Private Lies Read Online Free PDF Page B

teach him that even dedication and
obsession were not enough. And yet, not once did he ever inject himself into
his parents' psychological Ping-Pong, which seemed to permeate their lives when
he was in his late teens. He told himself that he had too much love for them
and too much delicacy to be involved in their marriage wars. Yet, in a profound
way, their words seemed to define himself to himself.
    To have this fierce maternal support that brooked no doubt
was an enormous motivating factor. Her early death from cancer had robbed him
of her supportive presence, but spared her from the ultimate realization of his
failure, although she might not have defined it that way. It could be argued
that he had made it as a writer. Couldn't it?
    There was guilt in it, of course. But it was always
mitigated in his own mind by the way he had said his farewells, hoping to
fulfill her most fervent wish by reading the entire seven volumes of Remembrance
of Things Past by Marcel Proust to her as she lay dying.
    "Thank God my Ken doesn't do anything halfway,"
she told him, drifting away with a smile, her hand in his. He had barely
finished Swann's Way , the first volume in the series.
    It was that kind of emotional baggage that Ken Kramer
carried into Carol Stein's home on that fateful day in early July.
    He had entered her family's modest red-brick row house on 108th Street in Forest Hills. Carol's mother ushered him into the living room where Carol
sat, her legs tucked under her, in the center of an overstuffed couch.
    Her mother had pointed him to an upholstered chair, one of
two beside the cocktail table in front of the couch where Carol sat. Carol's
mother took the other chair.
    Observing the room, Ken was struck by one central fact.
This family's life and fortunes were totally tied to Carol Stein's aspirations.
There were pictures in silver frames almost exclusively of Carol. Carol on a
pony. Carol in a tutu as a tot. A spindly Carol, all legs, dancing on her toes.
The exception was a wedding picture of two people who obviously were her
parents. Her father, with his thick glasses and doughy features, her mother,
all smiles and dimply in the picture. In real life the woman seemed far more
intense, extremely earnest. There was no doubt about it, his insight told him.
Her daughter's career was the only real spark in an otherwise colorless life.
    "We're very proud that she won," Mrs. Stein had
said, looking at Carol.
    There were lots of plants in the house, and spears of
sunlight coming through the window made Carol's eyes glow green. There was not
a spare ripple of flesh on her delicate kittenlike face, framed by black hair
parted in the middle. She was wearing a gray skirt that fringed perfect, smooth
kneecaps, and a white silk shirtwaist with a bow that flowed down to her chest.
    She struck him as a kind of living Dresden doll with creamy
skin and a shy smile and eyes that were alert and curious, not at all shy. He
remembered being drawn to them. From that first moment she had stirred
something in him.
    "Isn't she just a perfect Cinderella. That's the piece
she used from the second act when they're at the ball and..."
    "I'm sure Mr. Kramer knows the story of Cinderella,
Mama."
    "Well, it was hard work, you know," Mrs. Stein
said. "This is an art that requires absolute discipline and focus."
    "No artist can succeed without that," Ken said,
still locked into Carol's gaze. She seemed to offer her silent consent. He
wondered what impression he was making on her, knowing such a thought was a
distinctly unjournalistic response. He was, after all, the observer. What should
it matter how he was observed by his subject?
    "And how do you feel about winning first prize, Miss
Stein?" Ken asked, an open pad resting on his thigh, his ballpoint at the
ready.
    Carol hesitated, losing eye contact, observing her fingers,
looking uncomfortable as she groped for the right words.
    "She's still quite excited," Mrs. Stein said,
coming to her rescue as she