Angels All Over Town

Angels All Over Town Read Online Free PDF

Book: Angels All Over Town Read Online Free PDF
Author: Luanne Rice
Tags: Fiction
Margo.
    “In what way?”
    “Well, he was…troubled. He was driven by success and a need to please. Those two goals are not always compatible.”
    “Quit talking like a principal. Tell me, Una.”
    Had the time come to tell? I lay on my back, feeling a hot breeze blow through the open window, and stared at the water-marked ceiling. My youngest sister sat beside me, tweaking my big toe, urging me to talk. The Wild One leaned against the door and stared at both of us.
    What I knew of the truth sounded nearly innocent. But my conclusions, my suspicions, and the sum of it all made for a sordid tale. “John and his mother had a weird flirtation going,” I said.
    “How weird?”
    “Well, pretty weird. John’s a night owl, and on Monhegan I would go to bed even earlier than I usually do. Probably from hiking all over and swimming in freezing water. I used to wake up and wonder where John was and find him sitting on his mother’s bed, having a chat.”
    “You went swimming in April in
Maine
? You must have been crazy.”
    “Well…”
    “So, they were having a chat.”
    “It never bothered me at first. I thought it was nice—a man who cares about his mother. You know how they say a man who loves his mother will love his wife?”
    Margo nodded.
    “She had a very frilly bedroom, with scented things all over the place and lots of pink, even though her clothes were quite tailored. It seemed incongruous, seeing her sitting up against about fifty pillows, wearing a pink negligee, with John cuddled around her feet as if he were a little boy.”
    “This is sounding strange, Una. What else?”
    I felt grateful to her for getting my drift, though I shouldn’t have been surprised. All three of us had strong powers of intuition when it came to each other.
    “She started pushing him on another man.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “I’m not. Things were getting serious for John and me. Jemmie could see that; I mean every time John went up there, he took me.” The memory of it made me start to cry. At the first sign of tears, the Wild One left the room. “In April we went up, and I had the strangest feeling he was going to propose to me. We had discussed marriage a million times, but he was conventional. He’d go to Tiffany’s and pick out a ring by himself, if you know what I mean. And that weekend in April, I had a feeling he was about to propose.”
    “On that big cliff, right?” Margo asked.
    Of course I had kept Margo and Lily informed on the progress of my relationship with John Luddington. I had told them about our favorite spot, on the south side of the island, an enormous bluff rising above the Atlantic, from which we could see rocks, crashing surf, passing whales, and seals. It was the most romantic spot in the world. We would go there in the morning with a blanket, books, and a basket filled with lunch, and not return to Jemmie’s until cocktail time. It was the place I had imagined John asking me to marry him.
    “Well, love was in the air, and obviously Jemmie felt it. She had a cocktail party that night and invited an old friend of John’s. He came up from Boston and didn’t have a place to stay and naturally wound up spending the night. So, anyway, I walked down to Jemmie’s room later, and there were
all three
of them—Jemmie under the covers, and John and his friend at the foot of her bed.”
    “This is sounding perverted.”
    “I never actually saw them
doing
—”
    “Who the hell cares?” Margo exploded. “What do you need with a family that does things like that? It sounds very gothic. Jemmie Luddington feels threatened by you, so she brings in someone else. A ringer. But why
that
ringer?”
    I had wondered about that all the following week, until John finally showed up at Soundstage 3 to explain things to me. “John and he had fooled around at Hotchkiss. Apparently John had gotten drunk or had a guilt attack one night and confessed the whole thing to his mother.”
    “Jemmie probably loved
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