Young Hearts Crying Read Online Free PDF Page A

representational.”
    “So what is it, then?”
    “Just what it looks like: an arrangement of shapes and colors, perhaps a celebration of the act of painting itself. It’s the artist’s personal statement, that’s all.”
    “Yeah, yeah, sure, but I mean if it’s his personal statement, what’s he saying?”
    “Oh, Michael, I don’t believe this; I think you’re teasing me. If he could have said it he wouldn’t’ve had to
paint
it. Come on; let’s get out of here before we—”
    “No. Wait a second. Listen: I still don’t get it. And there’s no point in trying to make me feel dumb about this, baby, because that won’t work.”
    “I think you’re trying to make yourself feel dumb,” she said. “I don’t even know how to talk to you when you’re like this.”
    “Yeah, well, you’d better try another line pretty soon, sweetheart, or it’s only gonna get worse. Because you know what you are when you pull this snotty little Radcliffe condescension with me? You’re a real pain in the ass. I mean that, Lucy.…”
    But now, here in Paul Maitland’s studio, when she came up as his neatly bundled, pleasantly tired wife and put her hand through his arm, he was glad enough to let her steer him away to the door. There would be other opportunities. Maybe, if he saw enough of Paul Maitland’s work, he might begin to understand it.
    As they followed Bill Brock and Diana in clumping down the cold, dirty stairs to Delancey Street, Bill turned back cheerfully and called, “Hope you folks are ready for a little walk – we sure as hell aren’t gonna find a cab in
this
neighborhood.” And in theend, with freezing feet and streaming nostrils, they walked all the way home.
    “They’re both sort of – rare people, aren’t they?” Lucy said later that night, when she and Michael were alone and getting ready for bed.
    “Who?” he said. “Diana and Bill?”
    “Oh, God, no, not Bill. He’s just an ordinary loudmouthed, smart-assed – as a matter of fact I’m getting a little tired of Bill, aren’t you? No, I meant Diana and Paul. There’s something exceptional about the two of them, isn’t there? Something sort of – unearthly. Something enchanted.”
    And he knew at once what she meant, though he might not have put it that way. “Well, yeah,” he said. “I mean I know what you mean.”
    “And I have the funniest feeling about them both,” she said. “Sitting there and watching them tonight I kept thinking, These are the kind of people I’ve wanted to know all my life. Oh, I suppose all I’m really trying to say is that I want them to like me. I do want that so much, and it makes me nervous and sad because I’m afraid they won’t, or that if they do it won’t last.”
    She looked forlorn, sitting on the edge of the bed in her nightgown like the very picture of a poor little rich girl, and her voice was perilously close to tears. If she allowed herself to cry over something like this he knew she would be ashamed, and that would only make it worse.
    And so, in as low and comforting a voice as he could manage, he told her that he understood her fears. “I mean I don’t necessarily agree with you – why
wouldn’t
they like you? Why wouldn’t they like both of us? – all I mean is, I know what you mean.”

Chapter Three
    The White Horse Tavern, on Hudson Street, became their most agreeable gathering place. They were usually a party of four – Bill and Diana and the Davenports – but there were a surprising number of other, happier evenings when Paul Maitland would bring Peggy uptown to join them around a big, damp brown table for drink and talk and laughter, and even for song. Michael had always liked to sing; he prided himself on having memorized all the lyrics of obscure songs and on usually having the sense to know when to stop, though there were some nights when Lucy had to frown or nudge him into silence.
    This was at a time not long before the death of Dylan Thomas made the White