Nine Women Read Online Free PDF Page B

kindly, maternal. “We can have one more drink and then I must get to the airport.”
    Automatically he took the drink, sipped. The peaty taste of good heavy Scotch filled his mouth. He glanced at the bottle: soda this time. He took a few comforting swallows. “Why do you say you have to fly?”
    “You can’t get beyond the fact that I came back to this house without a scratch on me,” she said soothingly. “That’s very misleading, you know. I died on that plane, I’m just not dead. I was supposed to be with my family. Now I have to go back and catch up with them. They’ll be expecting me, they’ll be wondering where I am.… Do you go to church?”
    “No, ma’am,” he said.
    “I used to go before, but I haven’t since.”
    “Did you think of killing yourself?” He regretted saying it, he wouldn’t want to give her ideas.
    “Yes, of course. I have a bottle of Seconal just for the purpose. But that wouldn’t work.”
    “It wouldn’t?”
    “Then I’d be lost and without them forever. You’ll understand if you give yourself time to think about it.” The round blue eyes urged him to try. “I have to find the right spot to enter.”
    She wiped the condensation off her glass. “They’ll wait for me, they’ll know I’m looking for the way. And one day I’ll find it. Do you see?”
    He shook his head.
    She took a deep patient breath. “There are airline fatalities, predictable ones. Inexorable. Unchangeable. So I fly.”
    He put his drink down abruptly. “You’re looking for a crash.”
    “I was almost on that plane in Chicago a few months ago … I fly constantly. It’s about the only way I have to spend my money.”
    “But the other people,” he said. “Don’t you ever think you’re killing the other people?”
    She laughed, clearly, brightly. “No, I don’t think I’m bad luck, or anything so ridiculous. If anyone dies, it’s chance. It’s not because of me.”
    “But you’re looking forward to it.”
    “Yes.” She spread her fingers, studying her fresh manicure. “Yes. With each and every flight.”
    “I believe you,” he said.
    “And now I really must go, or I’ll miss my connections. This is going to be such a busy trip. First I go to Denver, then St. Louis. I spend the night there and go on to San Francisco, and Los Angeles and San Diego. The following day I go to Phoenix and Midland and New Orleans. And then—I’m not sure where I spend the night—I go to Miami and Jacksonville and Atlanta and Louisville, then Washington, New York, Boston, and back home.”
    She would have covered the country, he thought. “Looking,” he said aloud.
    She patted his arm. “I thought you’d understand. I suppose it has to do with your being there.… You were out of time too, weren’t you? You don’t ordinarily drive by the airport?”
    “No, ma’am,” he said. “That wasn’t my regular way to work.”
    “You see? These little irregularities happen all the time. Mostly they’re like a stumble and you pick yourself up and you’re fine. It’s not often serious.”
    Her bags were in the hall, packed and waiting. He put them in her car. “Good-bye,” he said. “Maybe you’ll find it, you know. What you’re looking for.”
    “Oh yes,” she said, “I’m quite certain. On one of those planes, I’ll find it. Good-bye, Mr. Flanders.” She was radiantly happy, a perfect bride on the morning of her wedding.
    Jesus, he thought, she is crazy, out of it, spaced …
    “There’s just one thing, Mr. Flanders. And I’ve been wondering if I should say this, but are you all right?”
    “Yes,” he said, “I’m fine.”
    “Are you sure? That first Scotch was made with tonic—Elizabeth put out the wrong bottle again. You couldn’t have liked it, could you?”
    “I must not have noticed.” So who was crazy? Why hadn’t he said anything? Why had he drunk the damn stuff?
    She began to giggle, hesitated, then laughed out loud.
    He tried to look offended, gave up, and laughed