Passion's Promise Read Online Free PDF

where Camus and Sartre were still revered, and de Kooning and Pollock were gods. She walked along with a quick step and a little throb in her heart. It shouldn't matter so much . . . not at her age . . . not the way things were between them ... it shouldn't feel so good to be back ... it might all be different now. . . . But it did feel good to be back, and she wanted everything to be the same.
    "Hey girl. Where've you been?" A tall, lithe black man wallpapered into white jeans greeted her with surprise delight. 
    "George!" He swept her off her feet in a vast embrace and whirled her around. He was in the ballet corps of the Metropolitan Opera. "Oh, it's good to see you!" He deposited her, breathless and smiling, on the pavement beside him, and put an arm around her shoulders.
    "You've been gone for a mighty long time, lady." His eyes danced and his grin was a long row of ivory in the bearded midnight face.
    "It feels like it I almost wondered if the neighborhood would be gone."
    "Never! SoHo is sacred." They laughed and fell into step beside her. "Where're you going?"
    "How about The Partridge for coffee?" She was suddenly afraid to see Mark. Afraid that everything was different George would know, but she didn't want to ask him.
    "Make it wine, and I'm yours for an hour. We have rehearsal at six."
    They shared a carafe of wine at The Partridge. George drank most of it while Kezia played with her glass.
    "Know something, baby?"
    "What George?"
    "You make me laugh."
    "Terrific. How come?"
    "Because I know what you're so nervous about, and you're so damn scared you won't even ask me.
    You gonna ask or do I have to volunteer the answer?" He was laughing at her.
    "Is there something that maybe I don't want to know?"
    "Shit Kezia. Why don't you just go on up to his studio and find out? It's better that way." He stood up, put a hand in his pocket, and pulled out three dollars. "My treat You just go on home." Home? To Mark? Yes, in a way . . . even she knew it
    He shooed her out the door with another ripple of laughter, and she found herself in the familiar doorway across the street She hadn't even looked up at the window, but instead nervously searched strangers' faces.
    Her heart hammered as she ran up the five flights. She reached the landing, breathless and dizzy, and raised a hand to knock at the door. It flew open almost before she touched it and she was suddenly wrapped in the arms of an endlessly tall, hopelessly thin, fuzzy-haired man. He kissed her and lifted her into his arms, pulling her inside with a shout and a grin.
    "Hey, you guys! It's Kezia! How the hell are you, baby?"
    "Happy." He set her down and she looked around. The same faces, the same loft the same Mark.
    Nothing had changed. It was a victorious return. "Christ, it feels like I've been gone for a year!" She laughed again, and someone handed her a glass of red wine.
    "You're telling me. And now, ladies and gentlemen . . ." The endlessly tall young man bowed low, and swept an arm from his friends to the door. "My lady has returned. In other words, you guys, beat it!"
    They laughed good-naturedly and murmured hellos and goodbyes as they left. The door had barely closed when Mark pulled her into his arms again.
    "Oh baby, I'm glad you're home."
    "Me too." She slid a hand under his ragged, paint-splattered shut and smiled into his eyes.
    "Let me look at you." He slowly pulled her shut over her head, and she stood straight and still, her hair falling across one shoulder, a warm light in her rich blue eyes, a living reflection of the sketch of a nude that hung on the wall behind her. He had done it the previous winter, soon after they had met. She reached out to him slowly then, and he came into her arms smiling at the same moment that there was a knock at the door.
    "Go away!"
    "No, I won't." It was George.
    "Shit, motherfucker, what do you want?" He pulled open the door as Kezia darted bare-chested into the bedroom. George loomed large and smiling in the