Secrets & Surprises Read Free Page A

half of the frame showed a tall tired man looking into the window of a travel agency at a picture of the lady and her lover. He would have no lines, but in a balloon above his head he would be wondering if, when he went home, it was the right time to urge an abortion to the friend who had moved into his apartment.
    When he got home, Stephanie was not there. She had said that if she felt better, she would go out to eat. He sat down and took off his shoes and socks and hung forward, with his head almost touching his knees, like a droopy doll. Then he went into the bedroom, carrying the shoes and socks, and took off his clothes and put on jeans. The phone rang and he picked it up just as he heard Stephanie’s key in the door.
    “I’m sorry,” Petra said, “I’ve never stood anybody up before in my life.”
    “Never mind,” he said. “I’m not mad.”
    “I’m very sorry,” she said.
    “I drank a beer and read the paper. After what I did to you the other night, I don’t blame you.”
    “I like you,” she said. “That was why I didn’t come. Because I knew I wouldn’t say what I wanted to say. I got as far as Forty-eighth Street and turned around.”
    “What did you want to say?”
    “That I like you. That I like you and that it’s a mistake, because I’m always letting myself in for it, agreeing to see men who treat me badly. I wasn’t very flattered the other night.”
    “I know. I apologize. Look, why don’t you meet me at that bar now and let me not walk out on you. Okay?”
    “No,” she said, her voice changing. “That wasn’t why I called. I called to say I was sorry, but I know I did the right thing. I have to hang up now.”
    He put the phone back and continued to look at the floor. He knew that Stephanie was not even pretending not to have heard. He took a step forward and ripped the phone out of the wall. It was not a very successful dramatic gesture. The phone just popped out of the jack, and he stood there, holding it in his good hand.
    “Would you think it was awful if I offered to go to bed with you?” Stephanie asked.
    “No,” he said. “I think it would be very nice.”
    Two days later he left work early in the afternoon and went to Kirby’s. Dr. Kellogg opened the door and then pointed toward the back of the house and said, “The man you’re looking for is reading.” He was wearing baggy white pants and a Japanese kimono.
    Nick almost had to push through the half-open door because the psychiatrist was so intent on holding the cats back with one foot. In the kitchen Kirby was indeed reading—he was looking at a Bermuda travel brochure and listening to Karen.
    She looked sheepish when she saw him. Her face was tan, and her eyes, which were always beautiful, looked startlingly blue now that her face was so dark. She had lavender-tinted sunglasses pushed on top of her head. She and Kirby seemed happy and comfortable in the elegant, air-conditioned house.
    “When did you get back?” Nick said.
    “A couple of days ago,” she said. “The night I last talked to you, I went over to the professor’s apartment, and in the morning we went to Bermuda.”
    Nick had come to Kirby’s to get the car keys and borrow the Thunderbird—to go for a ride and be by himself for a while—and for a moment now he thought of asking her for the keys anyway. He sat down at the table.
    “Stephanie is in town,” he said. “I think we ought to go get a cup of coffee and talk about it.”
    Her key ring was on the table. If he had the keys, he could be heading for the Lincoln Tunnel. Years ago, they would be walking to the car hand in hand, in love. It would be her birthday. The car’s odometer would have five miles on it.
    One of Kirby’s cats jumped up on the table and began to sniff at the butter dish there.
    “Would you like to walk over to the Star Thrower and get a cup of coffee?” Nick said.
    She got up slowly.
    “Don’t mind me,” Kirby said.
    “Would you like to come, Kirby?” she