Three Rivers Read Online Free PDF

Ava was convinced that Isabel’s selfishness had never allowed it. Ava thought Isabel incapable of sharing a life with another human being and even if she had once had the chance, she was certainly too old now.
    So, what if she does have a great many friends who love her very much, and what did it matter if she had lived with some men on and off all her life. She was never clever enough to make a husband out of one of them. Now the years had passed her by, and where was she? Still dreaming that a man will come along with whom she can make a life. She lives extravagantly, impractically, and if her health goes we will all have to support her. There are only three years between us, and why is it I am the one that has to think and act for the family? She is the older, but I am the wiser. While she plays the artist, I, at least, am the success
.
    Ava changed into a swimsuit, went out into the garden and dived into the pool, where she swam fifty laps without stopping.
    She lifted herself out of the pool with almost more energy than she had entered it. Wrapping herself in her terrycloth robe, she went back to the bar and poured another large Scotch, drank it down in one go, looked in the mirror, smiled and called her hairdresser. She put down the receiver, jogged into the bedroom and dressed in her newest dress.
    Two hours later a pretty little lady with a snappy figure, sheathed in a pink, pure silk shirtwaist dress, stepped out of the salon. Heavy gold jewelry set off her dark tan andbrought a sparkle to her pretty face. Her terrific-looking legs with their trim little ankles were shod in pink, calfskin pumps that clicked away on the pavement as she wiggled provocatively up the street to meet her husband. Any man over sixty would have looked at her and thought, “That is some hot ticket”; any man under forty would have thought, “That gal is looking for a good fuck.” Both would have been right.
    While Ava was arrogantly flirting her way across Kolonaki Square, Isabel was working on
Ashanti Sun
, her fourth Meredith Montague to go to press in three years.
    While Ava was belting back Scotch at a smart Greek restaurant bar with her husband and friends, Isabel was dining alone on a perfect
soufflé
, a salad of endive, and Scottish raspberries, all prepared and served by Endo.
    And when Ava was blowing out the candles on her birthday cake and taking bows to a room full of strangers for being born, Isabel was lying in bed being ravished by Max’s tongue. He brought her to orgasm a few times, and when he could hold back no longer, he entered her, and they made love slowly till they came together.
    After Max left, Isabel, feeling glowing, lay in a deep, hot bath smoking a joint and listening to
The Dark Side of the Moon
.
    Late the next morning Isabel was propped up among the pillows in bed with pad and pencil, her personal telephone book and a box file with last night’s Meredith Montague pages that had to be gone over for corrections before Joanna arrived. The first thing to be done was to organize herself, arrange the work schedule for her absence and give Endo instructions on what she wanted done in the house.
    Isabel had been at this for about ten minutes when she remembered to call Cecil Davenport. She was put through to him immediately. She gave little away when she asked about Alexis Hyatt. And Cecil gave even less away. What he did do was to ask her to lunch at Wilton’s, which he said was better than talking on the telephone.
    “One-thirty all right for you, Isabel?”
    “Yes, lovely, Cecil. But are you sure you have the time?”
    “Yes. Have you had your first pheasant of the season yet?”
    “No, I haven’t and it will really be nice to have it with you.”
    “Well, it will give me great pleasure to take you to lunch; we’ll talk then. By the way, Isabel, it isn’t quite right to call him Alexis Hyatt. Once he was called Hyatt Bey, then there was a time when he was called Excellency, and now he is
Sir
Alexis