Fury on Sunday Read Free Page A

her hair gently.
    “Now cut it out,” he said.
    She took his right hand and pressed it to her cheek. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
    “Okay.” He finished the sandwich. “Speaking of that,” he said, wiping his fingers on the napkin, “when is Stan going to wise up?”
    She shrugged.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “Poor Stan.”
    “Well,” he said, “he made his own problem. He knew what she was before he married her.”
    “He never should have married her.”
    “That is the observation of the week,” he said.
    “I guess he still wants her, though.”
    “The world is strewn with the remnants of men who wanted what they shouldn’t have had.”
    She looked at her hands. “I suppose so,” she said.
    “He just ain’t her speed,” he said.
    “Oh, he’s not that old.”
    “Stan is forty-six and Jane is twenty-five. He’s no Gregory Peck and she’s a good looking woman.”
    She shook her head again.
    “It’s a shame,” she said.
    “Sure it’s a shame. Hey, aren’t you having some of this food?”
    “No, I’d just get an upset stomach,” she said, “You know about ladies in my condition.”
    He stroked her cheek once and smiled affectionately at her.
    “What’ll we call him?” he asked.
    “Him. It’s decided already?”
    “Sure. A son for the McCalls.”
    She sat there smiling to herself.
    “Maybe,” she said.
    He leaned over and kissed her.
    “Love ya,” he whispered in her ear.
    Then he straightened up, selected a cookie and bit into it.
    “What was we talking about before we smooched?” he said. “Oh, yeah, I remember. Why Stan still hangs on the ropes.”
    “I don’t know.”
    “He ought to ditch her. She’s going to drive him out of his mind.”
    “You think it’s that bad?”
    “Sure it is,” he said.
    He smiled at the look on her face.
    “I know, I know,” he said. “You went to college with her and she’s always been your friend. Well, you can’t live in the past. Let’s face it, she’s a nympho. She’ll sleep with anybody.”
    He reconsidered.
    “Except maybe her husband,” he amended.
    “Oh, she can’t be that bad. I won’t believe it.”
    “Honey, anybody that would try to seduce Vince
must
be that bad.”
    Ruth looked down at her hands again. She thought about Vince for a moment. Vince, so young and so eager. And so damned.
    “Poor Vince,” she said. “It was a pity.”
    “I know,” he said, “Well, Vince I can feel sorry for. That father of his.”
    He shook his head. Then he smiled cheerfully at her. “Come on, let’s get off the subject. How about a brief discussion on a name for our seven-month-distant heir?”
    “Don’t you have to work?”
    “Oh, I can finish up in the morning. Right now I want to relax with my wife for a while.”
    A look of pleasure crossed her face. He got up and helped her to her feet. They walked over to the couch and she sat down. Then he went over to the record player, put on a record and came back to the couch. As he sat down and put his arm around her the first strains of Ravel’s
Daphnis and Chloe
filled the room.
    Ruth cuddled close to him and lay her head against his shoulder.
    He reached down and patted her stomach.
    “Comfy, Guiseppe?” he asked.
    “Is that what we’re going to call him?”
    “Sure,” he said. “Guiseppe McCall; that’s a fine name.”
    “Guiseppe McCall,” she said. “It has a ring.”
    They sat in silence awhile, listening to the music and thinking about their coming child. While she listened and dreamed, Ruth looked up at her husband’s face, at his silky blonde hair, his straight nose, the strong chin line. She wanted to reach up and touch his slight beard. Emphatically, her right hand twitched in her lap and she made an amused sound to herself.
    “Hmmm?” he asked.
    “Nothing.”
    Nothing, she thought, it was a good deal more than nothing. It was rapidly coming to the point where she adored him.
    Sometimes she thought that maybe it was the child, maybe it was