In the Kingdom of Men Read Online Free PDF Page A

not much,” I said.
    “It doesn’t take much. You’re always beautiful.” He pulled me to his shoulder, let his burger get cold while I cried, then drove me to Foley’s, sat and watched while I tried on dresses, blouses, a new kind of stretch pants, the saleswomen clucking. By the time we got home, I had a wardrobe, a word I’d never spoken before. I used every hanger we owned. We made love standing up in the kitchen, me in my shiny patent leathers. Shameless, I thought, but who was there to see? Any remnant of belief I might have had in an all-knowing God was gone.
    Mason had me sit down while he scrambled some eggs. Iwatched as he cut my toast into triangles, thought how he wasn’t like any man I’d ever known, then raised my eyes to the ivy that had grown and tacked itself to the wall above the sink. I’d started to pull it free once, but I couldn’t bear the noise of it ripping, the rusty imprint of its rooting like dabs of dried blood. Every time I started to feel happy, the world came back to knock me down like happiness was something I had to pay for.
    “I don’t want to be here anymore,” I said. I didn’t know if I meant in that house or in Houston. Maybe I meant my own life. “I wish we could leave this all behind.”
    Mason didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. My dead mother’s voice was already in my head:
Be careful what you wish for
.
    The next day, Mason came home lit up like a firecracker. His supervisor had recommended him to an Aramco recruiter. “Drilling foreman,” he said. “Double my salary, maybe more, tax-free. All we have to do is move to Arabia.”
    I couldn’t hear what he was telling me, so he said it again. “Saudi Arabia, a place called Abqaiq, all fenced and guarded. Everything we want, just like living in a country club.” He sat me down, had me imagine: our own home, private swimming pool, golf course, movie theater, the best doctors money could buy—and all of it paid for by the Arabian American Oil Company. “When we get back, we’ll have enough money to buy you all the new clothes you want.” He held my shoulders, bent a little to look into my eyes. “Nice house, big diamond ring, that’s what you want, isn’t it, Gin?” I tried to remember if I had ever wanted such things. He gave me a squeeze, a little shake as though he needed to get something out of me. “I don’t want to be just scraping by for the rest of my life,” he said. “I was on my way somewhere. I need to feel that again.”
    I rested my ear against his chest, felt his heart pounding fast, already racing ahead.
    Over the next few weeks, what we couldn’t sell, we gave away. When Mason carried the bassinet out the door, free to a derrickmanwhose wife was expecting their third, I watched through the kitchen window, gave the ivy a little more water. Maybe the next wife would find it there, let it grow. Maybe she’d think it too much trouble and tear it free, planning wallpaper, a double coat of eggshell enamel.
    I packed all the clothes I owned, my new pair of shoes, my mother’s old boots. “Best to leave the books at home,” Mason said, but I folded
Gone with the Wind
into my sweater anyway. Valentine’s Day, 1967, the redbuds near bursting, I boarded the first plane of my life, smart in my new Jantzen suit. Other passengers arranged their blankets and pillows, settling in for the flight to New York. Behind us, several rows of women chatted and laughed.
    Mason motioned to the back. “Aramco wives being shipped over. You could be with them instead of me.”
    I stole a glance to where they giggled like schoolgirls, then turned and rested my head on Mason’s shoulder. I’d never been comfortable in the company of women, unsure of what they expected of me. With men, at least, I knew.
    Mason pulled my knuckles to his lips, kissed them twice. “For luck,” he said. I clutched his hand a little tighter, smelled the aftershave he’d slapped on the back of his neck where the barber had