April & Oliver Read Online Free PDF

bureau. He notices one about do-it-yourself
     plumbing repairs, and a travelogue on Patagonia. His heart quickening, he pulls open the heavy dresser drawer. Would a rifle
     even fit in here? He glides his hand beneath April’s clothing. What he’s doing is wrong; he knows that. The fabric is silky.
     He imagines the rifle layered beneath her slips. What if he feels it? He has never touched a gun in his life. What if he moves
     it and the thing goes off?
    “It’s not there,” she says from the doorway.
    Oliver looks up. He hears the shower running. Steam drifts from the room behind. Her dress is unbuttoned halfway down her
     back, loose across her shoulders.
    “I left it in your father’s garage.”
    “I’m sorry,” he says. “I just thought . . .”
    “There’s a bottle of aspirin in the bathroom,” she says, coming toward him. “Knives in the kitchen. A train platform across
     the street. You think I’d need a gun?”
    She is so close he can see condensation on her skin, droplets of moisture in her hair. She smells like grass after heavy rain.
     “Just tell me you won’t do anything stupid.”
    “If you trust me, Oliver, you’ll go home.” She closes the drawer with her hip and leans against it. He moves her aside and,
     to his own surprise, reopens the drawer.
    Folded inside a satin slip is an envelope bulging with photographs. He leafs through them, grainy black-and-whites, mostly
     taken at a distance: April tending bar, buying a newspaper, filling her gas tank. Al is in one of them. Nana, another. Oliver
     looks at April. She takes the stack from him.
    “Did
he
take these?”
    “Before he knew me,” she says. “Followed me for weeks. Creepy, right? But I was vain enough to be flattered.” She tosses the
     pictures in a wastebasket. “It’s time for you to go.”
    Oliver loosens his tie. “The sofa will do.”
    “The trains will keep you awake.”
    “I’ll take my chances.”
    April sighs and turns back to the bathroom.
    In the kitchen, Oliver eats a sandwich then makes another. His head swims with exhaustion. Beside the toaster is a dog-eared
     copy of
The Elegant Universe
by Brian Greene. He rolls up his sleeves, takes off his belt, anxious to get out of the damp clothing. The light blinks on
     April’s answering machine. He wonders if she will listen in front of him.
    She comes out of the bathroom wearing a long T-shirt and oversize gym shorts that he guesses are the boyfriend’s. Her hair
     drips onto her shoulders, dampening the shirt. She tosses her dress over the back of the sofa and paces to the coffee table,
     the window, the bookshelf, then stops, confused.
    “April.”
    She whirls around. “Jesus,” she says. “You’re still here?” She comes into the kitchen.
    “Hungry?” he says, offering his sandwich.
    She shakes her head, striding out of the room, then back again. She puts her hands over his on the sandwich, closes her eyes,
     and takes an enormous bite. Her hair smells of shampoo. Her shoulders are wet. “I’m starving,” she says, wiping her mouth.
    “You have a message.”
    “Did you have the Budweiser? I don’t touch it.”
    “Has he called you?”
    She takes the bottle out of the refrigerator, holds her T-shirt over the cap, and twists it off. She touches the cold bottle
     to her forehead, then hands it to Oliver.
    He hasn’t had a beer in years. He prefers wine now, quality labels because the cheap stuff gives him a headache. He takes
     the beer.
    Kids’ voices rise from the street below, a naughty shriek and a tangle of laughter. Oliver looks at April. He imagines their
     childhood selves bursting into the room, hot and sweaty, running to the refrigerator and filling glasses with iced tea. He
     sees April’s braid speckled with bits of grass, his own tanned skin and backward Mets cap. He pictures them staring over the
     rims of their cups as they gulp thirstily. Who, they wonder, are these two somber and preoccupied adults standing in the corners