and splatted on the lush grey carpet. He persisted in using the short form of her name even though she’d corrected him countless times. Thank goodness he hadn’t come up with “Teeny,” the nickname her family and friends used in Georgia.

      “This is Christine.” She chilled her voice enough to freeze nitrogen.

      “Got your new showerhead. Thought I’d come put it in now.”

      “Now?” She gave the phone an incredulous look before she put it back to her ear. “It’s nearly nine-thirty. Don’t you ever take time off?”

      “Aw, you’re sweet to worry.”

      “I wasn’t—”

      “I’m a hard-working man, you know that. Building full of tenants I gotta keep happy.”

      “I’d rather you came during the day.” When I’m not home.

      “Can’t do that. This is a special favor to you—on my own time.”

      Her stomach lurched. She did not want to be indebted to Fred Farbington.

      “Right now isn’t convenient, how about…” Inspiration. “Tomorrow night?”

      “Tomorrow night it is.”

      “Excellent.” She felt like giggling. She’d be out with Ryan. With Ryan! “Thank you.”

      “Anytime, Chris.”

      Christine. She punched off the phone disgustedly. Maybe if she started calling him Frederick he’d get the message.

      Eight steps to her dining room and the bottle of Early Times she kept on a rickety table found on the curb. She poured herself a shot and downed it as if she were trying to wash out the taste of Fred, then poured herself another and raised it in a toast to her success tonight—to her and Ryan—before downing that one, too.

      Three more steps toward her living room, and she paused in front of a print of one of her favorite paintings, Lovers Over the City by Marc Chagall. The picture was cheerful, colorful. In the foreground a round table with a meal set on a red-checked tablecloth. In the background, a romantic hilltop city with distinctive tiled orange roofs. And in the upper left-hand corner the lovers, colored passionate red, facing each other improbably astride a huge bird.

      The symbolism and the message were probably deeper than anything she could get. She just liked the picture. She liked to imagine the bird’s immense wings beating, carrying the lovers in effortless flight. She liked the woman’s hand on her lover’s chest, his suggestively touching her hips.

      Was he flying her to the hilltop city, away from their meal? Or whisking her away from the city and to the private bliss of a lovers’ picnic? Or bringing her the world on some global journey, and this was just a snapshot of their travels? She didn’t know. She didn’t even know why the picture called to her so strongly.

      She’d seen it the first time on a school trip to the library. Mrs. Chandler, who’d ended up as Christine’s mentor and had encouraged her in a way her parents wouldn’t have known how to do, had shown it to the class. The kids had laughed at the big bird and the red people. Christine had laughed, too, but that night she’d dreamed for the first time of flying away from the too-small, too-crowded house, out of Charsville and out of Georgia forever.

      The print was the first thing she’d bought when she got her first paycheck in New York, even though she had no room for luxury purchases. But here she was, out of Charsville and out of Georgia, and if luck kept going her way and Ryan fell in love with her, the forever part would come true, too.

      She touched the couple lovingly, imagining Ryan’s hands at her hips, hers at his magnificent chest. He was everything she’d ever wanted. If they worked out, she’d have security, respectability, a stable family life, children who’d have enough to eat every day of the year and double on holidays, who’d own whatever kind of sneakers and dresses and toys they wanted—within reasonable limits, of course. More than that, she’d have Ryan.

      Christine had overcome a lot of challenges in her life. Been the first in her family to attend college and graduate, the first to leave Georgia, the first to tackle a big city. But now at twenty-seven, she’d be the last in the family to get married, the last to have those children her brothers and sisters had been popping out for years.

      Ryan was among the toughest challenges she’d ever faced. But that was fine; she still had time to win him over. Anyone as amazing as Ryan Masterson was plenty worth waiting for.

      And, unless Christine was letting her fantasy run too far away with her, if the look in Ryan’s eyes this evening had been anything to go by, she wouldn’t have to wait much longer.

      2

      “THE SINS OF WOMEN are many.” Jenny Hartmann raised her voice. “Repeat after me, ‘Jenny, I have sinned.’”

      The ninety-nine percent female crowd at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Milwaukee boomed out a delighted response. “Jenny, I have sinned.”

      “I have sinned the sin of making myself too available to men. I have kept weekend evenings open in case they want to see me, I have stayed off the phone in case it rings—” she waited a beat “—even if I have call-waiting.”

      Laughter from the crowd.

      “Yes, Jenny, I have!” shouted a voice.

      “Confession. One of our sisters has made a confession here.” She raised her hand in the general direction of the voice. “Forgiveness is yours! Next time go out and have your own fun, girlfriend. Live your life as if it’s your only chance, because ‘men’ is not the answer to the question, ‘Who are we?’ ‘Men’ is not the answer to the question, ‘What do we need?’ and ‘men’ is not the answer to the question, ‘Who can we become?’”

      The crowd cheered. Pumped to the max, Jenny strutted stage left in sky-high-heeled pink sandals, clutching the mike she’d yanked from its stand ten seconds after she started speaking.

      It was glorious when her lectures went like this, when the crowd was with her, when her adrenaline was at its helpful best instead of its crippling worst.

      ‘“Jenny, I have sinned.’ Say it.” She waited until they were done, wiping sweat off her forehead with a pink and black sequin-bordered handkerchief that matched her cami lace top. “I have sinned the sin of changing my plans, changing my hair, changing my body, changing my life to suit my man or the man I want or the man СКАЧАТЬ