Couples Read Online Free PDF Page B

light, that’s why the lamb isn’t doing and everything is so late . It appealed to Foxy that Bea, though Roger was so rich his money was a kind of joke to the others, so rich he apparently barely pretended to work and went in to Boston mostly to have lunch and play squash, was her own cook, and so indifferent at it. Janet Appleby had told her that one of the things they and their friends loved about Tarbox was that there were no country clubs or servants; it’s so much more luxurious to live simply . Bea opened the oven door and gingerly peeked in and shut it in a kind of playful fright. The flesh of her upperarm bore a purplish oval blue that might have been a bruise. When she laughed an endearing gap showed between her front teeth. My dear, you’re wonderful, I’m so envious. So envious . Now the touch of her hand was wet, from handling the drink. Foxy left the kitchen feeling still unsettled.
    April was her second month of pregnancy and she had hoped the primordial queasiness would ebb. It offended her, these sensations of demur and rebuke from within. She had long wanted to be pregnant and, having resented her husband’s prudent postponement, his endless education, now wondered, at the age of twenty-eight, if the body of a younger woman would have felt less strain. She had imagined it would be like a flower’s unresisted swelling, a crocus pushing through snow.
    Candlelight rendered unsteady a long table covered by an embroidered cloth. Foxy held herself at attention; her stomach had lifted as if she were in flight above this steaming miniature city of china and goblets and silver flickering with orange points. Namecards in a neat round hand had been arranged. Roger Guerin seated her with a faintly excessive firmness and precision. She wanted to be handled driftingly and felt instead that a long time ago, in an incident that was admittedly not her fault but for which she was nevertheless held to account, she had offended Roger and made his touch hostile. The cloud of the consommé’s warmth enveloped her face and revived her poise. In the liquid a slice of lemon lay at fetal peace. Foxy waited instinctively for grace. Instead there was the tacit refusal that has evolved, a brief bump of silence they all held their breaths through. Then Bea’s serene spoon tapped into the soup, the spell was broken, dinner began.
    Roger on her right asked Foxy, “Your new house, the Robinson place. Are you happy in it?” Swarthy, his fingernailslong and buffed, her host seemed older than his age; his dark knitting eyebrows made constant demands upon the rest of his face. His mouth was the smallest man’s mouth she had ever seen, a snail’s foot of a mouth.
    She answered, “Quite. It’s been primitive, and probably very good for us.”
    The man on her left, the bald dentist Thorne, said, “Primitive? Explain what you mean.”
    The soup was good, clear yet strong, with a garnish of parsley and a distant horizon of sherry: she wanted to enjoy it, it was lately so rare that she enjoyed food. She said, “I mean primitive. It’s an old summer house. It’s cold. We’ve bought some electric heaters for our bedroom and the kitchen but all they really do is roast your ankles. You should see us hop around in the morning; it’s like a folk dance. I’m so glad we have no children at this point.” The table had fallen silent, listening. She had said more than she had intended. Blushing, she bent her face to the shallow amber depths where the lemon slice like an embryo swayed.
    “I understand,” Freddy Thorne persisted, “the word ‘primitive.’ I meant explain why you thought it was good for you.”
    “Oh, I think any hardship is good for the character. Don’t you?”
    “Define ‘character.’ ”
    “Define ‘define.’ ” She had construed his Socratic nagging as a ploy, a method he had developed with women, to lead them out. After each utterance, there was a fishy inward motion of his lips as if to demonstrate how