Wives and Lovers Read Online Free PDF Page B

rolled off the table beside her. They didn’t break, and Ruby bent over hur­riedly to pick them up. Her handbag fell on the floor.
    â€œAnd you,” George yelled. “You over there, you’re fired, see? Collect a week’s pay and get out! Hear me? You’re fired!”
    Ruby grabbed her handbag and ran.
    Romanelli impaled the stingray on a carving knife and carried it out to the garbage can.
    Even after the stingray was gone George could still smell it, its sharp fishy odor mingling with the odor of soap and baking pies and chicken livers and Ruby’s Cashmere Bouquet talcum powder.

3
    Gordon Foster’s office was one of ten pink stucco bunga­lows built around a court on the upper end of Main Street. Nine of the bungalows were occupied by physicians specializing in various fields; Gordon was the only dentist.
    Whenever Elaine Foster came to call for her husband she took particular care with her grooming and her costume. As she walked through the court, past the gold­fish pond and the lantana hedges, she held her head high, not exactly pretending that she was one of the physicians’ wives, but half-consciously hoping that passers-by would mistake her for one. It was always a disappointment to her when she had to turn in at Number Seven, which was plainly marked, “Gordon W. Foster, D.D.S.”
    Elaine believed that Gordon could have been a real doctor if he had had more initiative, or if he’d met her earlier in life, so that she could have supplied the initia­tive. As it was, when they met, Gordon was already a dentist, and even Elaine’s considerable powers couldn’t make him into anything else. Their marriage had been colored by Elaine’s bile-green feeling that she had been cheated, that Gordon should have become a real doctor because she herself had all the attributes of a perfect doctor’s wife. She was energetic, competent, smartly groomed, and she had a low, cultured voice, excellent diction and a smattering of grammar: I’m very sorry the doctor is not in . . . You may reach him at his office . . . Yes, I shall see that he receives the message . . .
    Elaine was at her best on the telephone. She used it as an actress uses a role, to project her personality and at the same time to hide behind the projection. As a real doctor’s wife she could have spent a great deal of time on the tele­phone, leaving the details of the house and the three children to a maid. As a dentist’s wife, she couldn’t afford a maid. She couldn’t even afford a second car, so that when she needed the Oldsmobile for shopping or er­rands, she had to drive Gordon to work in the morning and call for him when he had finished for the day.
    She went around to the back door of Number Seven and let herself in. She could hear Gordon moving around in the lab, whistling. Elaine was, by nature, extremely suspicious of music or happy sounds in general, and she wondered what Gordon had to whistle about on such a hot day, with the house payment overdue and the tuition fee of Judith’s school raised again.
    The medicinal smell in the office made her cough. Gordon heard the cough and came out of the lab into the hall, carrying a full set of dentures in his hand.
    Elaine turned her eyes away. “ Honestly , Gordon.”
    â€œWhat’s the matter?”
    â€œYou know I can’t stand the sight of—those things.”
    â€œOh. Sorry.” He put the dentures in his pocket. “I’m not quite ready to leave yet.”
    â€œI was hoping you would be. The children have been looking forward to this all day. You know how they adore the beach.”
    â€œBeach?”
    â€œDon’t tell me you’ve forgotten.”
    â€œNo. I—”
    â€œBut you have. I knew as soon as I walked in that you’d forgotten.”
    â€œI have other things on my mind, Elaine. I can’t re­member everything.”
    â€œWe talked about it only