Alligators in the Trees Read Online Free PDF Page B

in the city who was willing to take him on as a draftsman, let alone executive architect.
    If he wanted to continue working—and he’d have to in order to eat and make his outrageous child support and alimony payments—he’d probably have to relocate somewhere far from New York. But where would he go? Alabama? New Mexico? Wyoming?
    He seriously doubted his scale of design could be supported in non-metropolitan areas. Blueprints for grocery stores and strip malls stretched out in his mind’s eye, giving him a vaguely queasy feeling. No, he could never imagine leaving the city. Besides, he needed to be there for Caitlin. So what were his alternatives?
    As he pondered the dilemma, he was assailed by a fresh new horror. He had become accustomed to these ragged bolts of anxiety which struck him regularly since his downfall, but this fear was all the more frightening as it had not yet occurred to him.
    He had been so preoccupied with the lawsuits and his pending divorce, he had overlooked the very real possibility that—despite Marianne’s claims to the contrary—he could lose Caitlin. If he failed to find decent employment and couldn’t supply a suitable environment for her weekly visitations, Marianne would undoubtedly haul him into court and have his rights revoked.
    Or what if Marianne decided to pack up and move to Italy? Or worse yet, what if she, out of pure spitefulness, sent Caitlin off to boarding school in Switzerland or France? Philip grew pale as he imagined the worst.
    Of all the misfortunes that had befallen him, the prospect of not seeing Caitlin every day was by far his most serious fear. She had been the joy of his life since the day she was born, and though he’d like to believe she depended on him for love and support, in truth he was far more dependent on her than he could bear to admit. Even more so now that he was no longer the self-assured, highly respected architect he had once been.
    Yet another frightening thought now shook him to his foundation: what if Caitlin lost interest in seeing him because he was not her famous daddy anymore? What if she lost all respect for him, like the rest of the world had? How horrible it had to be for her now that his name conjured up only visions of a sinking building and dozens of displaced and irate residents.
    Philip shook his head, feeling more ashamed of his fate than ever before. There was only one way to overcome his plight, and that was to ride out this nightmare and rise to even greater heights.
    His rollercoaster of emotional rises and dips plunged him to subterranean depths when he was forced to admit the unlikelihood of being given another break professionally. It was a good idea in theory, for he had not lost confidence in his talent. But the fact remained his ability to rebound rested more with others than with himself. An architect could design till his heart’s content, but he would only be paid when someone would be brave enough to engage him.
    His shameful lack of prospects kept Philip staring into space for a full half-hour before he snapped out of his trance. He glanced at his watch; only quarter to one and he was already bored out of his mind. Reflexively, he took a pen out of his desk drawer and began doodling on his blotter, creating wispy, fairytale-like castles on one half, then switching to bold, modern structures of epic proportions on the other.
    Somewhere in his mindless doodling, thoughts of Priscilla crept into his head. A big, loopy smile spread over his features as he ripped the top sheet off his blotter and set to work covering another. Priscilla, Priscilla; even the sound of her name made him happy. His smile stretched into a grin as he thought of her sailing through her mundane job, seemingly unaffected by the tediousness of it, immune to the social pressures to aspire to some more rewarding profession.
    The fact was, Philip knew little about the waitress he had become so attached to, but he believed there was a lot more to her