The Long Ride Read Online Free PDF Page A

earlier.”
    “Of course! Come in, Mr. Benson—please come in!” Mrs. Landry led John Benson through a hall into a cheerful living room. Overstuffed furniture had been covered with brightly flowered slip-covers. Fresh flowers were displayed in vases in half a dozen places. There was an upright piano in one corner with stacks of sheet music on its rack. John Benson immediately noticed the woman sitting in a chair opposite the sofa.
    She was of rather indeterminable age, even to John Benson’s eyes—somewhere in her thirties, he judged. Her figure was full, but extremely well proportioned in an inexpensive but neat-looking blue suit. Her hair was ash-blond, shaped in an off-hand style that was so effectively simple that it dramatized the good looks of her face. Her eyebrows were dark, and she had brown eyes that examined John Benson with a straightforward, somewhat lazy curiosity. The planes of her face were bold and well-defined. There was a relaxed air of confidence and maturity that made John Benson feel immediately attracted to her.
    “Mr. Benson,” Mrs. Landry said. “I want you to meet Mrs. Moore. Margaret Moore.”
    “How do you do, Mrs. Moore?” John Benson smiled, noticing that she wore no wedding ring.
    “Mr. Benson,” she said in a quiet, husky voice, staring at him with a soft smile. A cigarette was in her left hand, held limply against the arm of the chair; a tall glass rested on the end table beside her.
    “Now then,” Mrs. Landry said, “you sit right down there on the sofa, Mr. Benson. You and Mrs. Moore can get acquainted while I get you a glass of lemonade.”
    “Well, you don’t have to bother, Mrs. Landry.”
    “Of course, I do. Unless you don’t like lemonade. I think it’s good, isn’t it, Mrs. Moore?”
    Mrs. Moore motioned a hand toward her glass, smiling. “Delicious, Mrs. Landry.”
    “Well, all right,” John Benson said. “I would like some, if you don’t mind.”
    “Of course, I don’t mind. Now you two sit there and get acquainted.” She bustled out of the room. John Benson smiled at the woman seated across the room from him. “Very nice, isn’t she?”
    “Very,” Margaret Moore nodded.
    “An old friend, or—”
    “No. I met her ten minutes ago. I feel like I’ve known her for twenty years.”
    John Benson nodded. “You’re riding with her to San Francisco then?”
    “Yes. I’ve just been accepted. And you, Mr. Benson?”
    “I don’t know. That’s what I’m here about.”
    “She’ll take you. She likes you, so she’ll take you.”
    “Well, I hope so.” He paused. “If she does, do you think we’ll be the only ones?”
    “Well, no,” Mrs. Moore said, smiling faintly. “Not quite, Mr. Benson. With you, I think that makes a total of seven.”
    “Seven?”
    “So far.” Mrs. Moore laughed softly, and John Benson found himself delighted by her laugh. It seemed to slip past the guard he’d built around himself over the last year, and it bothered him that it did. But he was nevertheless delighted. He suddenly relaxed a little.
    Mrs. Landry came back with his lemonade, saying, “Now, you just go ahead and smoke if you want to, Mr. Benson. Mr. Landry, God rest him, smoked in this house and I never minded. If a man or a woman wants to smoke, it’s their privilege. Women who waste their time forbidding people to smoke in their homes ought to be investigated mentally. Now then.” Mrs. Landry sat down, clasping her hands together, looking at John Benson with bright, merry eyes. “You want to go to San Francisco with me?”
    John Benson nodded. “Yes, I do, Mrs. Landry.”
    “All right then. You tell me a little about yourself. I’ve already made up my mind. But I promised my daughter, Ella June—she’s in California, you know, and that’s why I’m driving out, to visit her and her family—I promised that I’d have everybody tell me about themselves. She was worried to death when I wrote her I was driving out there and was going to advertise