An Act of Love by Nancy Thayer Read Free Book Online Page B

interesting than finished flawlessness.
    So why did she feel so bleak and frightened for her daughter now? Perhaps because she had no control here. Her daughter’s life had been saved by strangers … and it would be strangers who would, with luck, heal her daughter’s soul.

    Dark had fallen by the time they returned to Bates to pick up Bruce and his friend. It was colder now, and the wind had risen, and when the car lights flared over the lawn, they illuminated two figures: Bruce in his overcoat, and a young woman, her hair tossing in the wind.
    “It’s a girl,” Owen said, stupefied.
    Linda laughed. “You didn’t guess?”
    “How did you know? He didn’t tell us.”
    “Well, Owen, he blushed,” Linda whispered the words, for the young people had rushed to the car and were crawling into the back seat.
    “Dad, Linda, this is Alison Cartwright.”
    The girl was lovely, with long blond hair and enormous blue eyes.
    She lived in Manhattan. “I’m hoping when Bruce comes for Thanksgiving at Whit’s that he’ll be able to come by my place. I’d love for my parents to meet him.”
    “Where do you live?” Linda asked.
    “Park and Sixty-fifth, only a few blocks from Whit’s.” She smiled conspiratorially at Bruce.
    At the restaurant, their hostess, a tiny woman wearing very high heels with her hair whipped up like topping on a sundae, showed them to their table.
    “Here you are, dawlings,” she growled as she handed them their menus.
    Alison was a vegetarian, and to Owen and Linda’s surprise, Bruce was now, also.
    Owen thought vegetarianism was bunk. “Now what made you—” Owen began, but Linda flashed him a warning look, and Owen turned toward Alison and finished the sentence “—choose Hedden Academy?”
    “My dad went there, and my granddad before him. So I sort of had to go. But I’m glad I did. I love it.”
    “Where are you applying to college?” Linda asked.
    “Westhurst. It’s the new hot liberal arts college. I’m a pianist and if I go there, it will open all sorts of doors for me. But it’s super hard to get in. So many people are applying.”
    That, Linda thought, explained why Bruce had surprised them this summer by talking about applying to Westhurst. For Bruce was smitten, it was obvious. Linda’s heart ached for him. She wanted to take him aside and advise him not to look quite so lovestruck. As she recalled, young women could be fickle and cruel to someone so obviously enamored. But as the evening went on, she saw the way Alison looked at Bruce, and was reassured, and then moved. Good Lord, she thought, could this be love, the real, passionate, tormenting, overwhelming first love that sent one’s world reeling? Of course she had known it had to happen sometime for both Bruce and Emily; she just hadn’t realized it would happen so soon. Could Owen sense it, too?
    Bruce and Alison split a pizza; Linda and Owen each ordered pasta primavera and a glass of red wine. Bruce and Alison kept up a steady chatter about their courses, Christmas plans, school gossip.
    “The school paper has a Christmas poem in it,” Bruce told them. “The first letters of each line spell out—”
    “Don’t say it, Bruce!” Alison burst out, laughing.
    “They’re old enough, they can handle it.”
    “It’s too embarrassing, let them read it.”
    Linda watched the two argue, laughing, their faces glowing as they looked at each other.
    “You’re not eating anything,” Owen quietly said to his wife.
    “I’m not hungry.”
    “You should still eat.”
    “My sister was in West Four when she was at Hedden,” Alison said suddenly.
    Owen and Linda stared. Bruce said, “No way.”
    “She was. For about three weeks. They’re really nice there.”
    Linda asked, “Why was your sister—”
    “Bulimia. You know, she made herself vomit.”
    “Did they help her?”
    “Oh, yes. She’s still working on it, though.” Alison looked down at her empty plate. “I’m the youngest, so I get to be