The Auerbach Will Read Online Free PDF Page A

amiable voice, and Joan throws him an angry look.
    â€œNow I want to make a toast!” Karen says somewhat loudly. She starts toward the ladder, drink in hand, weaving slightly.
    â€œDon’t forget an ornament,” someone says.
    â€œFuck the ornaments. I want to make a toast.” She starts up the ladder, misses the bottom rung and her drink sloshes in her hand and trickles across her lower arm.
    â€œKaren!” Joan says sharply.
    â€œI want to make a toast! ” She tries for the ladder again, misses again, and falls clumsily against the ladder. This time, the drink spills across the front of her pale green dress.
    â€œKaren, you’re making a fool of yourself!” Joan says.
    Karen straightens up, looks down at her dress. Then she drops her glass—it rolls harmlessly on the thick carpet—bursts into tears and runs from the room.
    In the silence that follows, Mr. Daryl Carter, his pale face now very red, rises and follows her out of the room.
    Joan, still standing, says, “Don’t pay any attention to her. That’s all she does it for—attention.” And Karen’s daughter, still kneeling by Essie’s feet, merely stares up into Essie’s face.
    â€œActually,” Joan says, changing the subject, “Josh brought up a good point a moment ago. You’re not getting any younger, Mother, and I think all of us would like to know what you’re planning to do with your and Papa’s art collection. Let’s be realistic, after all.”
    â€œI’m leaving it to the Met,” Essie snaps. It is a perfectly spontaneous response. Actually, not until that very moment had she decided to leave it all to the Met, though she has certainly considered it and Mr. Hubbard has paid several polite calls. But now the decision is made, final, done.
    â€œMother, don’t be a fool . If all this goes into your estate, you’d be crucified for taxes.”
    â€œCrucified? I’d be dead.”
    â€œWhy, the value of the Goya alone —”
    â€œJoan, this is neither the time nor the place,” Josh says.
    â€œJosh is right,” Essie says.
    Joan’s tight, compressed body seems to gather into itself, to become tighter, more compressed. Wellsprings of resentment and old grudges are bubbling up. “‘Josh is right, ’” she mimics. “Josh is always right, isn’t he? Who the hell is Josh? Who the hell is he, besides your favorite? Everyone has always known that Josh is your favorite!”
    Richard McAllister is finally bestirred. He stands up. “Joan, please …”
    â€œShut up! I raise a perfectly good question, a perfectly reasonable and practical question which concerns us all, and what am I told? ‘Josh is right.’”
    â€œFor Christ’s sake, Joan!”
    â€œAnd what about all that Eaton stock that Mother is sitting on?—three hundred thousand shares!”
    â€œThree hundred and twenty-five thousand,” Essie corrects.
    â€œThat’s right! What’s going to happen to that? I don’t know—does anyone in this room know? Oh, I suppose Josh gets that, because Josh is right. Who the hell is Josh, Mother? What does he do besides tell you how to vote your proxies, which happens to be absolutely against the law?”
    â€œAmong other things, Josh is the president of the company from which we all derive a comfortable living,” Essie says. “And he’s your brother.”
    â€œBut he’s not a real Auerbach! He’s not even a real member of this family.”
    â€œWe’re all members of this family, Joan,” Josh says.
    â€œJoan, you’re ruining my party,” Essie says. “I take that back. You’ve already ruined it.”
    â€œHe’s not! He’s not!”
    â€œJoan, what on earth are you talking about?”
    Joan is as angry as Essie has ever seen her, but she seems nowhere close to tears. “You know