The Innocent Read Free Page A

inside!”
    â€œGooey is right! Sickening! I can’t stand that kind of sentimental drivel. It’s disgusting. It’s all wet.”
    â€œYou’ll get all wet, waving that drink around. Well, you should worry, Margie likes it.”
    â€œMargie shouldn’t like it.”
    â€œWhy not? Really, Beck. She’s so flattered and proud because this beautiful man picked her from all the women in the world to be his to love, honor, and obey.”
    â€œShe shouldn’t be flattered.”
    â€œBut she is. She acts as if it was a miracle. I think it’s touching.”
    â€œIt’s touched. She shouldn’t be flattered. That guy went for her because she worshiped him and it wouldn’t occur to her in a hundred years that he should do the same for her. Your girl friend asks nothing but that he relax and let her adore him and take care of him and bolster him up against the cold hard world. What’s flattering about it? If Carter can’t have that from a woman, she could be Lana Turner and Linda Darnell and Greer Garson all rolled into one and, as far as Carter is concerned, she could go roll. He’d still take Margie. I wonder why boiled water makes so much difference.” He took a cautious swallow from the glass and grimaced.
    â€œIt’s like tea. Wait a minute, Becky, don’t be so smart. Don’t forget my friend Claire came along and took Charles away from Marjorie.”
    â€œThen I’ll guarantee she was ready to be his mother plus.”
    â€œWell, Claire was the mother type too, I suppose. You’re right there. Not like Margie, not the loving-kindness mother; the matriarch kind of mother. Claire always wanted to run everybody. She couldn’t have taken having a man run her like you run me.”
    â€œI do run you, pal, where it counts.” He swished the liquid in his glass distastefully. Even the vapor smelled like a bath some rye had dropped into, not like a toddy at all. He sneezed. “You see?” he asked.
    â€œPoor Becky. Wait a minute, what do you mean Claire was ready to be Charles’ mother plus? Plus glamour? Claire was much smarter than Margie, much more striking, better looking.”
    â€œNot better looking, better heeled. Your friend Claire had more money, didn’t she? Trust Carter to pick a rich mother while he was at it. I better just drink this down. I’m certainly not enjoying it.” He finished the toddy, set the glass down on the bed table, yanked the cover off the bed, and stood glaring down at it resentfully.
    Eve stared at him, then nodded and smiled. She pushed him aside, folded the covers down neatly, opened up the extra blanket and plumped up his pillows. “Why do you think it’s wrong for Margie to mother Charles? Look how you want me to mother you.”
    Beck crawled into bed. “I do not. You got any maternal instinct lying around, you save it for our offspring where it belongs. I catch you mothering me and I’ll divorce you. I’m a man, what there is of me, not a baby, and I want a wife, not a mother.”
    He pulled his nose and winced because it was tender. “Incidentally, as I pointed out to your friend, she just isn’t curious enough for her own good. She should have figured it out. She should have seen that Carter wasn’t asking her to marry him, just to adopt him. Margie’s a sweet kid, but she doesn’t understand Carter.”
    â€œHis wife doesn’t understand him. My wife doesn’t understand me! All you men say that.”
    â€œSure, it’s a stock remark and usually it means the wife understands too damn well, but not in your girl friend’s case. In her case it is quite true and could turn out quite unfunny.”
    â€œThe voice of doom! Why don’t you get up and Paul Revere over there and warn Margie she’s nursing a chidish viper in her maternal bosom.”
    â€œMaybe I should, but I have a