After Claude by Iris Owens Read Free Book Online Page A

intuition came the wisdom to participate wholeheartedly in his superficial life.
    “Really, dear, it won’t be so bad. I’ll pick up some cold chickens and cold roast beef and chopped liver and pickled herring. It will be fun. I kid around, but you know I love to entertain your friends.”
    Claude made a critical survey of the living room.
    “No,” he said, half to himself, “it’s impossible to entertain anyone in here.”
    “Don’t be a goose,” I protested. “I’m planning to scrub the place from head to toe. I’ll get that kitchen so clean, Charles could perform an abortion in there.”
    Claude opened the hall door. It was even hotter out in the business world.
    “I’ll call you later,” he said sullenly.
    “I promise the place will be spotless. Get plenty of lovely cold white wine,” I called down the fetid stairway.
    Alone, I turned on the air conditioner. I felt strangely cheered. Due to my eternally optimistic nature, I was already scheming to turn this unwelcome occasion into a triumph. Here was a golden opportunity, call it a challenge, to unveil the depths of my capacity to flatter and charm. I decided to prepare a homemade meat loaf.

4
    A S SOON as I hit the street, I knew that meat loaf was out. Only a pathological martyr would cook in such weather. The heat sizzled over the filthy streets like an invisible mustard plaster. If you fancy cooked banana peel with pizza and eggshells, there was a feast in the gutter. There were a lot of drunken bums hanging around, competing for nickels with hippies in hair-shirts, rehearsing the plague. I dragged myself to Bleecker Street, holding my unmasked breath until I was in the sheltering arms of the A&P. It was freezing in there. I asked a mustachioed clerk where the cold cuts were hidden, but naturally he didn’t speak a word of English. “Cold cuts,” I shouted into his insane face. He laughed gleefully, as if I had proposed that we both crawl under the check-out counter and knock off a quickie.
    I wandered up and down the aisles, pushing this cart that was designed to go backward into my ankles, and found inspiration in the form of two bright-orange barbecued chickens, a container of cole slaw, plus a quart of chocolate-chip ice cream, and then, remembering the French addiction to a procession of courses, a large jar of pickles, and dinner was served, Madame. The bill came to twelve dollars, which is my flat rate, whether I buy a pack of cigarettes or load the cart with hearts of palm and Nova Scotia. I paid the tariff and went sloshing in and out of the dog puddles, back up Morton Street. I wish to say one word about dogs in New York and then forever hold my peace, which is that they should turn on their fag boy friends and bite off the proudest part of their fag anatomies.
    I had hardly ripped off my dainties when the doorbell rang. Could it be that my swarthy admirer had followed me home? I looked through the peephole and beheld the jangling presence of my best friend, Maxine.
    “Wait,” I yelled, because I’m very modest in front of the hostile scrutiny of women. I slipped into my silk kimono and opened the door.
    “Harriet.” Her burglar alarm went off. “I’m so glad you’re home. I’m expiring from the heat. You look, fantastic!”
    I must admit that she did, too. I checked the hall to see if a drooling convoy of tourists were snapping at her heels. There was a sufficiency of rhinestones in her thong platforms to refinance the purchase of Manhattan.
    “Come in quick,” I said. “How do you have the guts to walk around in public like that?” Maxine, Jewish mother and wife, was fighting off an airtight pair of white shantung hip huggers. Above that carnage, through the transparency of a fishnet polo shirt, you could see a kosher delicatessen.
    “Oh, really.” She switched to a throaty laugh. Maxine had more accents than Peter Ustinov, but unless you punched her in the stomach, you never heard the real one. “I just came from my