Leap Year Read Online Free PDF

“Gregory’s on one,” she said.
    “Okay,” Loren said. “Look.” She pointed to the ant.
    “What is it?” asked Stacey.
    “It’s an ant. How do you think it got up here?”
    “It probably came in on your person,” Stacey said. “Oh, FYI: Hannelore wants to put a scratch and sniff thing on the money market brochures. I heard her talking to Maureen in the bathroom.”
    “That’s really tacky,” Loren said. “What would it smell like?”
    “I don’t know,” said Stacey. “Money, I presume.”
    Loren picked up the phone. “Hello,” she said.
    “Finally,” said Gregory. “Listen, this has got to be quick. Do you want to have dinner out tonight? I thought it might be nice.”
    “Sure,” said Loren.
    “What about Provence? At seven?”
    “Okay,” said Loren.
    “Great. Can you make a reservation? I’m going into a meeting.”
    “Sure,” said Loren. “I’ll see you later. Bye.” She hung up. The ant was gone, but Stacey was still standing in the doorway. “Could you call Provence and make a reservation for two at seven?” Loren asked her.
    Fuck you, thought Stacey. Make your own dinner reservation. “Sure,” she said.
    David and Lillian were walking around the Central Park Reservoir, trying to stay out of the way of the people running around it. This early evening promenade had become a weekly tradition since the arrival of spring.
    “You wouldn’t believe what I did today,” said Lillian.
    “What?” asked David.
    “We’re doing this promotion thing for the Canadian Tourist Board, so we rented this horse and hired a model to dress up as a Canadian Mountie. He was going to ride it around the park at lunchtime and hand out maple leaves. Great, right? So the horse arrives and we immediately get a ticket from the police because you can’t have a horse in the street without a permit. Apparently you can ride a horse in the park but you can’t ride a horse to the park. It has to be born there or something. Anyway, we get the friggin’ horse to the park and the model shows up, but of course he can’t ride. He swore he could but he fell off twice. So that kind of spoiled the Mountie effect. It was pretty pathetic.”
    “It sounds funny,” said David.
    “Only in retrospect,” said Lillian.
    “Most of life is like that.”
    “Do you think so? I think just the opposite: I think stuff is funny while it’s happening and then in retrospect I see how pathetic it is. At least that’s how I see my life. How’s your life these days?”
    “I don’t know,” said David. “Funny and pathetic, I guess.”
    “How’s Heath?” Lillian asked.
    “He’s great. This gallery in SoHo is going to show his photographs.”
    “Really? That is great.”
    They walked down an incline to check out the people on the tennis courts. Everyone was playing seriously and joylessly, like prisoners who were forced to recreate at gunpoint. David and Lillian continued their stroll. The sun had set behind the castles of Central Park West, and the water had turned dark and choppy. Lillian put her hand through David’s arm. Every time someone ran by they could hear Walkman refuse: snatches of tinny music, hovering in the air, then evaporating.
    They walked for a while without talking, watching the light drain from the sky, the birds skim low over the water.
    “I love the park. It’s all so pretty,” said Lillian.
    “It’s a nice night,” said David.
    “I’m glad spring is here. I really needed a change. I was going crazy. Sometimes I think it’s all a trick, though. God makes the weather change, and we feel like we’ve changed. Doesn’t it feel like things have changed?”
    David looked up at the sky. It was smudged around the edges with clouds. “Kind of,” he said. “I know what you mean.”
    “But nothing’s really changed,” said Lillian. “It’s just a trick.”
    “What do you want to change?”
    “I want my whole life to change,” said Lillian.
    “So change it,” said David.
    Lillian