An Inconvenient Woman Read Online Free PDF Page A

Pauline adores him. He makes her laugh and tells her all the gossip. They say Hector’s in love with Pauline, but I don’t see it like that. Just very close friends,” said Camilla.
    “Why do I think that under all that Latin charm and cha-cha-cha, he leads a very complicated life.”
    “I think it’s only fair to tell you that Hector Paradiso is my uncle.”
    “Oh, God. That’s the second time in fifteen minutes I’ve put my foot in it. Want me to take you back to the table?”
    “No, but I wouldn’t mind if you danced a little closer. There, that’s better. I was supposed to go home with Rose, but I wouldn’t dream of driving down the mountain with her in the condition she’s in.”
    “Not to worry. She’s staying here for the night. Blondell has already turned down the bed in the guest room.”
    “You certainly know a lot for a stranger in these parts.”
    “True.”
    “You’re a pretty good dancer too,” she said.
    “Thanks.”
    “I asked my uncle Hector to drive me home, but he said he wanted to stay until the bitter end and talk over the party with Pauline,” said Camilla.
    “Just between us, I think Pauline and Jules are going to want to be alone when the party ends,” said Philip. “Kippie is back in town.”
    “Kippie? He is? How in the world do you know that?”
    “I just know.”
    Camilla nodded, looking at him, but did not miss a beat of her dance step. “Maybe Hector just had a late date and didn’t want to tell me. It wouldn’t be the first time. God knows where Hector ends up when the parties are over.”
    “Tell me about Kippie.”
    “Handsome. Hair too long, or was, the last time I saw him. Always in trouble. He got Madge White’s daughter pregnant when they were both only fourteen. Oh, what a to-do about that! Takes drugs. Or did, I don’t know about now. He’s been in a rehab, somewhere in France,” said Camilla.
    It was the sort of answer Philip liked. “Succinct,” he said.
    “What?”
    “Your answer.”
    “Thanks.”
    “How old?”
    “Kippie?”
    “Yes.”
    “I think he was three, or maybe four, when Pauline married Jules.”
    “So, twenty-five or twenty-six now,” he said.
    “Why this sudden fascination with Kippie?”
    “You know what? I don’t know,” he said, and they both laughed.
    They continued to dance. Behind them Jules and several friends were helping Rose, who was loudly singing the lyrics to “Camelot,” to make as graceful an exit as possible. Blondell, Pauline’s maid, stood waiting at the entrance of the room for her. Then Philip remembered that it was his birthday.
    “What time is it?” he asked.
    “Midnight,” she answered. “Don’t tell me you have jet lag, and it’s really three o’clock in the morning your time, and you have to go home. I hate jet-lag stories.”
    Philip laughed. “I wasn’t going to say that. I was going to say something entirely different.”
    “Like what?” asked Camilla.
    “Like how about a club soda at your house?”
    “Oh, the wickedness of it.”
    “Well?”
    “I do need a ride home,” she said, pulling back her head from his cheek and looking at him.
    “I was hoping you’d say that,” said Philip.

    Flo’s Tape #1
    “
I was perfectly content to be his mistress. The guy had a wife. I understood that. I couldn’t have done the things his wife did, all those parties, all that swank. He needed that kind of wife for his kind of life. But I could do things his wife couldn’t do. I mean, the guy had a dick like a mule’s. Not many girls could handle that. I could. I mean, you know, we’re all good at something. That’s what I’m good at
.”

2
    J ules Mendelson always arose at five o’clock to be shaved by a barber called Willi, who came to his home every morning at five-thirty, when it was still dark. It was a practice that Willi had been performing for Jules for twenty-five years, and for which he was handsomely recompensed with a small and very successful barber shop on Sunset