III mahogany tripod table next to her chair, a caramel-colored beauty with an exquisite piecrust top and leaf-carved feet.
“Look around you,” Leslie says, indicating with a wave the walls covered in portraits of Alex’s numerous relations, ranging from a British army officer with his scrubbed pink face and bloodred jacket; to a shrewd-looking older woman in an amber dress with Pomeranians on her lap and steel in her eyes; to a fatuous dandy in a royal blue tricorn and shimmering silk waistcoat, holding his cane delicately between two fingers; to some more recently minted Twisdens wearing the uniforms of their hobbies (riding breeches, yachting caps, painter’s smocks) or their professions (Brooks Brothers suits, judge’s robes, Episcopal minister’s purple shirt and turned collar). “Alex wants to continue his family’s line.”
“And what are you?” Cynthia says. “Breed stock?” Childless herself, and living with a man who nearly everyone assumes is gay, Cynthia has never been a cheerleader for the conventional family.
“How about I love him and want to make him happy,” Leslie says.
“And what about your happiness?” Cynthia asks. “All these procedures, your intimate life completely invaded. It’s nuts. And your career!”
“Well, as I said, we’re coming to the end of it.”
“And what the hell is this new treatment that you have to leave the country to get? I mean, come on, Les. I’d be highly dubious. In fact, I’d be scared to death.”
“Who said I’m not?” Leslie says.
Cynthia’s attention is captured momentarily by a pair of Chinese reverse paintings on glass hanging above the fireplace. In one, a maiden kneels on a raft holding an oar and navigating rough waters, and in the other, a seated mother and a standing child are beneath a cypress tree, a pagoda on a hill in the distance. “Are those new?” Cynthia asks.
“Nothing in this house is new,” Leslie says.
The primary home improvement Alex and Leslie have made is to triple-glaze the windows as a way of reducing the hum, honk, roar, shout, and screech of New York. Nevertheless, a piercing scream from the sidewalk one story below comes into the room with all the speed, force, and shock of a flaming arrow. Leslie and Cynthia hurry to the window and part the heavy velvet drapes.
Directly beneath them, a nanny in a white uniform and a blue topcoat holds the side of her face and continues to scream. She is obviously in excruciating pain, and a couple of passersby, frozen by the horror of the moment and the terror and torment of the woman, stand gawking at her as she walks in tight little circles holding her cheek and howling in agony. When she moves her hand away, the pink of her flesh shows through the dark brown of her skin. She looks at her palm, which is red with blood, while still more blood courses down her face, some of it pooling in her ear, most of it cascading onto the collar of her woolen coat, turning the bright blue wool brownish black.
Yet as terrible a sight as that is, what has riveted the attention of the people below on the street and Leslie and Cynthia as well is the nanny’s little charge, a sinewy, long-legged, dark-haired, pale child of two or three, a boy, to judge from his clothes—red sneakers, blue jeans, and a little satin New York Giants jacket. He is sitting calmly in his stroller with his hands folded in his lap, his eyes expressionless, and blood drooling out of his mouth.
“Did that fucking baby just bite his nanny?” Cynthia exclaims.
According to Alex, the most irritating aspect of their appointment with Dr. Kis is that there is no way to fly directly to Slovenia unless they fly private. So he books Lufthansa first class to Munich, with a connecting flight on something called Adria, where first class will probably get you nothing more than a larger bag of pretzels. And so, on the afternoon of November 18, they set off on what Leslie hopes is the very last stop on their quest for a
“Look around you,” Leslie says, indicating with a wave the walls covered in portraits of Alex’s numerous relations, ranging from a British army officer with his scrubbed pink face and bloodred jacket; to a shrewd-looking older woman in an amber dress with Pomeranians on her lap and steel in her eyes; to a fatuous dandy in a royal blue tricorn and shimmering silk waistcoat, holding his cane delicately between two fingers; to some more recently minted Twisdens wearing the uniforms of their hobbies (riding breeches, yachting caps, painter’s smocks) or their professions (Brooks Brothers suits, judge’s robes, Episcopal minister’s purple shirt and turned collar). “Alex wants to continue his family’s line.”
“And what are you?” Cynthia says. “Breed stock?” Childless herself, and living with a man who nearly everyone assumes is gay, Cynthia has never been a cheerleader for the conventional family.
“How about I love him and want to make him happy,” Leslie says.
“And what about your happiness?” Cynthia asks. “All these procedures, your intimate life completely invaded. It’s nuts. And your career!”
“Well, as I said, we’re coming to the end of it.”
“And what the hell is this new treatment that you have to leave the country to get? I mean, come on, Les. I’d be highly dubious. In fact, I’d be scared to death.”
“Who said I’m not?” Leslie says.
Cynthia’s attention is captured momentarily by a pair of Chinese reverse paintings on glass hanging above the fireplace. In one, a maiden kneels on a raft holding an oar and navigating rough waters, and in the other, a seated mother and a standing child are beneath a cypress tree, a pagoda on a hill in the distance. “Are those new?” Cynthia asks.
“Nothing in this house is new,” Leslie says.
The primary home improvement Alex and Leslie have made is to triple-glaze the windows as a way of reducing the hum, honk, roar, shout, and screech of New York. Nevertheless, a piercing scream from the sidewalk one story below comes into the room with all the speed, force, and shock of a flaming arrow. Leslie and Cynthia hurry to the window and part the heavy velvet drapes.
Directly beneath them, a nanny in a white uniform and a blue topcoat holds the side of her face and continues to scream. She is obviously in excruciating pain, and a couple of passersby, frozen by the horror of the moment and the terror and torment of the woman, stand gawking at her as she walks in tight little circles holding her cheek and howling in agony. When she moves her hand away, the pink of her flesh shows through the dark brown of her skin. She looks at her palm, which is red with blood, while still more blood courses down her face, some of it pooling in her ear, most of it cascading onto the collar of her woolen coat, turning the bright blue wool brownish black.
Yet as terrible a sight as that is, what has riveted the attention of the people below on the street and Leslie and Cynthia as well is the nanny’s little charge, a sinewy, long-legged, dark-haired, pale child of two or three, a boy, to judge from his clothes—red sneakers, blue jeans, and a little satin New York Giants jacket. He is sitting calmly in his stroller with his hands folded in his lap, his eyes expressionless, and blood drooling out of his mouth.
“Did that fucking baby just bite his nanny?” Cynthia exclaims.
According to Alex, the most irritating aspect of their appointment with Dr. Kis is that there is no way to fly directly to Slovenia unless they fly private. So he books Lufthansa first class to Munich, with a connecting flight on something called Adria, where first class will probably get you nothing more than a larger bag of pretzels. And so, on the afternoon of November 18, they set off on what Leslie hopes is the very last stop on their quest for a
Similar Books
A Dose of Murder
Lori Avocato
Natalie Acres
Sex Retreat [Cowboy Sex 6]
Behind the Yellow Tape: On the Road With Some of America's Hardest Working Crime Scene Investigators
Jarrett Hallcox, Amy Welch
Revenge
David Pilling
The Night Watch
Sarah Waters
Revenge of the Geek
Piper Banks
Longarm and "Kid" Bodie (9781101622001)
Tabor Evans
Saved by the SEAL
Diana Gardin
Center Stage
Bernadette Marie