A Right To Die Read Free Page A

some. “Many-many thanks, Miss Rowan, but of course they’re not just from me, they’re from all of us. Is it all right to list you as a patron?”
    Lily sat. “Certainly, if you want. My father made that money building sewers with one hand and playing politics with the other.” She picked up her coffee cup and sipped. “Since you can afford to donate your time, I suppose your father knows how to make money too.”
    “Yes, he did.” She closed her bag with the check inside. “Not building sewers, real estate. He died six years ago.”
    “In New York?”
    “No, Wisconsin.”
    “Oh. Omaha?”
    Lily was showing me how smart she was. We had driven across Nebraska on the way to Montana. Miss Brooke politely didn’t smile. “No, Racine,” she said.
    Lily sipped coffee. “I suppose I’m being nosy, but to me it’s-well, you’re fascinating. I’m not lazy or stingy, I’m merely useless. I simply don’t understand you. Do you mind if I try to?”
    “No, of course not.” She tapped her bag. “Your money isn’t useless, Miss Rowan.”
    Lily flipped a hand. “Tax-deductible. But your time and energy aren’t. Have you been doing this ever since you came to New York?”
    “Oh no. Only two years-a little more. There’s nothing fascinating about me, believe me. When I finished college-I barely made it, I’m Radcliffe ‘fifty-nine-I went home to Racine and got good and bored. Then something happened, and-Anyway, my father was dead and only my mother and me in a big house, and we came to New York. My brother was here and he suggested it. But you didn’t ask for my autobiography.”
    “Yes, I did. Practically. You live with your brother?”
    She shook her head. “We did for a while, but then we took an apartment-my mother and I. And I got a job.” She put her empty cup down, and I got up and filled it. I was glad of the chance to contribute something.
    “If you can stand any more,” Lily said, “what kind of a job?”
    “I can stand it if you can. Reading manuscripts for a publisher. It was terrible-you would never believe what some people think is fit to print. Then I got a job at the UN, a desk job. The job was about as bad, but I met a lot of different people, and I realized how silly I was to do dull paying jobs when I didn’t need the pay. It was a girl I met at the UN, a colored girl, who gave me the idea of the ROCC, and I went and asked if I could do something.” She drank coffee.
    “Absolutely fascinating,” Lily declared. “Don’t you think so, Mr. Goodwin?”
    “No,” I said flatly. A business adviser should be tough. “It depends on what satisfies a person, that’s all. You ladies both have all the money you need, and in my opinion you’re both rather selfish. You could make a couple of men secure and happy and comfortable, but you won’t take the trouble. Neither of you is married. At least-you haven’t been married, Miss Brooke?”
    “No.”
    “And don’t intend to be?”
    She laughed, a soft little laugh. “Maybe I will. After what you’ve said, I’ll feel selfish if I don’t. I’ll invite you and Miss Rowan to the wedding.”
    “I’ll accept with pleasure. By the way, which publisher did you read manuscripts for'I had one rejected once, and it may have been you.”
    “Oh, I hope not. The Parthenon Press.”
    “Then it wasn’t you. Another by the way, this will amuse you. When Miss Rowan got the idea of making a contribution to the ROCC she asked me to check a little, and I asked around, and one man said there was probably some Communist influence. Of course people say that about any outfit they don’t like, but he mentioned a name. Dunbar Whipple. He had no evidence, just hearsay. But Whipple might like to know about it. I’d rather not name the man who said it.”
    No flush or fluster. She even looked a little amused. “I hope,” she said, “this isn’t a new way of asking me if I’m a Communist.”
    “It isn’t. I’m plain and simple. I would just say,