Audrey’s Door Read Online Free PDF

of and hide.
    Saraub turned back and smiled like he was amused. He saw her. Her whole life, she’d been a phantom. She and Betty had moved around so often that she’d never had time to make friends, and when they finally did put down roots, it had been too late to learn how. Sometimes she got so lonely, she caught herself talking to the damn cactus. But, looking at Saraub, she glimpsed the promise of something better. His arms looked firm. Like if he wrapped them around her, he’d weigh her down and make her real. In her mind, she hugged him back. She pressed her fingers along his spine and let him know that around her, it was okay to stand tall.
    “Come on,” she pleaded, even though this was the first time she could remember ever chasing a man instead of running in the opposite direction. It felt scary. It felt alive. “It’ll be my treat.”
    He narrowed his eyes like he was thinking hard on something. “The thing is,” he said, “my family has somebody picked out. An arranged marriage. I thought…I’d see what else was out there. I’ve only ever dated Indian girls, but I’m getting married next month. Twenty-four days, actually.”
    “Oh,” she said. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but it stayed there. She looked down at the sidewalk. His shoes were shiny loafers. Hers were ballet flats. The smell of popcorn was in the air. She wondered if she cleaned more often than necessary because she was lonely.
    “I shouldn’t complain. I’m no catch,” he’d said, patting his ample gut. In his profile he’d called himself fit. Then again, she’d called herself an optimist. “The girl—she’s not my type. She smiles all the time, but she never says anything. It’s annoying.”
    “What’s your type?” Audrey asked. She ached somuch at the thought of losing this stranger that she thought she might cry, so she bit her lip and looked at the man in the ticket booth, who was counting quarters one by one.
    Saraub ran his hands along his suit, straightening the fabric. It was a Saturday. She didn’t think he was going to work after this, which meant he’d worn it for her. “Complicated. My type is complicated. Would you mind seeing the movie, just as friends?”
    She nodded. By the time the tennis star’s wife got murdered in the reflection in Patricia Hitchcock’s glasses, they were holding hands. By the third “just friends” date, he’d postponed the wedding.
    She was afraid to tell him that she was a thirty-three-year-old virgin, so they didn’t sleep together until their tenth date. To avoid the humiliation of such a confession, she’d considered breaking up with him. But she liked him too much, so instead she braved the adult section of Kim’s Video on 112 th and Broadway, and rented three pornos. Dr. Cocksalot, with his fingers made of penises, provoked the most giggles, though it had lacked the desired erotic effect. She studied it until she thought she could put on a decent show and make him believe she wasn’t new to the world of love.
    Her plan had one flaw. Sex is terrifying. As soon as he unzipped his jeans, and his little friend poked its way out of his blue silk briefs, she started crying. What was she supposed to do with that thing? Hold it? Compliment it? Give it a cute name? She’d never seen one before in real life!
    Then she’d laughed, loud and braying, because this was absurd. After all the bad shit with Betty she’d faced with the kind of poker face that even a stoic would envy, she’d picked now to cry, when she was happy for the first time in her life, and a nice man finally wanted to touch her.
    Saraub hiked his trousers. Shirtless and blushing sohard his brown face turned red, he’d looked down at his stomach like it had done something wrong, hunched his shoulders, and tried to make himself small.
    She stopped laughing, and leaped off his queen-sized bed. Melted Mallomar crumbs from one of his late-night snack sprees were stuck to her back like freckles.