The Consequences Read Online Free PDF Page A

been forecast, but none had fallen. However, the temperature had plummeted, and ice was beginning to creep across the road in broad sparkling sheets. There was a sound of sirens in the distance, and the van slowed to a crawl. Joan Burroughs leaned forward and tapped the dashboard, where the temperature gauge was beginning to edge upward. “I hope we don’t overheat before we get home,” she muttered.
    â€œI’d be more worried this van would fall apart before it overheated,” Stephanie said.
    â€œWhat do you want to hear?” Joan asked suddenly. “The truth or the version I told Mother?”
    Stephanie took a moment to consider. “Which version do you want me to hear?” she said eventually. “I’m sure I’ll get Mom’s version anyway.”
    Joan nodded and smiled. “I’m sure you will.” Then she hit the brakes hard and leaned on the horn as a truck cut into her lane. The sound was an anemic whine. Then, unexpectedly, she said, “I’ve always been a little jealous . . . no, jealous is the wrong word, envious is better. I’ve always been a little envious of you.”
    â€œEnvious of me? Why?” Stephanie frowned, unsure at the sudden change of topic.
    â€œYou live in Boston, you have a great job, a nice house, awesome car . . . at least that’s what Mother keeps telling us all. She keeps hinting that you’ve got a man, but we all know that’s untrue.”
    â€œWhy?” Stephanie blurted, surprised.
    â€œBecause we all know you’re a lesbian. Well, she knows too, but she doesn’t want to admit that two of her three daughters are gay.”
    â€œWhat! What?” For a moment, Stephanie didn’t know if she had heard correctly.
    â€œCJ’s gay,” Joan said matter-of-factly.
    â€œI know that. I’ve always known that. But why do you think I am?”
    Joan turned awkwardly in her seat to look at her sister. “There’s no need to be embarrassed. You’re thirty-three, pretty, successful, and single. It’s kind of obvious. And Mom says you’re always talking about this Izzie friend of yours. It was CJ who suggested that she must be your partner. And she should know!”
    Stephanie started to laugh. It began as a giggle, then grew into a full, bellyaching laugh that came remarkably close to hysterics. She could feel the tension of the past hours seep away with the laughter. The thought of her rather straitlaced mother thinking that her daughter was a lesbian simply because she rarely spoke about men was hilarious. The only reason Stephanie rarely spoke about the man she was dating was because for the past eighteen months she had been involved with a married man. And that was hardly something she could share with her conservative Catholic mother on the telephone. But because of that her mother had assumed . . .
    Pressing the heels of both hands against her cheeks she wiped away the tears. “I’m not gay. My friend Izzie is just that—my friend, my best friend, who is getting engaged tonight. To a man. And the reason I don’t talk about men is because first of all, it’s not something I want shared on Mother’s weekly e-mail blasts, and secondly, I am concentrating on building a career and I don’t have a lot of free time. It’s why I don’t have goldfish. Too time consuming. But—and please don’t tell Mom—I have been seeing someone, a man,” she emphasized, “on and off for about a year and a half. But that’s over,” she added, not saying just how recently it had finished.
    â€œMum’s the word.” Joan laughed as she craned her neck, seeing something in the darkness. “There’s the accident. Happens all the time on this stretch,” Joan said. Ignoring the sudden blaring of car horns, she floored the accelerator, and the VW lurched forward and managed to crawl across two lanes of traffic. There