Rose Madder Read Online Free PDF Page B

it had always been, and that was the way he expected it to always be. Spontaneity was not encouraged at 908 Westmoreland. If he called . . .
    She began walking again, knowing she had to get off Westmoreland Street at the next corner, even though she wasn’t entirely sure where Tremont went in either direction. That wasn’t important at this point, anyway; what mattered was that she was on her husband’s direct route if he came back from the city by way of I-295, as he usually did, and she felt as if she had been pinned to the bull’s-eye of an archery target.
    She turned left on Tremont and went walking past more quiet little suburban houses separated from each other by low hedges or lines of decorative trees—Russian olives seemed particularly in vogue down here. A man who looked like Woody Allen with his horn-rimmed glasses and freckles and his shapeless blue hat crushed down on top of his head looked up from watering his flowers and gave her a little wave. Everyone wanted to be neighborly today, it seemed. She supposed it was the weather, but she could have done without it. It was all too easy to imagine him coming along behind her later on, patiently working her backtrail, asking questions, using his little memory-stimulation tricks, and flashing her picture at every stop.
    Wave back at him. You don’t want him to register you as an unfriendly, unfriendlies have a way of sticking in the memory, so wave back and just slide along your way.
    She waved back and slid along her way. The need to peehad returned, but she would just have to live with it. There was no relief in sight—nothing ahead but more houses, more hedges, more pale green lawns, more Russian olives.
    She heard a car behind her and knew it was him. She turned around, eyes wide and dark, and saw a rusty Chevrolet creeping up the center of the street at little more than walking speed. The old man behind the wheel wore a straw hat and a look of terrified determination. She faced forward again before he could register her own look of fright, stumbled, then started walking resolutely with her head lowered. The pulsing ache in her kidneys had returned and her bladder was pounding, too. She guessed she had no more than a minute, possibly two, before everything let go. If that happened, she might as well kiss any chance of unnoticed escape goodbye. People might not remember a pale brownette walking up the sidewalk on a nice spring morning, but she didn’t see how they would be able to forget a pale brownette with a large dark stain spreading around the crotch of her jeans. She had to take care of this problem, and right away.
    There was a chocolate-colored bungalow two houses up on her side of the street. The shades were pulled; three newspapers lay on the porch. A fourth lay on the walk at the foot of the front steps. Rosie took a quick look around, saw no one observing her, then hurried across the lawn of the bungalow and down along its side. The back yard was empty. A rectangle of paper hung from the knob of the aluminum screen door. She went over, walking in cramped little steps, and read the printed message: Greetings from Ann Cosso, your local Avon Lady! Didn’t find you at home this time, but will come again! Thanks! And give me a call at 555-1731 if you want to talk about any of Avon’s fine products! The date scribbled at the bottom was 4/17, two days ago.
    Rosie took another look around, saw that she was protected by hedges on one side and Russian olives on the other, unsnapped and unzipped her jeans, and squatted in the niche between the back stoop and the LP gas tanks. It was too late to worry about who, if anyone, might be watching from the upper stories of either neighboring house. And besides, the relief made such questions seem—for the time being, at least—trivial.
    You’re crazy, you know.
    Yes, of course she knew . . . but as the pressure of her bladder decreased and the stream of