Young Wives. Olivia Goldsmith

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СКАЧАТЬ it made her self-conscious. In school girls had made fun of her—calling her “fish mouth” and “trout”—but the boys had flocked to her.

      She shook her head and her hair gleamed, but the roots…. She’d have to make an appointment to touch up her blond color. Her complexion could carry off the lightness. The only disadvantage she had was her skin; it was so delicate it showed every change in her mood by flushing or paling, but also—if she wasn’t careful—wrinkling like the poppy petals she swept off the patio all summer. Michelle perpetually slathered on creams and potions. Even with them she knew she had less than a decade left before the lines, a tiny network of wrinkles, kicked in. Oh, well. She still looked good.

      With the steam from the bath filling the room she could look into the reflective glass and see herself as she’d been at twenty-one, a decade ago, and it didn’t seem as if there had been a lot of change for the worse. Maybe her highlights were helped along just a little bit, but that wasn’t a bad thing. Okay, her waist had expanded from her pregnancies, but only by an inch or two. She peered at herself, her green eyes moving along her mirrored form. Her breasts … well, they had also expanded from the pregnancies, which was good—at least it made her waist look smaller. She pulled her sweater off and admired herself. Not bad. She allowed herself a smile. In an hour Frank would be home and admire her even more. She reached over her head to do up her hair—but just for now. Frank liked her hair down in bed. And she liked Frank to get what he wanted, as long as he wanted her.

3

       In which Angela rings her father, rings the airport, and rings up a tab

      “Five months. I don’t know. Uh-uh. Because he told me.”

      Angela was crying, getting mucus and tears on the receiver of the phone in the vestibule of the Marblehead Yacht Club. Some man, leaving the restroom, gave her a look, then averted his eyes as if from an accident. Well, it was a wreck, or she was. She looked down at the Shreve box, still clutched in her right hand. She doubted she could open either of her fists again.

      “He told you?” her father was asking. “The cold Wasp son-of-a-bitch rat-bastid told you he’d been sleeping with someone else? And on your anniversary?”

      Angie couldn’t speak. She nodded—not that her father, four hundred miles south in Westchester County, could see her. But he heard her gurgle. “Brutal,” he said. “Where are you right this minute?” he snapped.

      “At a pay phone. At the club.” Now a woman walked past Angie, glanced at her, then actually turned back to stare. Her cold eyes seemed to say, “Don’t behave that way here.” She was about Reid’s mother’s age. She probably knew both Reid’s parents. Fuck her! Angela defiantly wiped at her eyes, then her nose, with her hand. The woman shook her head in disgust. Angie looked down. Her fingers were a mess, covered with eye makeup, but she managed to flip the bird at the old bat, who stalked off.

      “Angie, baby, didn’t I tell you never to trust a man with Roman numerals after his name?” her father asked. Oh God. Was she going to get a speech? Angie had tried to call her mother first, then her best friend Lisa, but had only gotten their machines.

      “Please, Daddy. No lectures. Not from you.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I can’t believe it. I want to kill him. What should I do?”

      “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay,” her father soothed.

      He was using the voice she trusted, the one she always obeyed. He’d used that voice when he had told her not to worry, she’d ace her SATs, the one that promised her she’d get into law school. Her daddy, despite his flaws, did love her.

      “Listen to me,” he said. “Here’s what you do. You hang up the phone. You walk out of that hellhole and get into a taxi. The last Delta shuttle to New York leaves from Logan in forty-five minutes. You can make it, easy. And I’ll be at the Marine Air Terminal to pick you up. Not one of my drivers. Me.”

      “I don’t know if I can make the plane. When I tell Reid I—”

      “You don’t have to tell that bastid a single fucking thing,” her father spat. “Don’t you go back to that table.”

      “You mean just … leave? But … I don’t even have my purse with me,” Angie said. She felt naked, helpless. But the thought of crossing that room, looking at Reid—impossible! While just leaving at least had … dignity. “I have no money, no I.D….”

      “I’ll have a prepaid ticket waiting at the counter,” her father told her. “They’ll ask you to tell them your mother’s maiden name and give your social security number.” Angie nodded.

      “But security. I.D. I … I don’t have anything.” That wasn’t technically true. She still clutched the Shreve box in her hand.

      “I’ll tell them how your grandma is dying and how close you were,” he said.

      “Nana? Okay.” She began to cry again. “Thank you, Daddy,” she said. “God, I’m so ashamed.”

      “Ashamed? What have you got to be ashamed of?”

      “Being so fucking stupid,” Angie told him. “You never trusted him.”

      “Well, there is that,” he admitted. “Forget it. Women are all blind or else there’d be no human race. Just leave the bum. Let him sit there and wonder if you fell into the shitter and drowned.” Anthony Romazzano waited for a laugh but didn’t get one. “Okay,” her father said. “You promise me you’ll hang up and walk right out the door?”

      “Yes,” Angela agreed. She hung up the phone and turned herself around. She took a deep breath and pulled down on the cuffs of her sleeves as if the gesture built up enough courage for her to take the first step. She ought to go into the ladies room and clean up, but what difference would it make? She’d only cry some more. When she walked toward the exit door, she felt as if everyone was watching her and that they knew what had happened. She couldn’t believe she’d never see Reid again. But the fact was that she caught a last glimpse of her husband as she walked past the dining room door. He was calmly leaning back in his chair, looking out at the water. Why was it he always looked as if nothing bothered him? So pulled together?

      With all her built-up rage, Angie pushed hard on the club door and was blasted in the face with cold salt air. She waved to the first taxi in line. “Logan Airport, please. Delta shuttle.” Then she again burst into noisy tears.

      It wasn’t until they got to the Callahan Tunnel and its inevitable traffic that Angie realized she might miss the flight. But since she didn’t have a penny on her, she couldn’t even pay the driver. “Please hurry,” she said. He’d already looked at her once or twice in the rearview mirror.

      “Did you say Delta or USAir?” he asked. He had a lilt in his voice. Irish. Just off the boat. Driving a cab the way her father had, back in New York; but her father had gotten into the limo business, gotten rich, and married a nice Jewish girl.

      “Delta,” she told the driver, and then explained about Nana. What would he do when she tried to stiff him? Call the cops?

      Well, if he did, she’d telephone her father. She thought of Tony, waiting at the other end of the trip. She was grateful to him for his help, but at the same time СКАЧАТЬ