Fine things Read Online Free PDF Page B

her. But he didn't particularly want to discuss Isabelle with her. He hadn't taken her home to meet his parents, and he wasn't planning to. The two worlds would never have met successfully, although he knew that his father would have loved seeing her. Any man would have. She was spectacular.
    “What's she like?” His mother wouldn't let go, as usual.
    “She's a nice girl, Mom.”
    His mother smiled at him. “Somehow that doesn't seem the right description for her. She's certainly beautiful.” She saw her photographs everywhere, and she told all her friends. At the hairdresser she showed everyone “that girl …no, the one on the cover …she goes out with my son …” “Are you in love with her?” She was never afraid to ask what she wanted to know, but Bernie quailed when he heard the words. He wasn't ready for that, although he was crazy about her, but he still remembered all too well his foolishness when he was in Michigan …the engagement ring he had given Sheila on Valentine's Day, that she had thrown back at him …the wedding plans he had made …the day she walked out of his life, carrying her duffel bag and his heart. He never wanted to be in the same position again, and he had guarded himself carefully. But not from Isabelle Martin.
    “We're good friends.” It was all he could think of to say, and his mother stared at him.
    “I hope it's more than that.” She looked horrified, as though she suddenly suspected him of being a homosexual, and all he could do was laugh at her.
    “It is, okay? It's more than that…but nobody is getting married. All right? Satisfied? Now, what do you want for lunch?” He ordered steak and she ordered filet of sole and she pressed him about everything he was doing for the store. They were almost friends now, and he saw his parents less than he had when he first came back to New York. He didn't have much time, particularly with the arrival of Isabelle in his life.
    He took her to Europe with him when he went on business that fall and they made a sensation everywhere they went. They were inseparable, and just before Christmas she moved in with him, and Bernie finally had to give in and take her to Scarsdale, much as he dreaded it. She was perfectly pleasant to his parents, although she didn't gush over them, and she made it clear to him that she wasn't interested in seeing a lot of them.
    “We have so little time alone …” She pouted so perfectly, and he loved making love to her. She was the most exquisite woman he had ever seen, and sometimes he just stood staring at her as she put her makeup on or dried her hair or got out of the shower, or walked in the door carrying her portfolio. Somehow she made one want to freeze-frame and just stand there gazing at her.
    His mother had even been subdued when they met. Isabelle had a way of making one feel very small, standing next to her, except Bernie, who had never felt more of a man with anyone. Her sexual prowess was remarkable, and their relationship was based on passion more than love. They made love almost everywhere, the bathtub, the shower, the floor, the back of his car one Sunday afternoon when they took a drive to Connecticut. They almost did it in the elevator once, and then came to their senses as they approached their floor and knew the doors were about to open. It was as though they couldn't stop, and he could never get quite enough of her. For that reason, he took her to France again in the spring, and then back out to East Hampton again, but this time they saw more people than they had before, and there was a movie producer who snagged her eye one night at a party on the beach at Quogue, and the next day Bernie couldn't find her anywhere. He found her on a yacht, moored nearby, making love to the producer from Hollywood on the deck, as Bernie stood for an instant staring at them, and then hurried away with tears in his eyes, realizing something he had hidden from for a long time. She wasn't just a great lay and a