Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances Read Online Free PDF Page A

simple enjoyments, walking about in the fresh air and rapping with all sorts of people.
    Before she met Anton she had plenty of fun and no lack of attention from guys. There was a period of a few years when her refrigerator was almost bare, just bread, milk, butter and so forth and in the pantry coffee and a few tins. Food was no problem because she was asked out to dinner just about every night in the week. Men wanted her, not only for her looks but for her easy, reckless abandon. She was never a great lay: her lust died quickly and maintaining a sexual relationship was difficult for her. She would rather go out to dinner, or a movie, or the opera, or take a walk. Ex-lovers found themselves gravitating back to her, for friendship and a good time. She was genuinely liked, which was primarily what she wanted.
    That was over, there was Anton now, and she was just like any of the other of her married friends: she was happily hog-tied.
    In her office at shortly after three, she pored over schedules, using the phone, writing out airline tickets. She had lengthy conferences with a client who had become a friend as well, and one with a male client, a lawyer who generally drove her up the wall but who today was a pussycat. All went smoothly and at five-fifty-five she paperweighted a few piles of material, locked her desk, and left.
    She could see him standing there, as she neared the Genesco Building, a cigarette stuck between his lips, lean and handsome and looking expectant. She raised a hand, grinning, and he did the same. “Hi,” she called, rushing up to him.
    They kissed and then walked, hand in hand, uptown along Fifth. It was that lovely time of day with the sun at its strongest, like a fiery eye, so that a kind of golden sheen glazed streets and structures. “How was your day?” she asked him.
    “Çi, ça. Yours?”
    “I had lunch with the girls. Meryl, Helene, Ruth and Chris. I’m stuffed. Can we have a light dinner?”
    “An omelet?”
    “Yeah. With a green salad. Summer’s nice, isn’t it?”
    “It’s barely spring.”
    She was completely happy. She couldn’t imagine any other life but this one with Anton. Everything had led up to this unalloyed contentment, and it was all she would ever want.
    • • •
    Ruth and Christine, after making their way over to Fifth, crossed to the park side and started downtown. “You didn’t want to go shopping, did you?” Ruth asked.
    “No, I wanted to take advantage of this heavenly day, stay out in the fresh air.”
    “It’s probably anything but fresh, but pollution or no it feels like champagne.”
    It was indeed a rare day, a bonanza after the bum winter. Blue skies, like enamel. Cloisonné skies, speckled with delicate clouds that looked like pointillism. “How’s this for an improvement in the weather?” Ruth demanded. “I guess we’re set now, I doubt we’ll revert to icy blasts.”
    “No, I don’t think so. Just about time too. I’m so sick of wool scarves and lined gloves and bundling up like an Eskimo.”
    “It was a nice lunch.”
    “It was great. I missed Meryl the last time, when she was laid up with the flu.”
    “She looked fine today.”
    They walked down to Fifty-seventh Street, watched the Hare Krishna crew with their shaved pates and jingling bells. High-stepping it, cavorting and chanting. Ruth shrugged. “I suppose if they want to make jackasses out of themselves.”
    “Yes, well.”
    They retraced their steps, starting back. “Ever worry your kids will go overboard for something like that?”
    “Nancy’s too ambitious and Bruce is too square. Like me.”
    “The trouble is you’re not square.”
    “I wasn’t once but I am now. Sad to say. I’ve become a bore.”
    “Okay, what shall we do, go back to school? Pick up where we left off?”
    “I’d like to open a tiny shop somewhere. Over on Second, I guess. Gifts. Not run-of-the-mill garbage. Mad things, insane things nobody else has.”
    “Where would the capital come