I Heard That Song Before Read Online Free PDF

reception. Before I even had time to thank him, Slater added, “We have a photographer who will take pictures. We do ask that your guests refrain from using their own cameras.”
    “As you probably guessed, we’ll give a brief report about the literacy campaign,” I told him. “It would mean a lot if Mr. Carrington would say a few words of greeting.”
    “He’s planning to do that,” Slater said. Then he added, “Before I forget, it goes without saying that the staircases leading upstairs will be roped off.”
    I had been hoping to slip upstairs for an adult view of the chapel. Sometimes, over the years, I’d wondered if I should have revealed to Maggie the angry conversation I heard there, but she would have been angry at me for going into the house, and besides, what could I tell her? I had heard a man and a woman quarreling about money. If I thought that quarrel had anything to do with Susan Althorp’s disappearance, I certainly would have reported it, even years later. But if there was one thing Susan Althorp would never have had to do, it was to plead for money from anyone. So the only thing my revelation would establish was that I’d been a curious six-year-old.
    Before the caterer and I left that day, I did glance down the corridor, hoping to see the door to the library open and Peter Carrington come out. For all I knew, he was halfway around the world. But because many executives take the Friday after Thanksgiving off, I fantasized that if he was in the house, I’d run into him.
    It didn’t happen. I contented myself with the knowledge that December 6th was less than two weeks away, and I’d get to see him then. Then I tried to push away the realization that if for any reason Peter didn’t attend the reception, I would be desperately disappointed. I’ve been dating Glenn Taylor, Ph.D., associate dean of science at Columbia University, with increasing regularity. We had met while having coffee in a Starbucks, helping that establishment to live up to its reputation as a great place for singles to make friends.
    Glenn is thirty-two, transplanted from Santa Barbara, and is about as laid back as any Californian ever born. He even looks as though he’s from there—after six years of living on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, his hair still retains a sun-streaked look. He’s just tall enough to let me be not quite eye level when I’m wearing heels, and he shares my passion for the theatre. I think in the past couple of years we’ve gone to most of the Broadway and off-Broadway shows, using discounted tickets of course. No business-page editor ever wrote a story about the year-end bonus a librarian received, and Glenn is still paying off his school loans.
    In a way, we love each other and certainly we count on each other. Sometimes Glenn even speculates that, with my side of the brain into literature and his into science, we’d have a chance at producing awesome offspring. But I know that we’re not anywhere near the emotional level of Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester, or Cathy and Heathcliff.
    It may be that I’ve set my standards too high, but ever since I was young, I’ve been into the classic love stories of the Brontë sisters.
    From the beginning, something about Peter Carrington had intrigued me, and I think I began to understand what it was. Seeing him sitting there alone in that crazy castlelike mansion was a haunting image. I wished I had had the chance to see what book he was reading. If it was one I had read myself, maybe I could have lingered for a few minutes to discuss it.
    “Oh, I see you have the new biography of Isaac Bashevis Singer,” I might have said. “Do you agree with the author’s interpretation of his personality? I thought he was a little unfair because…”
    You can see the way my mind was going.
    Then, the night before the reception, I went to Maggie’s house to pick her up for one of our regular pasta dinners. When I arrived, she was powdering her nose in the hall