Cheapskate in Love Read Online Free PDF Page A

the woman in
question.
    “Confused. She couldn’t make up her mind.” Bill could see a
clear distinction between Susan’s wavering uncertainty about him and Linda’s
harsh rejections.
    “Sounds crazy to me,” Marie stated decisively.
    “If it’s so easy to make up your mind, why don’t you stop
smoking? You’ve already had one stroke.”
    Bill spoke without meaning to offend his sister. As the
eldest child, he had a habit of passing advice to Marie, even though it was
seldom wanted, and he seldom accepted any in return. If he had not been trying
to watch the television, perhaps he would have perceived that she was in an
unusually nervous, agitated state and been more guarded in what he said. But
the honest words were out, and Marie began to cry. She extinguished the
cigarette she was smoking in an ashtray, adding to the many cigarette butts
already there. As tears trickled from her eyes, she whimpered and quivered like
a miniature dog.
    Annoyed that his television time was spoiled by an outburst
of tears, Bill was no longer distracted and said gruffly, “OK, OK, we can talk
about something else. What did you call for?”
    After wiping her eyes and sniffling, she asked, “Has uncle
Joe called you?”
    “No, I haven’t heard from him,” Bill said.
    Marie sniffled again and tried to shake off any lingering
tearfulness. “I wonder how he’s doing.”
    “If you’re concerned, call him up. He’s your uncle, too.”
After a slight pause, in a more pleasant tone, Bill added, “By the way, I think
I’ll come over Sunday for dinner. Is that all right? Linda and I probably won’t
be back together again by then.”
    “There won’t be anything special,” she responded, without
sounding in the least delighted at his coming. She sat up straighter, brushing
away any sign of moisture on her cheeks. She took another cigarette out of the
pack and lit it.
    “I know,” Bill said. “You’ve probably never watched a
cooking show in your life.”
    “I have, too,” Marie insisted. “Every Tuesday at seven
o’clock...”
    Before she could recite all the occasions on which she had
seen cooking shows and what she had learned, Bill cut in, “Well, I have to go.
Have to get up early for my commute. It’s a two-hour trip, you know.
Goodnight.”
    “Goodnight,” she said, deciding that she was not going to
exert herself at all for the Sunday meal. In fact, she would wait a day and
tell him that he had to bring some side dishes, if he wanted anything to go
with the baked chicken she would pick up at the grocery store. That would stop
him from taking her for granted, she thought.
    Bill put his Blackberry down, relieved to be back in the
privacy of his own reflections, as depressed as they were. Why were women so
unreasonable, he thought. Why was it so hard for his
sister to simply pick up the phone and call their uncle, rather than work
herself into an emotional frenzy and call him? And what sense was there in her
crying, when she knows she ought to quit smoking? Can’t they think , he wondered. He concluded that they couldn’t. That’s why they can be such nuisances, he said
to himself. With that question settled, he unmuted the television’s sound,
drank some scotch, and picked out two more chocolates from the box to chomp on.
He was sure that he, being a man, could think.
    When the box was picked clean and the scotch finished, Bill
drifted away from the blare and blaze of the television, away from the haunting
memories of his past, into a troubled sleep, stretched out on the couch.
Stirred into consciousness by the television at one point during the night, he
turned it off and continued to sleep on the couch, still fully clothed.
    At five in the morning on Friday, when he should have
started to dress for work, he was startled awake by the arrival of a text
message on his Blackberry. He sat up, groggy from a poor night’s rest on the
flimsy couch. Checking the message, he saw it was from Linda. It read: