Tears Are for Angels Read Free Page B

just as soon as she finishes.
        She was almost through before she spoke.
        "Tell me about Lucy," she said.
        It broke my thoughts abruptly. It reminded me that I still had no idea what she wanted with me.
        "It was all in the papers."
        "I don't mean about that. I mean tell me about her ."
        It should have made me mad. It wasn't anything a stranger had any call to ask about. But suddenly I found myself talking about my wife.
        "She was a blonde like you," I said. "Only her hair was long. It came down to here. She was beautiful."
        "I saw that in the pictures."
        "Now you, you're not beautiful. You have what it takes, all right, you're good-looking, but Lucy-well, she was beautiful."
        "Thanks."
        "No offense, just two different types."
        "What was she like?"
        "A lot of fun." I thought a minute. "Most of the time, anyway. Sometimes she'd be sort of quiet. Like she was away off somewhere, but it wouldn't last long. She used to say she was absent-minded, but that wasn't it. That last year I guess she was lonely, maybe bored."
        "On the farm?"
        "Uh-huh."
        She laughed. "I wouldn't be. I always wanted to live on a farm." She wrung out her rag in the bucket.
        "You? You look like a city girl."
        "I am. But I always wanted a farm."
        "Lucy hated it. I think she did, anyway. That must have been it."
        She got up from her knees and looked at her work.
        "That'll have to do, I guess. At least it got the loose dirt." She let the rag drop into the bucket. "Who was the other woman?"
        I almost dropped the pipe. "What other woman?"
        "The papers said there was one."
        "Oh. Yeah." I thought a moment. "None of your business."
        She shrugged. "I don't get it, Harry. The way you talk, you're carrying a torch for this Lucy a mile high. I don't get the other woman."
        "Me? Carrying a torch? After what she did?"
        "It sticks out all over you."
        "Listen," I said. "That bitch was-well, never mind. You're out of your mind."
        She laughed again. "O.K., O.K… I still don't get the other woman."
        "You don't have to. Just let it go."
        "Wasn't Lucy any good in bed?"
        I got up off the bunk. "That's enough. You just shut up about it."
        "So that was it. I'd never have believed it. Not from the pictures."
        "Shut up," I said again. I went over to the shelf and picked up the fruit jar. It was almost empty and I finished it in one drink. The hell with it, I thought. The hell with all of it.
        "So much for that," she said.
        I went over to the trunk in the corner and I got the key out of my pocket and opened it and got another fruit jar.
        "Not quite," I said.
        I locked the trunk and took the fruit jar over to the door and put it down. Then I went back to the shelf, picked up the empty fruit jar, and started out. In the door, I stopped and looked back at her standing there.
        "It's just tonight," I said. "In the morning you go. I'm tired of your damned butting in. So it's just tonight. And for just that long you keep your mouth shut. Or I'll break you in two."
        I threw the empty jar against the Cadet heater. It shattered to the floor.
        "Clean that up too," I said. I picked up the full jar and went on out.
        

CHAPTER THREE
        
        i stretched out on the sand by the spring and took another drink from the jar. Then I rolled over on my back and looked up at the stars.
        Go to hell, I said to the stars, and then to the moon.
        Pretty soon, the pale light in the window of the shack flickered out. Then she came out of the door, looked around for a minute, and saw me, lying there in the moonlight. She looked at me for a long time, but I didn't move or speak.
        Then she started off the other way and disappeared over one of the dunes. In a