The Spy I Loved Read Online Free PDF Page B

regular as clockwork, was a kind of social life. But even
he had reluctantly agreed that having Mark around in the winter
would be a help and it was better if Dale wasn’t left
alone.
    Dale’s
first little heart attack three years ago had been a godsend. He
had woken up and realized that he really did need another man to
help run the place. There would be someone there in an emergency.
Dale knew that Lindsey must ultimately leave. She wondered if he
had even missed her, and yet he must—he must. He simply didn’t know
how to say it. To say it would be to confront that ultimate
goodbye. That would be the day when she packed her bags for good,
threw out a lot of childish stuff and then walked out of his life
for all intents and purposes. Dale probably assumed she’d just get
a job as a substitute teacher or something and stay in
Espanola.
    Never.
    The
guests were a distraction from all of that other world, that
private world.
    There were Japanese businessmen in Cabin Four. They were
pretty easy to read. So far they had rented about half of the
rather tacky porn videos on hand, in a dingy back room with
an Adults Only sign above the door. When they saw her coming and going, they
would spurt Japanese back and forth. Nothing shocked her anymore.
She took their money and handed over the receipt for the DVDs and
that was all she cared.
    She had
her story, and she figured everyone else did too. Some were merely
more interesting than others.
    Hopefully
hers would turn out as well as any.
    Don’t
expect too much—
    Cabin
Eight was a trio of young married couples, and they hadn’t been
seen since check-in. It wasn’t all that different from a bunch of
undoubtedly married Japanese businessmen, away from their docile
little wives and rice-paper houses, drinking scotch with the boss
and pretending they really cared about trout and small-mouth
bass.
    What you really want is a promotion.
    A title,
and a plastic sign on the door.
    Suck-holing around a bad boss was the life for
them.
    No price
was too high.
    They were
so bored they spent their time drinking and watching bad
porn.
    She tried
to avoid obvious mental pictures of wedded bliss, the quiet and
confident companionship, exhibited in at least one friend’s
marriage,
    When she
took a good look at some of her other friends’ choices, it was easy
to be contemptuous. Contemptuous for what little they had settled
for. What was terrifying was how quickly some of them had settled
down for the long haul, dishes and laundry and diapers, kids, kids,
kids, and ultimately, a long twilight followed by death. Their
menial jobs would eventually kill the men, most of whom did not
enjoy a long and golden retirement. Sometimes it seemed the whole
town was like that—the whole world as she had known it.
    Toronto
had been an education in more ways than one. Toronto was a
glittering paradise, with a million desperately lonely, isolated
people. They all lived close together and in the same
place.
    Most of
them at least had somebody.
    Soon, two
more years, she would have no one—she’d be just starting
off.
    So far she had avoided all that. Not that there weren’t
longings, even temptations. There was always that distant
purpose—to get her degree in History and get the hell out of Dodge City as Dale
called it.
    Perhaps
there was a smidgeon of contempt there after all. Or maybe it was
jealousy. They were at least having a life. Her monthlies were
almost due and that might have had something to do with her mood.
The notion that one was responsible for one’s own thoughts and
feelings was vile in that it just added to the problem. It was a
piling-on of the guilt.
    The
pain.
    The
misery.
    The thing
to do was to focus on the work and push the bitter, lonely thoughts
aside.
    With all
of those cabins strung along their sandy road under the pines,
someone was always wanting something, someone always had a problem,
and someone always had a question. There was always someone coming
and going, always