An Accidental Life by Pamela Binnings Ewen Read Free Book Online Page B

interview tomorrow, but she’d probably replace them. She’d find some pretty antiques on Magazine Street, or down in the Quarter.
    Then, she pressed her hands together, smiling. It was all just perfect for the interview.
    Rebecca turned around, looking at the large desk on the other side of the room, facing the wall of books and the sofa and chairs. Walnut, as she’d requested. There was an elegant blue leather chair behind the desk now, the same shade of blue as in the rug. Behind the desk from wall to wall was a credenza, with cabinets underneath. The telephone was placed in the same spot as in her old office, near the chair behind the desk, along with her open calendar.
    Walking quickly, she rounded the desk and sat in the chair, swiveling this way and that. Minutes passed as she stopped and gazed around in disbelief. She shook her head. The moving teams must have worked all night to get this done. The phone rang and she swiveled. Peter was right, she thought as she picked up the phone. She might be a bird in a gilded cage; but it was a very, very nice one.
    Sydney was on the phone. The group in the conference room had an issue they’d like to discuss.

    This had been a long day already, but the worst part of the day was just ahead.
    Rebecca picked up her purse and, taking a deep breath, walked out to her secretary’s desk. She told Rose Marie that she was leaving and that she might not be back today. Just to take her calls and she’d return them in the morning. “Is everything set for the magazine people tomorrow?”
    Rose Marie assured her that everything was ready.
    St. Charles Avenue was not yet overtaken by traffic and she made it to Dr. Matlock’s office uptown with five minutes to spare. As she walked into the building where his office was located, the whole event seemed surreal. She’d made the appointment yesterday, but she’d banned it from her mind since. And now, here she was. She would get this over, and then move on with her life.
    The examination had gone quickly. But now she had to wait. Dressed in the soft pink cotton gown the nurse had handed her, Rebecca sat at the end of the examination table, legs dangling, waiting for the doctor to return. The nurse—Alice Hamilton was her name—had said the lab test wouldn’t take too long. Alice reminded her of someone from an old movie in the 1940s, the years after the war. Mulling this over, she guessed the nurse’s age at sixty years old, or so. Her hairstyle fit that era, the old pin curls and finger-wavy hair just reaching her chin. And with the little white nurse’s cap, she could have been starring on the battlefields of France in a scene with Audie Murphy.
    She liked this woman. Alice had helped her get through this ordeal.
    The room was cold after the doctor and nurse had stepped out. She hugged herself, rubbing the gooseflesh on her arms, wondering if the chilly feeling was some kind of premonition. She’d been unable to read the doctor’s expression after the examination. She’d always prided herself on her ability to read faces, even under stress in negotiating sessions. But this. This was a kind of stress that she’d never had to face before. Usually, when she recognized tension, the tension rose from a situation over which she had some control.
    But not now. She’d never felt so vulnerable to fate, so helpless, before.
    She told herself to shake this off. Rebecca had always believed that worrying about something before it happened was a waste of time and energy, unless you could do something to prevent it. This in her mind was a universal dilemma: If nothing happens after all, you’ve worried for nothing.
    Still. This time was different, she knew. Staring at the door she could almost see her perfectly ordered life coming apart. Cold fear radiated through her and she couldn’t bring herself—no, she didn’t want, did not want to name it. Because in the deepest part of her, Rebecca knew that if she was carrying a child, she had no