The Misfortunes of Others Read Online Free PDF

in the nursery. Hold my calls,” Bernard said to Maya.
    “You never get any calls, darling,” she said mildly, but Bernard was already clunking his way up the stairs.

    That afternoon a tall red-haired woman dressed in the most outlandish clothes—flowing red chiffon, a lacy scarf, several long necklaces and a pair of lace-up boots—let herself in at the door without knocking. She went straight upstairs to the nursery and stood in the doorway, watching Bernard as he determinedly painted the walls muddy brown. Bernard, absorbed in his task and trying not to cover himself with paint, did not notice her.
    “This is the saddest thing I’ve ever seen,” she said at last.
    Bernard straightened up slowly. “Hello, Weezy.”
    “You may not be a visual artist, Bernard, but there’s simply no excuse for this. You’re painting the nursery dark brown?”
    “It’s not a dark brown. It’s a pale—a very pale brown. It’s called Milk Shake.”
    “Pitiful. No wonder Maya was in such a state on the phone. And with the pregnancy and everything. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
    “I’ve tried several other colors.”
    “So I see.” Weezy regarded the walls, streaked with contrasting shades, with a disapproving expression. “Apparently Milk Shake is neither the worst nor the best of what you’ve tried. It’s simply the most recent.”
    “Yes.”
    “I hate these food names for paint colors. This one here looks like it ought to have been called Lemon Meringue.”
    Bernard examined that section of the wall. “Very good. Lemon Twist, if I remember right.”
    “So pathetically predictable. You need my services, Bernard.”
    “Maya said you’d offered yourself as an interior decorator.”
    “And just in time. Just in time, before Maya leaves you and gives birth to the child elsewhere and raises it someplace where its innocent infant eyes will never see this color of paint. Stop putting it on the wall, will you? Put that brush down right now.”
    Bernard put the brush down. He drew his arm across his forehead, leaving it streaked with paint, and sat down with a dull whumping sound on a three-legged wooden stool which he had been using to get to the hard-to-reach spots. He sighed morosely, from the heart.
    Weezy eyed him with a glimmer of sympathy. “It’s not easy, choosing the right color.”
    “No.”
    “Particularly if you don’t have an eye for it.”
    “No.”
    “And painting is hard work.”
    “Yes, it is.”
    “This could be a beautiful little room. Look at that view. And the way the ceiling slants. I assume that under this incredibly hideous tile, there’s a nice oak floor?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, then, there’s no problem. We’ll stay away from blue or pink, so terribly boring. This purple shade you were trying here would be amusing if it weren’t so tragic, Bernard. I see the walls in … hmmm … perhaps a light creamy color … with overtones of red or gold …”
    She fell into a reverie, gazing around the room with a dreamy expression on her face. Bernard sat with his head in his hands. There was silence, broken only by the whistle of the wind through the fir trees.
    “Look at that chintz,” Weezy said at last. “I never will understand people. I never will. You and Maya rescued this house from the hands of a pedestrian soul with no taste.”
    “Yes.”
    “I see stiff white curtains, that bleached muslin look, a country look for this room. Thick enough to keep out the light when the infant sleeps. Which way does the window face? Southeast? Oh yes, you’ll need thick curtains or the child will be up at dawn, which would not suit your lifestyle at all, sweetie. Which paint store have you been haunting?”
    Bernard told her.
    “And they let you return all this paint?”
    “They let you return anything that’s not a specialty color, and I didn’t use any specialty colors.”
    Weezy threw him a look of withering scorn. “Just one of your many errors in judgment, Bernard. Here