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Blackwood Farm Vampire Chronicl Anne Rice
Destiny Binds Timber Wolves T Tammy Blackwell
Blackwood Farm Anne Rice
Blackwater Conn Iggulden
Anne Frasier [Elise Sandburg Stay Dead (epub)
Bethany Kris [Russian Guns 03 The Score (epub)
[heft] Perry Rhodan 0134 Die Kanonen von Everblack
Carolyn Hart [Death on Demand Yankee Doodle Dead (v5.0) (epub
An Impartial Witness A Bess Cra Charles Todd
Blood Will Tell Dana Stabenow

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.She called a company selling “adult services” and told them no intercourse.A lot of girls probably try that—getting paid as a call girl without having sex—but Petra had long legs, blond hair, and a real Swedish accent.They hired her on her terms.“When I have sex, it’s always for free.Because I want to.”Growing warm and bold with the wine, Suzanne asked her for details about the work.Petra told her the stories: the young man who wanted her to teach him how to give oral sex, the tiny woman who wanted to spank her in old-fashioned underwear, the guy who wanted to be whipped.The one who wanted her only from the ankle down, the one who masturbated while she crawled around the room and talked like a baby, the one who wanted her to dance in dim light wearing a red dress he had hanging in his closet.“It was his wife’s dress,” she told Suzanne, her eyes glazing wet.“She had died and he missed her.That was too much, the last time.After that I got a job making cocktails.”“Mixing.” Suzanne put her arm around her, almost a hug.“It’s called mixing drinks.”Petra wiped her tears with her forefinger until the streaks on her face were dry, laughing.“Crazy, no? Diapers, sure, no problem, but not a dead woman’s dress to make a widower feel better.”Now, after years of Petra’s confidences, Suzanne feels guilty for not reciprocating, for separating herself from her best friend with deceit.She’s used to it, though, used to feeling distant from others because she has a secret.For four years she hasn’t been able to tell anyone why she is so happy when she is happy or why so sad or worried when she is sad or worried.For four years she’s been lying to her best friend, to her husband, to everyone she meets.Now she shrugs.“I’m expecting my period.”Petra surprises her by saying, “So you’re sure you’re not pregnant again?”The lightbulb above their table flickers, and Suzanne looks toward the front of the shop, watching people pass the plate-glass window.She grips her drink.“Petra, we’re not even trying anymore.You know that.”“I never believed that, you know, and I understand you don’t want me asking every month.I do, but I wish you could tell me.I tell you everything.”Suzanne finds her eyes.“Petra, I swear.We aren’t trying anymore.We hardly even were, and then Ben changed his mind altogether.”“What about your mind?”“I decided it was for the best, too.My sister-in-law was right, I guess.You can’t replace a lost baby with another one.”“Your sister-in-law is a bitch.” Petra lifts her cup and drains it with surprising speed.“So then that answer about your period is a total bullshit answer.”“And you don’t really tell me everything.” Suzanne pauses, hating herself for using Adele to deflect Petra’s inquest.“There’s nothing to tell there.I’ve told you.He was just a guy I slept with—nobody that matters.”“He’s going to matter to Adele.She’s going to want to know.At least you should get the guy’s medical records, family history, that kind of thing.”“Then I’d have to tell him about her.If I could remember his last name, if I could even find him.And what if he’s an asshole? What if he’s some horrible person and wants to share custody and make decisions about her life?” Petra is glaring now.“But you’re just changing the subject to avoid telling me what the hell is going on.Which is mean.And you’re not mean, so something must really be going on.”“I’m so sorry, Petra.I’m having a hard time today.I guess I’m in mourning.” She speaks this truth gingerly, eyes cast down.“For the life I didn’t lead.For the baby I didn’t have.It’s my age, maybe, and my birthday coming around again.Lately I think a lot about my choices and how my life might have been different.” She wants to tell her everything, but she stops herself.Petra strokes Suzanne’s hair, causing a table of male professors to stare at them without even disguising their leers.Performing for them, Petra kisses her cheek and holds her hand on the tabletop.“You say it like it’s already over.Anyway, you have a great life.Musician married to a musician—how often does that work out? And the quartet is actually succeeding, and Adele likes you a lot more than she likes me.And she loves you just as much.”Suzanne lifts a smile.“If you and I make out right now, those men will die of heart attacks.”“Almost reason enough,” Petra says, pulling back, dropping the physical contact altogether.“So, what do you call Harold in Italy?”This is one Suzanne hasn’t heard, so she waits for Petra to deliver the punch line.“The longest joke ever written.”Suzanne bursts out laughing, but there are tears, too, and Petra looks stricken.“I’m sorry,” Suzanne says.“That’s the last piece I played in St.Louis.It makes me think of one of those lives I didn’t get to live.”Her cell phone vibrates again.This time there is no number to read, only the word unknown.“Is it important?” Petra asks.“I hope not.” Suzanne returns the still buzzing phone to her pocket and lifts her viola case.Though she holds it on her hip with both arms, like a young child, she feels as though her arms are flailing, as though she has just stepped off a cliff and is plummeting, waiting for the ground to rise up and stop her fall.The sensation is as real as in a dream.FourBy Saturday, Suzanne’s phone has vibrated with another call from Chicago and two more unknowns.She knows that it has to be about Alex and that she should answer it, but she also knows that the woman who called her home is probably Olivia Elling.She cannot swallow when she even thinks the name, so she turns off her phone for long stretches.It’s not denial, she promises herself, but a necessary postponement.It feels like time has stopped, just for a bit, right in the middle of her life flying apart.Soon enough some god will hit the start button, her universe will expand at the speed of light, and everything she has will be taken from her.It is her turn to make the trip into the city, bringing the bows to the only person she and Petra trust to rehair them.Ben is at the dining-room table with blank score pages and a pencil.His neck curves, and his hair falls into his eyes.On a whim, she asks him to go with her.“We could get lunch,” she says, but what she is thinking is that they can walk in the park and she can tell him everything.She can tell him everything before someone else does.“No thanks,” he says.“I need the work time.”So she makes her way to the back of the house and finds Adele alone in her room, arranging stuffed animals in circles on the floor.She waves for Adele’s attention and asks if she wants to come to New York.“We have to bring the bows to Doug, but we can do fun stuff, too.”Adele smiles and signs, “I like the train!”“Brush your hair and teeth and we’ll go.”The trolley-style car that runs back and forth between Princeton and the train station at Princeton Junction—called the Dinky by everyone in town—is less than a mile away.Suzanne and Adele turn up John Street, walking across the neighborhood facetiously named Downtown Deluxe by the black families pushed there to make room for the upscale retail development of Palmer Square.Most of the original inhabitants—some of them descendants of valets and footmen granted their own freedom after accompanying young Southern gentlemen to Princeton—are elderly now, their children and grandchildren moved into suburban neighborhoods [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]