Where Is Janice Gantry? Read Online Free PDF Page B

right …”
    “Then I’m the wrong one. Not right for you, or for anybody.”
    “And I know what’s wrong with you, Sam. It took me a long time. But now I know what it is.”
    “The brand Judy left on me?”
    “You enjoy bleeding over that goddamn Judy, don’t you? Not that, Sam. No. It’s something basic in you. You’ve never decided what you are, Sam. You want to be all meat andmuscle and reflexes. You want to deny how bright and intuitive and sensitive you are. You’re a complex animal, Sam. You try not to think, and so you think too much. You couldn’t just plain love, Sam. You thought us to death. You like to talk ignorant and act ignorant. It’s some kind of crazy protective coloration. Maybe you think it’s manly. I don’t know. You seem to have to … diminish yourself. But people sense that good mind, and it makes them uncomfortable because you are being something you’re not.”
    “Standard pattern,” I said, and faked a yawn. “You overcomplicate it. I’m a simple guy, with simple needs.”
    “Oh sure. That guard certainly comes up fast when anybody tries to get too close to you. Anyway, what I want to tell you is I think I might get married.”
    “To that lawyer?”
    “Yes. To Cal McAllen.”
    “Love him?”
    “I like him. I respect him. Maybe that question is academic. I loved Pritch like crazy. I’m twenty-nine, Sam, and I was built for babies, as any fool can plainly see, and time is beginning to run out. He’s forty-four, and wise and steady and loving, and he makes me feel completely girlish.”
    “A for Amour. B for Bed. How is the bed part?”
    “Always fundamental, aren’t you, Brice? There’s been none. I don’t know how it will be. This is very conventional guy, and he is protecting me from his base desires so I can be a girl-type bride. I think I know what I’m getting into, Sam. The male-female thing isn’t something I’d have to look up in the
World Book Encyclopedia
, exactly. He’ll always miss his first wife a little, and I won’t resent that. I get along fine with those two college kids of his. Should I do it, Sam? Should I try to make it work? I want babies, as fast as I can have them.”
    “And you’re asking me?”
    “Because you know me. And because I trust you.”
    “I don’t want you to think I’m being coarse or trivial when I tell you how I think, Sis.”
    “You have your own kind of sense. You can say anything to me, Sam. You know that.” She giggled. “Come to think of it, I guess you’ve said everything to me there is to say.”
    “Hush a minute. You are a very lusty, vital, hot-blooded, demanding wench.”
    “Oh, thank you, sir!”
    “You are going to be, to put it mildly, a sexual responsibility to this guy if you marry him.”
    “So?”
    “So, as of now, you don’t love him. But if he can … discharge the responsibilities of his office and set you up in the motherhood department, and if you like him already, you are going to end up loving him and it is going to be fine.”
    “If, if. You keep saying
if.
”
    “But if the bed part is bad, the whole thing is going to be a trap you’ll be too stubborn to try to get out of, and it will be a hell on earth, because the physical part of it is going to be a lot more essential a part of marriage to you than it might be to a lot of other women.”
    “I can see it coming, you scoundrel. I should seduce the gentleman.”
    “It makes sense, Sis.”
    “My little schemes have failed thus far. Got any ideas?”
    “Have you told him yes yet?”
    “No.”
    “Then do so, and drive to some motel outside the county and celebrate the coming marriage, and if it doesn’t work out, change your mind.”
    “And hurt him?”
    “If it doesn’t work out, you won’t be squeamish about hurting him.”
    She beamed and said, “Maybe you are a wise man.”
    “I can only be wise about other people. Take care, Sis.”
    I reached the door and put my hand on the latch and then turned and frowned at