A PORTRAIT OF OLIVIA by J.P. Bowie Read Free Book Online Page A

Luke Taylor, bartender. Maybe we should have let Olivia ride off into the sunset with him,” he added half-seriously.
    Rod waved them over to their table. “Come and sit down, dear boys. It’s been quite an evening for you both.”
    “You can say that again,” Peter said, slumping down onto a chair. “Olivia really knows how to stage an exit.”
    ‘A’ gave him an impish smile. “When Jeff picked her up in his arms and carried her off upstairs, it was as if Rhett Butler had come to life, carrying Scarlett from the fires of Atlanta…”
    “What an imagination you have,” Rod snorted. “It was more like he was carrying a bloody sack of potatoes. I shall never be able to watch that show again, without thinking of her being so bloody rude—and then falling on her face like the tart she obviously is. You were a real gentleman, Jeff,” he added. “And she’s lucky she’s in the home of those who will not blight her reputation. There are a lot of people who would have taken advantage of her drunken-ness—mark my words.”
    “Oh, he’s off,” ‘A’ sighed. “Has to put his tuppence-worth in…”
    Everyone laughed, then Eve said; “Rod’s right though. If she’d behaved like that in public, it would be all over the tabloids the next day.”

    J.P. Bowie
    30
    “Just what she’d deserve,” Rod said, standing up. “Well ‘A’, its time I took you home. These good people have to get some rest in order to contend with the harridan in the morning.”
    “We should go too,” Andrew said. “Unless you need help with anything?”
    “We’re fine,” Peter assured him. “We’ll take care of the rest of it tomorrow.”
    They saw their guests to the door and waved them off, then Peter turned to Jeff and fell into his arms. “Oh babe, I am so sorry everything got so screwed up,” he said. “I have to learn to keep my big mouth shut and not invite undesir-ables to our home.”
    Jeff hugged Peter tightly to him. “Hey, you made my thirty-fifth birthday one I’ll always remember. Years from now, when people ask what was the most memorable occasion of my life—I will recall this evening with the greatest clarity.” Chuckling, they walked back into the kitchen where Eve and Fred were clearing up.
    “Leave all that, you two,” Peter said. “We can take care of it in the morning.
    Let’s have a nightcap and gossip !”

    c h a p t e r 3
    s
    It is inconceivable to me that Olivia Winters would be seen in public with the likes of those two—but there she was, as large as life, parading around Laguna Beach seemingly uncaring of the company she kept.
    I was so excited when I heard she would be coming to Laguna, until I read the reason for her visit. To actually enter their home, that den of iniquity, where God alone knows what they do—how could she bear it ?
    Of course, it was on the pretext of seeing where the one that paints conducts his business, and creates his so-called masterpieces. Masterpieces indeed. They are mere symbols of much that is wrong with our society today— v anity and the self-aggrandizement of the rich and foolish. To set oneself up as worthy of being represented in oils, is to my mind, the height of pretentiousness.
    There is no longer any humility among the masses. I was raised to be humble, to mind my manners and above all, to conform to the constraints of society. I tried so hard to instill those same mores in my own children, but obviously I failed.
    These people have no conception of those values, wallowing, as they will in the sins of the flesh. The Devil has a strange attraction for the weak and insipid.
    I actually drove down to Laguna to warn Miss Winters of the danger of keeping such company, but unfortunately such was the press around her I could not get near. So, I have written her again—this time using stronger language than before.
    She must disassociate herself from the wicked and the licentious—or Heaven knows what may befall her. I am only doing this because I