Almost Famous Women Read Online Free PDF Page B

always are,” Joe said.
    Georgie sighed and stabbed a piece of pineapple with her fork. The rum came to Marlene and she turned the bottle up with one manicured hand. She even knew how to drink beautifully, Georgie thought.
    Joe moved her fingers to Georgie’s thigh and squeezed. It was almost a fatherly gesture, Georgie felt. A we-will-talk-about-this-later gesture. When the last sip of rum came to Georgie, she finished it off, coughing a little as the liquor burned her throat.
    â€œMore rum?” Joe asked the table, glancing at the empty decanter.
    â€œChampagne if you have it,” Marlene said.
    â€œOf course,” Joe said. She pushed her chair back and went to discuss the order with a servant in the kitchen.
    Georgie shifted uncomfortably in her chair, anxious at the thought of being left alone with Marlene. Next to her she could see Miguel stroking the senator’s hand underneath the table while the senator carried on a conversation about the war with the financiers.
    â€œAnd you,” Marlene said to Georgie. “Do you plan on returning to Florida soon? Pick up where you left off with that mermaid act?”
    Georgie felt herself blushing even though she willed her body not to betray her.
    â€œIt’s no picture show,” Georgie said, smiling sweetly. “But I suppose I’ll go back one of these days.”
    â€œI suppose you will,” Marlene said, staring hard at her for a minute. Then she flicked the ashes from her cigarette onto the side of her saucer and stood up, her plate of food untouched. Georgie watched her walk across the room. Marlene had a confident walk, her hips thrust forward and her shoulders held back as if she knew everyone was watching, and from what Georgie could tell, scanning the table, they were.
    Marlene slipped into the kitchen. Georgie imagined her arms around Joe, a bottle of champagne on the counter. Bedroom eyes.
    Georgie took what was left in Joe’s wineglass and decided to get drunk, very drunk. The stem of the glass felt like something she could break, and the chardonnay tasted like vinegar in her mouth.
    When Joe and Marlene didn’t return after a half hour, Georgie excused herself, embarrassed. She climbed the long staircase to her room, took off her dress, and stood on the balcony, the hot air on her skin, watching the dark ocean meet the night sky, listening to the water crash gently onto the island.
    Some days it scared her to be on the small island. When storms blew in you could watch them approaching for miles, and when they came down it felt as if the ocean could wash right over Whale Cay.
    I could always leave, Georgie thought. I could always go back home when I’ve had enough, and maybe I’ve had enough.
    She sat down at Joe’s desk, an antique secretary still full of pencils and rubber bands Joe had collected as a child, and began to write a letter home. Then she realized she had nothing to say.
    She pictured her house, a small, white-sided square her father had built with the help of his brothers within walking distance of the natural springs. Alligators often sunned themselves on the lawn or found the shade of her mother’s forsythia. Down the road there were boys running glass-bottom boats in the springs and girls with frosted hair and bronzed legs just waiting to be discovered or, if that didn’t work, married.
    And could she go back to it now? Georgie wondered. The bucktoothed boys pressing their faces up against the aquarium glass to get a better look at her legs and breasts? The harsh plastic of the fake mermaid tail? Her mother’s biscuits and her father’s old car and egg salad on Sundays?
    She knew she couldn’t stay at Whale Cay forever. But she sure as hell didn’t want to go home.
    In the early hours of morning, just as the sun was casting an orange wedge of light across the water, Joe climbed into bed, reeking of alcohol and cigarette smoke. She put her arms around Georgie and