Moonlight Becomes You Read Online Free PDF Page B

nights aweek. The results of his efforts were apparent, and he was a compellingly attractive man with penetrating brown eyes that bespoke intelligence and an easy smile that inspired confidence. And, in fact, that confidence was well placed, for as his associates and friends knew, Neil Stephens missed very little.
    He smoothed down the sleeves of his jacket, remembering that his assistant, Trish, had hung it up this morning but pointedly ignored it when he had once again tossed it down after lunch.
    â€œThe other assistants get mad at me if I wait on you too much,” she had told him. “Besides, I do enough picking up after my husband. How much can a woman take?”
    Neil smiled at the memory, but then the smile faded as he realized that he had forgotten to call Maggie to get her phone number in Newport. Just this morning he had decided to go to Portsmouth next weekend for his mother’s birthday; that would put him just minutes away from Newport. Maggie had told him she would be staying there for a couple of weeks, with her stepmother. He had thought they would get together there.
    He and Maggie had been dating casually since early spring, when they met in a bagel shop on Second Avenue, around the corner from their East Fifty-sixth Street apartment buildings. They had begun chatting there whenever their paths crossed; they then bumped into each other one evening at the movies. They sat together and later walked over to Neary’s Pub for dinner.
    Initially, Neil liked the fact that Maggie apparently took the dates as casually as he did. There was no indication on her part that she viewed the two of them as anything more than friends with a shared interest in movies. She seemed as wrapped up in her job as he was in his.
    However, after six months of these occasional dates, thefact that Maggie continued to act uninterested in him as anything other than a pleasant film and dinner companion was beginning to annoy Neil. Without realizing it was happening, he had found himself becoming more and more intent on seeing her, on learning all he could about her. He knew that she had been widowed five years ago, something that she mentioned matter-of-factly, her tone suggesting that emotionally she had put that behind her. But now he had started wondering whether she had a serious boyfriend. Wondering and being worried about it.
    After puzzling for a minute, Neil decided to see if maybe Maggie had left her Newport number on her answering machine. Back at his desk, he listened to her recorded message: “Hi, this is Maggie Holloway. Thanks for calling. I’m out of town until October 13th.” The machine clicked off. Obviously she wasn’t interested in getting messages.
    Great, he thought glumly as he replaced the receiver and walked over to the window. Manhattan stretched before him, ablaze with lights. He looked at the East River bridges and remembered that when he had told Maggie his office was on the forty-second floor of the World Trade Center, she had told him about the first time she had gone for a cocktail at Windows on the World atop the center. “It was just becoming dusk. The lights of the bridges went on, and then all the buildings and streetlights started glowing. It was like watching a highborn Victorian lady put on her jewelry—necklace, bracelets, rings, even a tiara.”
    The vivid image had stayed with Neil.
    He had another image of Maggie as well, but this one troubled him. Three weeks ago, on Saturday, he had dropped in to Cinema I to see the thirty-year-old French classic A Man and a Woman. The theater wasn’t crowded, and halfway through the film, he had noticed that Maggie was sitting alone a few rows ahead of him, four seats over. He had beenabout to join her when he realized that she was crying. Silent tears coursed down her cheeks, and she held her hand to her mouth to prevent sobs, as she watched the story of a young widow who could not accept her husband’s