Nine Women Read Online Free PDF Page A

air. “Do you know you’re the first person to mention the accident to me since I left the hospital.”
    “If you could give me just a few minutes.”
    “That’s about all I’ve got, I have a two o’clock flight. But come in.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” he said.
    “Will you have a drink?” A polite lift of eyebrows. “I only have Scotch—that’s what I drink—I so rarely have company.”
    “If you’re having one, I will too.”
    “On the porch,” she said. “I always have my lunchtime drink out there.”
    The porch was glass-enclosed and comfortable, all white wicker and striped canvas cushions.
    “Robert always came home for lunch,” she said. “That’s one of the advantages of a small town. We would have a drink out here. Even in winter, even when it was snowing, he liked this porch.”
    On the low table there was a bottle of Scotch, ice, two small bottles of soda, and two glasses.
    Two glasses, he thought, two. So she hadn’t forgotten him.…
    She said, as if she’d heard his thought, “No, I really had forgotten you. Elizabeth leaves the bar things here before she goes home, just the way she’s done for the last eight years.” A pause so long that he lifted his head. She smiled vaguely. “It has been a while since anyone used Robert’s glass.”
    She fixed his Scotch and soda quickly, handed it to him with a linen napkin tucked neatly beneath, then poured hers on the rocks. “Do you know, for a while when I first came back, after the accident, I would pour Robert’s drink and then I would sit here and wait for him to come in.” She smiled gently, self-deprecatingly. “I thought somehow that if I arranged things the way they used to be, I could compel Robert to come back.” Again a shrug. “Is that drink all right?”
    “Yes, ma’am, it’s fine. I was just admiring your garden.”
    “Robert liked it so very much. You know, Mr. Flanders, you can’t do a story. I don’t want any publicity, none at all. I didn’t think of that when I talked to you, or I could have saved you the trouble of driving all the way here.”
    “My station doesn’t want to do a story. That isn’t why I came. I just wanted to see, well, how things had come out.” His words sounded silly. And his Scotch and soda tasted very strange.
    She listened politely, faintly puzzled, not very interested.
    “You see, I was the first person to reach the plane.”
    He had expected some reaction from her—surprise or disgust or anger. But she did not react at all. She went on patiently waiting, sipping her drink.
    He took a deep breath and tried again. “I was the one to find you.”
    “I don’t remember,” she said.
    “Nobody expects you to, I guess. But still I thought you might.”
    “No.”
    “I came to the hospital but they said no visitors, and I didn’t want to intrude on you here at home.”
    “Until now.”
    “Until now when I had a special reason.” How could he tell her that he’d come because she haunted his dreams and kept him awake at night.
    The telephone rang. He jumped, the ice rattled in his glass. “Is the bell too loud?” she said. There was a wall phone behind her; she answered it while he stirred his drink with one finger.
    “No,” she said crisply, “no, I’m not coming in next week. I’m sure I told you.” She listened, one hand absentmindedly patting her hair. “I explained it all to the doctor.… No, no matter who pays for it… It’s a waste of time.” She laughed out loud, a startling girlish sound. “He thinks I should … how silly. Now, please, I’m busy and I haven’t time to argue.”
    She sat down, the pleats of her navy skirt falling neatly and precisely to each side. “That’s rather amusing. My psychiatrist thinks I should continue treatment.… Have you ever been? No? A very strange treatment, talking and talking.”
    “I’ve heard it’s very expensive.” Thinking: That was a different woman on the phone, firm, steady, no nervous flutters or