Sleeping Beauty Read Online Free PDF Page B

talking perhaps a little too much, and turned back to her dishes. I was content with a little silence while I took in what she’d said. Tom had lost his mother young, and now he was in danger of losing his wife. The two losses together didn’t form a pattern but they suggested the possibility of one. It hung in the bright kitchen like a double shadow caused by a defect in the lighting.
    “What happened to Tom’s mother?”
    Gloria said after a pause, “Aunt Allie died. It happened so long ago I don’t remember it. I remember we lived here for a while, all of us together in this house.” She looked around the kitchen nostalgically, possessively. “But everything comes to an end. Mother got an offer of a job, and Mr. Russo thought she ought to take it.”
    “Does Mr. Russo live here with Tom?”
    “Not any more. Tom took over the house from him when Tom and Laurel got married. Mr. Russo moved into an old people’s home in Inglewood. It was kind of rough on him, but he always wanted Tom to have the house.”
    “How did Tom and Laurel happen to meet?”
    “She just walked into the drugstore one day, and he fell for her at first sight. When she said she’d marry him, he thought he was the luckiest man in the world.”
    “Didn’t you think so?”
    She shook her head, and her tied-up hair flopped like vestigial wings. “It’s nothing against Laurel, though God knows she has her problems. But I sometimes think Tom took on too much when he married into that family. They’re so rich, and we work for everything we get. All Tom really has is a job in somebody else’s drugstore. And this old house which he’s buying from his father.”
    “And Laurel.”
    “If
he’s got her.”
    “What was the trouble between them, do you know?”
    “Tom never discussed it with me. He’s very close-mouthed.”
    “But you know both of them. You’ve seen them together.”
    “Sure.”
    “How did they get along?”
    “It’s hard to say. They didn’t talk much to each other. But each of them always knew the other one was there, if you know what I mean. I think they love each other. Harry thinks so, too.”
    “Does Harry know them?”
    “Sure he does.” Her face was open, ready to say more. Then she seemed to remember something, and fell silent for a while. She added, without apparent connection, “Tom is very jealous of Laurel. I think she’s the only girl he ever looked at.”
    “How old is Tom?”
    “Thirty-one. He’s four years older than I am.”
    “And Laurel’s the only girl he ever had?”
    “So far as I know. I was his girl for a while. Not really—we were more like brother and sister—but he used to take me places. I taught him to dance, stuff like that, but we both knew it didn’t amount to anything. He just wanted to find out how to conduct himself with a young lady.”
    “How did he conduct himself?”
    “All right. He was kind of stiff and stand-offish, though. He still is. I don’t think he ever kissed me once in his life.” Her dark eyes came up to mine, sober and confiding. “He was waiting for Laurel, if you know what I mean. She was his fate, the only one for him.”
    “Then why did they break up?”
    “They didn’t really break up. She goes back to her folks from time to time, or she goes and lives with friends.”
    “Like Joyce Hampshire?”
    “That’s right. They’re real old friends. I might do the same thing if I was married to Tom. He goes in for these long silences; he always has. And Laurel has troubles of her own—you don’t need me to tell you that. But they’ll be back together, I guarantee it.”
    “I hope so.”
    I thanked her, and left.

chapter
7
    Greenfield Manor, where Joyce Hampshire lived, was a row of two-story town houses surrounded by an imitation adobe wall. A thin young man dressed like a spy in a trench coat and turned-down hat came out through Joyce’s gate as I went in.
    The patio light was on, and I caught a glimpse of his face. It wasn’t so young