Rich Friends Read Online Free PDF Page B

share with him, had called his father’s factory in Brooklyn, S&G Shoes. Dan worked there.
    â€œDid he say anything else?”
    â€œSure.”
    She tilted her head questioningly.
    â€œHe’s got a girl for me to meet. She’s loaded. A shadchan found—”
    â€œA shad —a what?”
    â€œA marriage broker.”
    Slowly she wiped fishy cream cheese from her fingers, gazing at him. Voices and blue coils of smoke rose from the next table. Dan went to services Saturday mornings, ate no shellfish or any part of a pig, never creamed his coffee after a meat meal: this, without really thinking it through, she had accepted. Dan was religious. Lloyd confessed and got up early for Mass, the Wynans went every Sunday morning to St. Mark’s. Dan did these things. A marriage broker? She kept staring into almond-shaped blue eyes set above broad Slavic cheekbones. This was Dan Grossblatt. Her Dan. Twenty-six. When he stood he would be the same height as she in Cuban heels. (He was so full of vitality that she never felt too tall.) He was warm. He was generous—but got pretty brutal if she mentioned it. As a kid he had listened to “The Happiness Boys,” Billy Jones and Ernie Hare, had known Ming of Mongo and the Katzenjammers and Tom Swift, had half-backed his high school football team, had graduated from the University of Michigan, had been mustered out a captain in the Army, he was hot for the King Cole Trio, he laughed at Bob Hope and Red Skelton, one after the other, on Sunday nights. Dan was, God knows, more all-American than Lloyd with his slide rule and Bach. Yet here he was, Dan, talking matter-of-factly about something from another world, another age. A marriage broker?
    â€œThat’s some expression,” he said.
    â€œI didn’t know there were those people. Not anymore. Why? What does your father want?”
    â€œA rich girl for me.”
    â€œShe’s probably a dog,” Beverly said. “Is she?”
    â€œWhat? Loaded?”
    â€œPretty?”
    â€œLike Lana Turner, he heard, and what’s so hot about that? I told him to forget it.” Dan traced the threadlike scar under her lip and she kissed his finger with a tiny, popping sound.
    â€œBuzz,” he said quietly. “You’re right. I’m no Jack Armstrong.”
    Beverly, although sensitive to people’s pain, was fairly dense about their other emotions. But she understood Dan. He understood her. They were crazy in love, but that wasn’t why they understood one another. Dan never hid his feelings from her. His warmth, she realized, drew her out. Also he was shrewd about people. Often—like now—he could tell her what she was thinking.
    When they left Steinberg’s a soft rain fell. “Come on,” Dan said, taking her hand, starting to run. Sodden leaves mushed under the boots she’d chosen at Saks. In the park were swings that waited for children who didn’t play in the rain. Dan gripped a metal chain. “Here,” he said. “Dan, I never can get myself started.” “So I’ll push you.” And he did, shouting, “Pump!” each time. Beverly, laughing, kicking her new boots on the upswing, tucking them under as she went back. “Enough, Dan,” she called, “I’m on my own steam.” But he kept shoving his palms on her back until she semicircled as high as possible. He sat on the next swing. Bare twigs pendulous with water raced at her. Every breath delighted. Already Dan was high as she. Rain matted his thick brown hair and he looked, as always, packed with energy. He started to laugh. She laughed, too. “Oh Dan. Dan, Dan, Dan.”
    That was the night he told her.
    They were outside Aunt Pauline’s building in his new Packard convertible, a welcome-home gift from his father, bought, Dan had told her, with an exorbitant bonus.
    He had been at the liberation of Buchenwald.
    Words came at her. She