The Theoretical Foot Read Free Page A

walked all the way from Munich just to get to you.”
    â€œYou walked?” Sara asked. “Do you mean to tell me, Joseph Kelly, that you made Sue hitchhike? That tiny dainty little thing? No wonder you’re late. It’s a wonder you didn’t kill her.”
    â€œNothing of the kind! She actually loved it. It was the first time in her life she’d ever done anything so daring. And anyway, her size has nothing to do with it—that girl is as strong as a horse.
    â€œBut, Sara,” Joe asked, “is it because you’re sore that I didn’t tell you when we’d land?”
    â€œOf course not. As a matter of fact, we just got in last night ourselves from a jaunt up to Dijon. But the truth is the place is more full than it’s ever been, but wait, here she is!”
    Susan Harper stood for a moment on the edge of the terrace looking at Joe and his friend. If she didn’t feel so awful, she thought, she’d be hurt at the free and easy expression in her lover’s dark and undeveloped face, the new relaxation in his huge shoulders. But she did happen to feel so sick. Her head felt as if it were full of old feathers and she knew with a chill and a dreadful certainty that somewhere between Munich and Veytaux she had caught a prize cold. She sniffed angrily.
    Then, as if it had been held at bay by space alone, shyness swept over her. She began to tremble inside and pray to God that her head and her voice would not quake and betray how her stomach was shaking as she began to totter across the miles of terrace that separated her from them.
    She was wondering as she went along how this woman managed to scare her so thoroughly. The several times she’d seen Sara before, in America, she’d been quiet and kind and—in her owndetached way—seemed honestly interested in what Susan was doing and what and where she was studying. Sue and Joe had gone to her house twice for dinner and had eaten and drunk and talked well into the night; rather Joe had. Sue still remembered the agonies of her own shyness that had almost conquered her before each visit and the awkwardness that conspired to make her clumsily drop glasses and trip over rugs and stutter as she never had since grammar school.
    Was all that to start again? she wondered. She was grown up now, no longer the foolish virgin. In fact, Susan was only a few years younger than Sara was herself. And Sara hadn’t needed these four years of living in Europe to make her polished, as she’d already been so smart and so cool.
    Sue surreptitiously wiped a little tear of perspiration from the hollow of her upper lip, then stretched to make the most of her fifty-nine inches, pulled her skirt smoother over her tight little buttocks, and walked as haughtily as she could manage across the terrace.
    â€œGood morning, Mrs. Porter,” she said without smiling. “It’s wonderful to see you again after so long. I hope you will excuse my being late.”
    Oh dear God, Sue thought as she sat down and remained stiffly posed on the hard café chair. She was wondering what had happened to her. At home she was one of those who had social poise, as it was called, one of the more valuable helps during rushing at the sorority house, necessary to impress the timid freshwomen with her sophistication.
    Where, she thought, was all that now?
    Sue frowned, suddenly hating Joe for bringing her here, all the while trying not to sniff. Sara’s voice came to her as if through a dense fog.
    â€œI’m glad to see you here, Susan. And Tim will be too. He’s anxious to meet you. And of course it’s all right about being late. I did a lot of marketing and then came back here because I didn’t know which hotel you were staying at. I’m so terribly sorry not to have been able to put you up last night—we’d just got in fromDijon. You want some beer, don’t you? Jean, three beers. And then . . .” Sara