City Girl Read Free Page A

yet.
    "Is something wrong?" she heard a small version of her own voice asking, and she was partly relieved to see the puckered little mouth widen in a reassuring but tense smile.
    "I'm afraid so, my dear, but it needn't be a catastrophe," he affirmed softly.
    Crystal's mouth was suddenly full of saliva, and she swallowed it down with a gulp. She had never seen him like this before, and it frightened her. ,
    He went on. "You are young, you know, college-educated, intelligent, and so very pretty." He interjected a halfhearted note of gaiety here. "And you are going to be married soon. You even have a job waiting for you. I'd say things were looking pretty bright for you."
    Crystal's face fell, and the reaction was not lost on Mr. Groman. He, too, was sensing things he had no way of knowing, things that were not as they should be.
    He rubbed the shiny dome of his head with a puffy hand and hurried on. "It's not like you are destitute, with no means of support."
    A cold knot in the pit of Crystal's stomach tightened, and instantly she knew what he was getting at. She was stunned, even before the words left his mouth in uneasy, strangled little jolts.
    "It's just that… the medical bills were so high… and the house was mortgaged when you started college… and inflation… and taxes…" A hard sigh passed through the little pucker of a mouth, and his narrow, rounded shoulders drooped perceptibly. "I am afraid there is just nothing left, my dear. In fact, there is not even enough to cover expenses." He said it softly, but the impact was still similar to that of a lightning bolt.
    Crystal sat statue-still, bolted by horror and panic to her seat.
    "Nothing?" Her voice was a tinny whisper, and because she could not quite believe it, she repeated the shocked question. "Nothing?"
    "Honestly, child, I stretched it as far as I could," he offered apologetically. "It is a miracle the money lasted to see you through high school. I haven't even taken my own fees since you started college."
    Tears stung Crystal's eyes, and a hard lump formed deep in her chest. He did not understand. He could not possibly know how desperately she needed that money. Everything, her very mental and emotional well-being, depended upon her getting away from Dallas, away from Jerry, away from the hurt and humiliation and memories.
    She wanted at that moment to lash out, to cry that he had no right to tell her it was all gone, to make him feel and understand the pain and despair that surged through her every fiber. But one look at that naked, open, baby-pink face snuffed out that inane desire. He could not possibly know how serious her predicament was, and he obviously hated to give her this news. Indeed, he looked for a moment as if he would cry right along with her.
    With a bravado she had not known she possessed, Crystal forced a tiny plastic smile on her lips and blinked furiously at the tears filling her eyes.
    "It's all right, Hal," she whispered bravely, using his given name for the first time. "I know you did everything you could. You always have, and somehow, someday, I will find a way to repay you." Her chin quivered uncontrollably, and to her dismay, huge salty tears began to flow down her cheeks.
    "I never thought you would take it like this!" Mr. Groman moaned. He was on his feet and pushing a blue plaid hankie at her. "Come, now. It isn't as bad as all that. You still have your job and that young man of yours. The two of you will make it just fine, you'll see."
    Crystal shook her chocolate head slowly, blowing daintily into the gaudy handkerchief.
    "You don't understand. It's not like that at all," she sniffed. "Not at all!" And for the next quarter of an hour she poured her heart out. The many things she had wanted to keep hidden, she now unveiled.
    A stunned silence filled the office, seeming to draw in the walls and bear down upon them, until Crystal felt as if she might suffocate. The little lawyer was definitely taken aback by all this unhappy