A Voice In The Night by Brian Matthews Read Free Book Online

start acting like a man. The only peace I get is when I fall asleep.”
    Eileen sat stunned in their kitchen. She hadn’t expected him to go this far. Jake said nothing, looking away toward his dials and knobs.

Chapter 11
    The visitor still hadn’t returned.
    For weeks now, he’d been silent, and most of the calls revolved around that. A few blamed Luke’s outburst, but most were sympathetic to the pressure.
    Eileen saw the tension begin to dissolve. He played with the baby for hours every afternoon, lying on the carpet alongside Jeremy, or on their huge bed. When they were both exhausted, Luke would lay on the sofa, the boy asleep on his chest, lulled by his father’s heartbeat. Luke half-dozed. Eileen watched them both from the kitchen. She never knew she could be this happy, despite the pressure they were under. Sometimes, on a baby- wakeful night, she would sit on the rocking chair in the nursery, Jeremy squirmy in her arms. Luke talked on the radio and she rocked back and forth in the darkness, wishing he were home. She thought of their trip cross country in the Healey on these nights and felt much older than the two years since then. Those simpler days were a storehouse of a freedom she could draw on now, when she needed it.
    She fantasized a future without celebrity, with her husband and child, and time for herself when the baby was older. For the delicious pleasure of leafing through a magazine without interruption. For an unhurried shower, drying her hair and getting dressed before noon.
    She looked out through the gate toward the sidewalk they used to walk into town. To push Jeremy in his stroller along it would be a vacation. But the curiosity-seekers were always there, outside the high fence, peering back at the pretty prisoner. Some day, soon, they could be free. Luke had promised and she believed. She would give him this time and then they would take down the gate and fences and live a life again.
    Jake, on the other hand, was living full-tilt, now. By not seeking solitude, he got it. By embracing the crowds, he became theirs and they gave him room.
    “What looks good?”
    The girl across the table studied the menu hard, as though there would be an exam. He only half believed that she was real, and with him. She was a major ball-breaker, but she looked so good, he tolerated her campaign to improve him. Sandy’s name was really Delores. How did the nickname translate? Lori maybe, but Sandy?
    She had dragged him from store to store in LaJolla. No more glasses held together with tape. Contact lenses. Clothes. Haircut. The ancient Jeep had to go too. She wouldn’t ride in it another day. The Corvette would be okay, the Porche would have been better, but, small steps. Jake figured he was three months away from hating her.
    Her materialism was getting tedious and he could sense the end hurtling toward them. Otherwise, he would have liked her. She was funny and ready to laugh. And she loved sex even more than he did. But he was a bum at the core, knew it, and liked himself for it. She wasn’t going to change him. He would stay a sow’s ear, just cleaned up a little.
    “I’m going with the cheeseburger platter, side of rings.”
    “No he’s not. We’ll both have the house salad, dressing on the side and minestrone soup. Two iced teas. And more bread. Thanks.” The waiter was dismissed “Jake, you can’t eat crap all the time. You have to eat good food. You’ll be a fatty by forty.”
    “I’ll stop at MacDonald’s later-15 cent cheeseburgers. Goooood”
    “ Fuck you.” But she smiled.
    Sandy kept men just outside her emotional perimeter. But Jake was the dangerous kind because he had a good heart. She didn’t think he was capable of using her the way she was using him. She knew he might fall for her if she allowed it, but she wouldn’t. She would move on in time to a safer man, when Jake got too close. Only she knew the reason why.
    She had been pretty, but the plainest of girls once, her family