Skylight Confessions Read Online Free PDF

Cynthia called after him.
    "God, I love your husband," Cynthia told Arlie.
    Arlyn blinked when she heard that remark. There was a scrim of pollen in the air. She stared at Cynthia: her pouty mouth, her long eyelashes.
    "Not like that!" Cynthia assured her when she saw the expression on Arlyn's face. "Stop thinking those evil thoughts. I'm your friend, honey."
    Friends as different as chalk and cheese. They disagreed on politics and people, on fashion and homemaking. More than anything, they disagreed on Sam.
    "You should have him tested," Cynthia always said, just because he liked to be alone and preferred playing with blocks to making friends, because he didn't speak in the presence of strangers, because of the look of concentration Cynthia mistook for an odd, troubling detachment. "Something is off. And if I wasn't your friend I wouldn't bother to tell you."
    Well, Arlie had finally had him evaluated and it turned out Sam had a near-genius IQ. There was some concern over one of the tests; Sam had refused to answer the series with the pictures, he'd just put his head on the psychologist's desk and hummed, pretending he was a bee. What on earth was wrong with that? Sam was imaginative and creative, too much so for silly personality tests. And a little boy had a right to be tired, didn't he?
    "You're going to have problems with him," Cynthia warned.
    "He's pigheaded. He lives in his own world. Wait till he's a teenager. He's going to drive you crazy. Trust me, I know big trouble when I see it."
    It was the beginning of the end of Arlie's friendship with Cynthia. She didn't let on that she was disenchanted for quite a while, not even to herself. But the damage was done. Arlyn could not value someone who didn't value Sam. And now that the blindfold was off, Arlie couldn't help noticing how flirtatious Cynthia was. All at once she saw the way John looked at their neighbor during their Friday evening drink time. People thought because Arlie was young and freckled and quiet that she was stupid. She was not. She saw what was going on. She saw plenty.
    They were playing a game around the table when she first understood what was happening. I spy with my little eye.
    John had gone first and Cynthia had guessed correctly. John had
    "spied" the tipped-over pot of red geraniums. Then it was Cynthia's turn. She was looking at John's tie, a pale gray silk, the color of his eyes. She spied something silver. Something that was very attractive, she said. Cynthia had sounded a little drunk, and much too friendly. She had a grin on her face that shouldn't have been there, as though she knew John Moody wanted her.
    Arlyn glanced away. Even if nothing much had happened yet, it would. Arlie stared upward and noticed Sam at his window. He waved to her, as though they were the only two people in the world, his arm flapping. She blew him a kiss, up into the air, through the glass.
    Maybe that was the day when Arlyn left her marriage, or maybe it happened on the afternoon when she ran into George Snow at the market. He was buying apples and a sack of sugar. Her cart was full of groceries.
    "Is that what you eat?" Arlyn said to him. George was ahead of her in the checkout line. "Don't you have anyone who takes care of you?"
    George Snow laughed and said if she came to 708 Pennyroyal Lane in two hours she would see he didn't need taking care of.
    "I'm married," Arlyn said.
    "I wasn't asking to marry you," George said. "I was just going to give you a piece of pie."
    She went. She sat outside 708 for twenty minutes, long enough for her to know she shouldn't go in. At last George came out to the car, his collie dog, Ricky, beside him. He came around to talk to her through the half-open window.
    Arlyn could feel the mistake she was about to make deep in her chest.
    "Are you afraid of pie?" George Snow said. Arlyn laughed.
    "I didn't use anything artificial, if that's what you're worried about," George said.
    "I'd have to know you a lot better to tell you what