Pictures of You Read Free

semitropical uplands, and boarded her plane without a second thought.
    Now, as the taxi moved northward, Eva was convinced that the impulse to come had been a good one. The bracing mountain air, warm though it was, seemed to be clearing her head somewhat. She began to feel her nerve endings uncoiling from the dangerous tautness
which had characterized them for the past few weeks. She began to relax; a sense of well-being, as deceptive as she knew it could be, had settled on her. Wild-goose chase or not, she was determined to enjoy herself, just as Stu would have done. And yes, this trip would also be enlightening, if only from the viewpoint of the pictures she would be able to bring back for publication.
    Most important, Eva was counting on this trip to put things back into perspective for her. Her disastrous marriage to Stu had temporarily sidetracked her from the kind of life she had always wanted, one that was filled with stimulation, achievement, and love.
    Eva had grown up with more love than most children. Her parents were totally devoted, deeply loving, and, in their own way, overly indulgent of her. When it became obvious that she would be their only child, they even exaggerated these qualities, as a way to vent their own needs to give and to compensate for their inability to provide siblings for Eva. Far fom being overprotective, Eva’s parents had given her much free rein, knowing that she would have to cope if anything ever happened to them and she was left alone in the world. Eerily, their premonition was well founded. Eva’s mother became ill and died within six months of Eva’s graduation from high school, and a year later, when Eva was in her first year of college, her father suffered a stroke and, after three months in a comatose condition, he too died.
    Her parents’ training served her well. Distraught as she was at the loss of both parents within such a short time, Eva managed to fill her days at the university, not slowing down at all until she sensed that the pain had begun to ease.
    It was during her sophomore year that she met E. Stuart Jordenson. She was taking part in a work-study program which, though she had been adequately provided for by her parents, gave her both the extra money and
the additional work experience that she knew would be of great benefit after she graduated. As a very part-time assistant to the editor of the in-house publication at Jordenson Manufacturing, she was given a wide assortment of chores, doing a little reporting, a little photography, a little design, a little layout. It was during one of these assignments that she had been singled out by the boss himself. How ironic, she thought now in hindsight, that this job, which she had taken specifically to improve her future prospects, had actually affected them so completely!
    Stu had entered Eva’s life at a time when she was uncharacteristically vulnerable, still suffering from the emotional withdrawal following her parents’ deaths. He promised her everything she thought she wanted, and after a whirlwind courtship, they were married in an elaborately staged wedding attended by all of the Jordenson relatives, all of the Jordenson friends, all of the Jordenson business associates, most of the Jordenson acquaintances, and a few of Eva’s close friends. Viewing Eva as a poor, unsophisticated, though perhaps devious, orphan, Stu’s parents had magnanimously made all the plans for this extravaganza, relegating Eva to the role of spectator, a role she was not used to playing. The wedding preparations themselves became a nightmare of fittings, consultations, and other command performances, ironically a harbinger of the agonizing marriage yet to come.
    Eva frequently asked herself, after the first few months of happiness had dragged into months of tension, frustration, and anger, why Stu had wanted to marry her in the first place. He was older, wise to the ways of women and the world, and could