Vintage Ford Read Online Free PDF

large agri-biz company, considered studying for the ministry, considered going on a missionary journey to Senegal or French Guiana, briefly took a young lover himself. One child had been arrested for shoplifting; the other had gotten admitted to Brown. There were months of all-night confrontations, some combative, some loving and revelatory, some derisive from both sides. Until everything that could be said or expressed or threatened was said, expressed and threatened, after which a standstill was achieved whereby they both stayed in their suburban house, kept separate schedules, saw new and different friends, had occasional dinners together, went to the opera, occasionally even slept together, but saw little hope (in Beth’s case, certainly) of things turning out better than they were at the time of our joyless drink and the O’Neill play. I’d assumed at that time that Beth was meeting someone else that evening, had someone in New York she was interested in, and I felt completely fine about it.
    â€œIt’s really odd, isn’t it?” Beth said, stirring her long, almost pure-white finger around the surface of her Kir Royale, staring not at me but at the glass rim where the pink liquid nearly exceeded its vitreous limits. “We were so close for a little while.” Her eyes rose to me, and she smiled almost girlishly. “You and me, I mean. Now, I feel like I’m telling all this to an old friend. Or to my brother.”
    Beth is a tall, sallow-faced, big-boned, ash-blond woman who smokes cigarettes and whose hair often hangs down in her eyes like a forties Hollywood glamour girl. This can be attractive, although it often causes her to seem to be spying on her own conversations.
    â€œWell,” I said, “it’s all right to feel that way.” I smiled back across the little round black-topped café table. It
was
all right. I had gone on. When I looked back on what we’d done, none of it except for what we’d done in bed made me feel good about life, or that the experience had been worth it. But I couldn’t undo it. I don’t believe the past can be repaired, only exceeded. “Sometimes, friendship’s all we’re after in these sorts of things,” I said. Though this, I admit, I did not really believe.
    â€œMack’s like a dog, you know,” Beth said, flicking her hair away from her eyes. He was on her mind. “I kick him, and he tries to bring me things. It’s pathetic. He’s very interested in Tantric sex now, whatever that is. Do you know what that even is?”
    â€œI really don’t like hearing this,” I said stupidly, though it was true. “It sounds cruel.”
    â€œYou’re just afraid I’ll say the same thing about you, Johnny.” She smiled and touched her damp fingertip to her lips, which were wonderful lips.
    â€œAfraid,” I said. “Afraid’s really not the word, is it?”
    â€œWell, then, whatever the word is.” Beth looked quickly away and motioned the waiter for the check. She didn’t know how to be disagreed with. It always frightened her.
    But that was all. I’ve already said our meeting wasn’t a satisfying one.
    Mack Bolger’s pale gray eyes caught me coming toward him well before I expected them to. We had seen each other only twice. Once at a fancy cocktail party given by an author I’d come to St. Louis to wrest a book away from. It was the time I’d met his wife. And once more, in the Mayfair Hotel, when I’d taken an inept swing at him and he’d slammed me against a wall and hit me in the face with the back of his hand. Perhaps you don’t forget people you knock around. That becomes their place in your life. I, myself, find it hard to recognize people when they’re not where they belong, and Mack Bolger belonged in St. Louis. Of course, he was an exception.
    Mack’s gaze fixed on me, then left me, scanned the crowd