The Outsider Read Online Free PDF Page B

thirty more. We might just have sixty or seventy people, and we certainly couldn’t turn anyone away — could we, Rabbi?”
    â€œI wouldn’t want to — no, indeed.”
    â€œThen my house,” Della Klein said decisively, looking firmly at Mrs. Osner and scoring.
    â€œIt makes sense,” Osner said, “What about prayerbooks?”
    â€œI can drive down to New York tomorrow,” David said, “and pick some up.”
    â€œWould you? Wonderful. And I imagine there are other things we need, but no hurry. I’m in New York every day. As a matter of fact, no reason why I can’t get the prayerbooks for you. There are at least five people in my office who spend the day doing nothing more important than taking coffee breaks.”
    â€œPerhaps I’d better go in this time,” David said. “There are so many things to do. My Aunt Ana is moving into my mother’s old apartment, but there are certain things there we’ll need up here in the country.”
    â€œBut you’ll be back Friday on time?”
    â€œAbsolutely.”
    In bed with Lucy, in the guest room at the Osner house, David asked her how she felt about it now.
    â€œA little better, I think. I liked Della Klein — only — what is it, David, does a certain amount of genteel charity go with this job?”
    â€œHow do you mean?”
    â€œHer husband’s in the dress business. She told me she realizes how hard it will be for us to get along on what they pay you, so I must feel free to go down there with her and pick up some dresses, on the house.”
    David sighed. “I suppose it comes with the territory.”
    â€œNo good. But I do like her — in spite of the way she looked at you.”
    â€œCome on — how did she look at me?”
    â€œHungrily. I sort of like Phyllis Hurtz. But so shy. Her husband beats up on her.”
    â€œDid she tell you that?”
    â€œOh, no. No. He just looks like someone who would. Defusing bombs. Wow!”
    â€œSomeone has to do it.”
    â€œNo work for a nice Jewish boy. Oh, the hell with the lot of them. Turn off the light and let’s make love.”
    â€œLet’s try to enjoy it, baby.”
    â€œLights out.”
    â€œStarts now. Happiness at Leighton Ridge.” He turned off the lamp and they both burst out laughing.
    â€œPut on the light, David,” Lucy said.
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI don’t want to laugh in the dark. It’s like smoking. No fun smoking in the dark.”
    David reached out, turned on the lamp by the bedside, controlled his laughter, and asked Lucy, “Why, my love, are we laughing?” After which, he burst out laughing again.
    â€œBecause,” Lucy managed to say, “the whole thing is so absolutely unbelievable. Here I am, Lucy Spendler, streetwise, smartass tough kid, product of P.S. Forty-six, Wadleigh High School, and Hunter College, the only girl on West One hundred and fifty-seventh Street who skipped five hundred and sixty loops of rope without ever snagging —”
    â€œFive hundred and sixty? I don’t believe it.”
    â€œCross my heart and hope to die.”
    â€œLucy, you’re a rabbi’s wife. No more crossing the heart.”
    â€œThen you’re not supposed to call me a liar — and here I am out in this Connecticut Wasp wilderness, with all these tightass Jewish types trying to be country Wasps and pious Jews at the same time, and a husband making twenty-five dollars a week, and thank God he has a sense of humor. You know, years ago, when Pop had just started in as a printer at the Times, there was a point where all the copy boys were tied up, and Editorial was yelling for someone to come up and take a last-minute correction, so the printing foreman told Pop to run up to Editorial and get it. The editor, his name was Schiller or something like that, had scribbled out a paragraph to replace the one he had written