Car Pool Read Online Free PDF

rose. “A relationship isn’t something you can notarize. Don’t you want to talk about it? That’s all you ever want to do.”
    “I’ve been trying to talk to you for two weeks, but you’re just not there. So I have nothing to say,” Anthea said, forcing her voice to steely calm. “You, on the other hand, had plenty to tell me. But you didn’t say a word. You’ve forgone your right to ask for my consideration.”
    “You have got to be the most wooden person I
    have ever met!” Lois’s voice peaked at a shrill. “Can’t you show some emotion for once?”
    “Is that why you did it? To make me feel something? That’s … sick.”
    “You said you forgave me that nothing little fling, but you’ve been about as warm as a glacier ever since. You don’t have a spontaneous bone left in your body. Not that you were ever open to being spontaneous.”
    “Is ‘spontaneous’ a new euphemism for thinking with your crotch? I’m not spontaneous because I’m not sleeping around?” Anthea bit her lower lip to steady her voice. “Is spontaneous what you are? Do I call you that instead of deceitful?”
    “Even when you’re pissed off, you’re anal retentive. You don’t even care enough about me to get mad,” Lois said. “You don’t have a real emotion in your entire body.”
    Anal retentive — well, she’d let that go by. Her voice was even and low as she said, “Would you feel better if I yelled and threw things? You used to think my… even temper was a good point.”
    “It doesn’t outweigh your negatives. So you have a nice house but the silence in here is deafening.”
    “And you liked the vacations, didn’t you? And the season tickets to Berkeley Rep and the Women’s Philharmonic and the San Francisco Ballet and—”
    “And that’s another thing. I’m tired of the crushing obligation I feel just because you pay for all the luxuries. I never forget it.” Lois exhaled loudly. “I’m still in the doghouse about that lousy vase.”
    “I never said anything —”
    “I know, but the place where it was is still
    empty. It’s like you’re reproaching me every second of every day.”
    “It wasn’t special—”
    “But it was yours. Everything in here is yours.”
    “When did you start hating that that’s the way it was?” Anthea was truly bewildered now. What had Lois expected from her — community property without any commitment? Anthea had hinted that she would like to register as domestic partners, but Lois had shrugged it off.
    Lois was shaking her head. “Oh, I don’t know. You’re stifling me. You can’t blame me for looking for fun somewhere else.”
    “Oh, I see. This is my fault,” Anthea said with a mocking smile. “I’m not the one having an affair with the other woman in our car pool. So okay, don’t call me adventurous.”
    “I won’t call you a lesbian either. The closet you live in is so tight I can’t breathe. I’ve had enough of it.” Lois stalked out of the kitchen, the crack of her heels echoing irately over the tile.
    It’s not fair, Anthea thought. She acts like I forced her to sleep with Celia. She realized she was still holding her briefcase. She set it down in its accustomed place next to the living room door. She wasn’t going to follow Lois to fight. It wasn’t worth it. She needed to think.
    She stepped out onto the deck. Following the redwood railing, she walked to the end farthest from the house where the wind was the strongest. Loose tendrils of hair at her temples whipped back from her eyes. From here she could see the flickering lights of Marin, fifteen miles or more — two bridges
    and a big bay away. Yesterday’s rain had left the air clear and sharp, and it had brought the temperature up to a mellow mid-sixty range. At her feet, seemingly close enough to touch, she watched someone’s headlights illuminating the incline behind the Claremont Hotel on their way up to this neighborhood. She wished she had brought a cigarette outside with her,