Three Bedrooms in Manhattan Read Online Free PDF Page B

for lovers that it seemed to have been set down in their path on purpose. Kay said to him with a look: “See?”
    Then, holding out her hand, she whispered, “Give me a nickel.”
    Not understanding, he gave her the coin. He saw her, at one end of the bar, approach a huge, round-edged machine containing an automatic turntable and a stack of records.
    She looked more serious than he’d ever seen her. Frowning, she read the titles of the records on the metal tabs and at last found what she was looking for; she pressed a button and came back and climbed onto her barstool.
    â€œTwo scotches.”
    She waited, a vague smile on her lips, for the first notes, and at that moment he felt a second twinge of jealousy. Who had she been with, where and when had she first heard the piece she’d looked for so long?
    He glowered stupidly at the incurious bartender.
    â€œJust listen … don’t make that face, darling.”
    The machine stood bathed in orange light, and out of it, very softly, almost like someone telling a secret, came one of those melodies that, whispered by a tenderly insinuating voice, would nurse thousands of romances for six months or a year.
    She took his arm. She squeezed it. She smiled at him, and for the first time her smile showed her teeth, too white, almost frail in their whiteness.
    He tried to say something.
    â€œHush,” she said.
    A bit later, she said, “Give me another nickel, will you?”
    To replay the same song, the one they would listen to seven or eight times that night, drinking whiskeys, saying almost nothing to each other.
    â€œYou’re not bored?”
    No—he wasn’t at all bored, and yet something strange was happening. He wanted to be with her. He only felt good when she was beside him. He dreaded the moment of separation. At the same time, as in the cafeteria, or like the night in the diner or in the bar where they finally ended up, he felt an almost physical impatience.
    The music finally got to him, too, with its almost hurrying gentleness, but still he wanted it over. He told himself, After this one, we go .
    He resented Kay for interrupting their aimless and pointless wandering.
    She asked, “What do you want to do?”
    He didn’t know. He had no sense of time, of everyday life. He didn’t want to return to it, though he was plagued by an indefinable sense of uneasiness that prevented him from giving himself up to the moment.
    â€œWould you mind walking around Greenwich Village?”
    What did it matter? He was very happy, and he was very unhappy. Outside, she hesitated for an instant, and he knew why. It was amazing how they were aware of even the slightest nuance in each other’s mood.
    She was wondering if they’d take a taxi. The question of money had never come up between them. She didn’t know whether he was rich or poor, and she had been startled, a moment earlier, by the size of the check for the whiskeys.
    He raised his arm. A yellow cab stopped at the curb in front of them, and then, like thousands of other couples at the same instant, they were in the soft shadows of the car, with multicolored lights playing on the driver’s back.
    He saw her taking off a glove. She slipped her bare hand into his, and they remained that way, motionless, silent, during the whole trip down to Washington Square. They were no longer in noisy, anonymous New York, but in a neighborhood that looked like any other small town in the world.
    The sidewalks were empty, and there were not many shops. A couple appeared from a side street, the man awkwardly pushing a stroller.
    â€œI’m glad you wanted to come downtown. I’ve been so happy here.”
    He was frightened. He wondered if she was going to start talking about herself. Inevitably she would sometime, and then he’d have to do the same.
    But not now. She was silent. She had a way of leaning gently against his arm, and there was another gesture