The Jew's Wife & Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

priest. Father Walther picked up his bag and
began walking north. That was what hitchhikers did—walk in the
direction they were headed while waiting for cars to come along. He
didn’t understand the logic of it, but at least it put some
distance between himself and the store owner.
        Two cars
passed without slowing down. He was getting thirsty. He should have
bought something to drink.
        Suddenly
a battered pickup appeared and skidded to a stop even before he
remembered to stick out his thumb. A woman in jeans and a man’s
rolled-up dress shirt pushed the side door open for him. Amazed at
his abrupt change of fortune, he told her where he was
headed.
        She told
him to get in, then gave the sideview mirror a cursory glance and
skidded back onto the road. Her long blond ponytail made her look
younger than her probable age—he guessed forty. She didn’t look
like a farmer, but the pickup smelled of animal. She had bright
blue eyes.
       “ You
looked like you were fixing to melt,” she said, glancing at his
shirt, which was soaked through with perspiration. “You ain’t from
around these parts, are you.”
        He
wondered how she knew that but was too embarrassed by the way she
was looking at him to give more than a one-syllable reply. He was
used to the opposite sex paying him attention, even in a harmless
way flirting (more so when he was younger). He knew his attraction
had to do with his being forbidden fruit. If for one moment one of
those harmless admirers suspected him of having a reciprocal
interest, she would undoubtedly run straight for her boyfriend or
husband. But the grin this woman had turned on him made him feel
the way he imagined women felt when they said a man was undressing
them with his eyes.
       “ I bet
Old Man Crocker gave you a dose of his hospitality. That’s how come
you were roasting your butt off in the sun when he could just as
easily call you a cab.”
       “ There’s a car
service?”
       “ Of course there
is. Where did you think you were—Injun territory?”
        She
grinned elaborately and reached onto the floor beside her seat. She
came up with a plastic container half-filled with what looked like
some kind of pink juice. She removed the cap and took a sip, then
offered it to her passenger.
       “ No
thanks,” he said. He didn’t mind sharing the bottle, and God knew
he was thirsty. What made him decline was the idea of putting his
mouth to the same spout a woman’s lips had just touched.
        But her
arm, covered with a frost of fine blond hair, remained
extended.
       “Go on, take some. You must be
half-dead of thirst.”
       He could see no alternative to
insulting her, so he accepted the container and drank. It wasn’t
juice, but it was sweet and cold. It slid easily down his
throat.
       “ Keep it,” she
said when he paused after two swallows. “I got another right
here.”
        Sure
enough, she produced a second plastic bottle from the floor space
next to the driver’s seat.
       “ How far you
headed?” she asked.
       “ The shore. I
started out for Maryland, but my car broke down on the
Turnpike.”
        He gave
a summary of the last two days, including how the mechanic and his
wife had put him up for the night. As he spoke, at first
hesitantly, he realized how good it felt to be talking
again—speaking more than two or three words at a time.
       “ Why,
that’s Sonny Sharp. He and Martha put you up? Shoot, I should have
figured you straight off for one of Martha’s strays.”
       “ Strays?”
       “ I suppose you
heard all about Sonny Junior.”
       “ Their
son?”
        She nodded at
the blacktop ahead. She was driving with both arms resting on the
steering wheel, like the youth who had towed him off the Turnpike.
The motion of the pickup, combined with the heat and the sweet
drink he had gulped down, seemed to be making him
lightheaded.
       “ If they
gave you