The Crasher Read Online Free PDF

tenacious (or pigheaded, depending
     on how you looked at it) determination to be noticed and make a mark on the world, no matter what it cost.
    Once Virginia had thought she could make a mark, too, growing up in Hollywood, designing for the movie stars. It had taken
     a while to accept she couldn’t design dresses, but she could make the cheapest piece of junk off the rack fit and flatter
     even the worst figure faults. She’d encountered them all.
    Ginny had more imagination than she’d ever had—too much, if it was possible. Virginia sighed. Ginny had done wonders to her
     old camel hair coat. She’d cleverly used a zipper as ornamentation on the blue sheath, too, à la Moschino—but that didn’t
     mean she could be a successful designer. She didn’t want Ginny to experience the hurt and humiliation she’d gone through,
     waiting for customers who never turned up.
    It was ironic, for while she’d managed to drown her dreams, Graham’s had grown larger with every passing year, but not their
     bank account.
    How enthralled she’d been in the beginning when he’d talked about his ambition to leave his job, teaching English lit at an
     undistinguished West Coast school, to become a modern day Socrates, “earning fame and fortune, teaching my unique brand of
     wisdom by mail.”
    How she’d hung on every word as he’d talked and talked and talked. “I can teach, but I also know how to learn,” he’d said.
     “Not such a common gift as you might suppose. I can find something of value in practically everything.” And, indeed, he’d
     confessed that while he studied the leading political and foreign pundits of the day, especially his number one, Quentin Peet,
     also included in his scrutiny were columns by “Dear Abby” (“already a multimillionairess”), the writings of Dr. Seuss, and
     the original texts of Dale Carnegie.
    How impressed she’d been with his studious appearance, not knowing then, of course, the amount of time he devotedto choosing the kind of eyeglasses that strengthened his air of scholarship, the fastidious attention he paid to the size
     of knot in his tie, the amount of trouser leg he allowed to cover his shoes. No wonder Ginny was so clothes-mad.
    She was sick of hearing Graham say “Clothes maketh the man,” contemptuously dismissing those in academia whom he accused of
     deliberately setting out to look as rumpled and disheveled as possible “to be more in touch with the unkempt youth they attempt
     to teach.”
    No wonder Quentin Peet was his role model, appearing on television, immaculately dressed, even when just back from a war somewhere,
     epitomizing, said Graham, “the way a leader should look.”
    Well, Graham Walker was no leader. It had taken five states and five “partners” in as many years to learn that Graham had
     proposed and married her just at the time his sister Lillian told him, for her son Alex’s sake, she could no longer help support
     him in his dreams.
    She’d found Lil’s old letter jammed in the back of Graham’s desk. “It’s God’s will that you’ve met Virginia, for much as I
     love the idea of living as you describe it, a ‘Walt Whitman life of freedom, traveling on unknown roads to unknown adventures,’
     now I have this new job with the art gallery, as a widow bringing up a son, I know I must stay put for his sake.”
    She had never confronted Graham with the letter. What was the point? And, in any case, at that time she’d been so full of
     optimism. “It takes time for pioneers to be recognized,” he would say, “to get the big break that brings all the rewards.”
    Virginia jumped as she leaned forward and accidentally blew the car horn. It sounded like a bugle call, an alert to rescue
     her only child from the world she’d become so used to, a world of rented homes, leased cars and a nervous stomach at the end
     of every month as their bank balance went down and their bills went up.
    Her mouth tightened. Already she could