Women with Men Read Online Free PDF

pictured her in his mind, tall and beautiful, confident about life.
    “I took a woman to dinner,” he said bluntly. There was no delay on the line—it was as if he were calling from the office. Something, though, was making him feel irritated. The sound of the pans, he thought; the fact that Barbara considered fixing her dinner to be important enough to keep doing it as she was talking to him. His feeling of virtue was fading.
    “Well, that's wonderful,” Barbara said. “Anybody special, or just somebody you met on a street corner who looked hungry?” She wasn't serious.
    “A woman who works at Éditions Périgord,” Austin said sternly. “An editor.”
    “That's nice,” Barbara said, and what seemed like a small edge rose in her voice. He wondered if there was a signal in
his
voice, something that alerted her no matter how hard he tried to seem natural, something she'd heard before over the years and that couldn't be hidden.
    “It
was
nice,” Austin said. “We had a good time. But I'm coming home tomorrow.”
    “Well, we're waiting for you,” Barbara said brightly.
    “Who's we?” Austin said.
    “Me. And the house. And the plants and the windows. The cars. Your life. We're all waiting with big smiles on our faces.”
    “That's great,” Austin said.
    “It
is
great,” Barbara said. Then there was silence on the line—expensive, transoceanic silence. Austin felt the need to reorganize his good mood. He had nothing to be mad about. Or uncomfortable. All was well. Barbara hadn't done anything, but neither had he. “What time is it there?” she said casually. He heard another pot clatter, then water turn on in the sink. His champagne glass had gotten warmer, the champagne flat and sweet.
    “After one,” he said. “I'm sleepy now. I've got a long day tomorrow.”
    “So go to sleep,” Barbara said.
    “Thanks,” Austin said.
    There was more silence. “Who
is
this woman?” Barbara said somewhat brittlely.
    “Just a woman I met,” Austin said. “She's married. She has a baby. It's just
la vie moderne.
”
    “La vie moderne,”
Barbara said. She was tasting something now. Whatever she was cooking she was tasting.
    “Right,” Austin said. “Modern life.”
    “I understand,” Barbara said. “
La vie moderne.
Modern life.” She tapped a spoon hard on the rim of a pan.
    “Are you glad I'm coming home?”
    “Of course,” Barbara said, and paused again while Austin tried to particularize for himself the look that was on her face now. All the features in her quite beautiful face seemed to get thinner when she got angry. He wondered if they were thin now. “Do you think,” Barbara said, trying to sound merely curious, “that you might just possibly have taken me for granted tonight?” Silence. She was going on cooking. She was alone in their house, cooking for herself, and he was in a nice hotel in Paris—a former monastery—drinking champagne in his pajamas. There was some discrepancy. He had to admit that. Though it finally wasn't very important, since each ofthem was well fixed. But he felt sorry for her, sorry that she thought he took her for granted, when he didn't think he did; when in fact he loved her and was eager to see her. He was sorry she didn't know how he felt right now, how much regard he had for her. If she did, he thought, it would make her happy.
    “No,” Austin said, finally answering her question. “I don't think I do. I really don't think so. Do you think I ever do?”
    “No? It's fine, then,” Barbara said. He heard a cabinet door close. “I wouldn't want you to think that you took me for granted, that's all.”
    “Why do we have to talk about this now?” Austin said plaintively. “I'm coming home tomorrow. I'm eager to see you. I'm not mad about anything. Why are you?”
    “I'm not,” Barbara said. “Never mind. It doesn't matter. I just think things and then they go away.” More spoon banging.
    “I love you,” Austin said. The rim of his ear had begun