Riverside Park Read Online Free PDF Page B

Amanda, making the leather creak. “I will tell my mother about my American Thanksgeeving. I haf—”He looked down a moment and then raised his head to meet her eyes directly. “I say how kind you are.”
    â€œOur family is very fond of you, Miklov. You’ve made a big difference in our children’s lives.” Because out here they miss their father terribly. So do I .
    Miklov’s eyes traveled down to Amanda’s mouth for just a second and then he turned away, searching for the door handle. When he found it he stopped again and turned around. “You understand how beautiful you are, yes?”
    Amanda’s eyes widened. And then she laughed a little. “Why, thank you.”
    He made a fist and pounded his heart twice. “I feel it there. For you. You are so beautiful.”
    Oh, save it, Mickey-Luck! she thought. It is being American that you think is beautiful, our money is beautiful, this ridiculously expensive truck is beautiful, having a family is beautiful!
    â€œSee you tomorrow,” she told him.
    He looked disappointed as he got out. Then he turned around, ducking his head back into the truck. “People think I am a peasant but I am not,” he said in a rush. “My great-grandfather was a great general. My father went to school, he was a teacher. I am not a peasant, Mrs. Stewart!”
    Somewhat startled, Amanda said, “Everyone knows you are a champion soccer player, Miklov, and an excellent teacher. And in America that is all that matters.”
    Miklov was searching her eyes and it made Amanda uncomfortable. But then his dark mood seemed to lift and hesmiled, closed the door and walked away from the truck. He did not look back.
    Amanda took a deep breath and regripped the steering wheel. Miklov was very attractive.
    She set out to find soy milk.

4
    Celia Cavanaugh
    IT SUCKED BIG-TIME that she had to work. This was the first time in four years that Celia had the apartment to herself over a holiday weekend. But she did have to work, three until eleven tonight, three until two Friday and Saturday, and then three until ten on Sunday. Normally she cleaned up in tips over the weekend but on Thanksgiving? It might be okay today but she knew it would be dead over the weekend. To meet December’s rent she was going to need an extra shift this week.
    Celia and Rachel had been assigned as roommates in a freshman dorm at Columbia University. Celia did not have many Jewish friends in the Connecticut suburb she had grown up in, and Rachel did not have many white Anglo-Saxon Protestant friends in the New Jersey suburb she had grown up in, but they had hit it off in a big way and learned a lot from each other. For example, Rachel introduced Celia to lox and bagels, while Celia, Rachel joked, had introduced her to margarine and instant mashed potatoes. Both girls came from affluent families, had parents still married to each other, and had done well in their suburban training in piano, tennis, skiing and keeping secrets.
    Celia’s father was a partner at a Wall Street law firm, while Rachel’s last name was synonymous with the largest independent truck leasing company in the world. Her father was really, really rich. So rich, in fact, that he had bought a two and a half bedroom apartment on Riverside Drive so his daughter could move out of the dorm her sophomore year. Celia was welcomed to move in with Rachel as along as she paid sixteen hundred dollars a month toward expenses. Celia’s father asked why the heck should they pay sixteen hundred dollars a month to let her run wild when Celia could stay in the dorm for six hundred dollars a month and let her mother sleep at night. The girls put their heads together and figured out if they could just find someone who’d pay Celia’s rent for the full-size bedroom, Celia could pay Rachel six hundred dollars a month and cram herself into the tiny maid’s room off the kitchen, and then Rachel would