Augusta Played by Kelly Cherry Read Free Book Online Page B

if each breath were dredged up from the bottom of his soul, with an effort so enormous no one should know but if you happened to be a perceptive person you might just realize that lugging the world around on your shoulders was no fun. Weightily, he walked to his desk. “Hello, Esther,” he said. “Yes, Esther. Yes. No, no. Yes, Esther. Fine, Esther.” Then suddenly his tone changed. “She did? What about? What was her bearing? She was pleasant? That’s good, that’s very good. So? It would be better if she were unpleasant? Now listen. We could just pull it off. If her husband comes out for Amato, it could be just the support we need to put him in. Amato’s word we already got. If Amato goes in, Lei-bowitz goes in, and if Leibowitz goes in, so do I. This is excellent news, Esther, excellent.” His pale beige skin was suffused with a rising red glow. Birdie’s face fell. She sat down in a chair, ignoring Norman. Norman asked her what was wrong but Birdie only shook her head. She could not possibly tell Norman that she had that minute realized for the first time that she was jealous of his father’s wife.
    For a second after he hung up, Sid Gold’s mind was elsewhere.
    Norman, mentally playing back his father’s half of the conversation and realizing what was missing, said, bitterly, “You could have told her.”
    â€œTold her what?” Sid was genuinely confused.
    â€œMy news.”
    â€œOh. Your news. I sincerely hope you will come to your senses and that she never has to be told.”
    â€œTold what?” Birdie asked.
    â€œI’m getting married. As you might have gathered from my father’s reception of this news, my fiancée is not a Jewess.”
    â€œWhat is she?” Birdie asked, wide-eyed.
    Norman laughed. “That’s good,” he said to his father. “She’s right, you know. I could be engaged to a black girl. Or an Arab.”
    â€œOver my dead body.”
    â€œIs she an Arab?” Birdie asked.
    â€œNo,” Norman said. “She’s not pregnant either. Apparently, my father never heard of the Pill. Also love he never heard of.”
    â€œThat’s not true!” Birdie exclaimed. “Your father knows a lot about—”
    â€œThat’s enough, Birdie,” Sid said. “And as for you, who taught you to use such language in front of a lady?”
    â€œWhat language? What on earth are you talking about? Love?”
    Sidney looked—and felt—acutely uncomfortable.
    â€œHoly Toledo,” Norman said. “You don’t want me to talk about the Pill. Is that it?”
    Sid turned to Birdie, who was still seated. “You said you had an observation to make,” he said, thinking it might be less exhausting to go back rather than forward so far as this particular discussion went.
    â€œOh yes,” Birdie said, in a voice as clear and fresh as a mountain stream, which could be unnerving in Brooklyn. “It was just this. Not to worry about the fox fur, Norman, because Sidney can always buy me another.” And she looked at them both ingenuously, not to say ingeniously, as if she had found the perfect solution to the most urgent problem of the entire afternoon. She batted her false lashes. She was aware of how she looked at them and of the effect it produced, but this did not mean that her expression was not an honest reflection of her real self. She was , she happily admitted, a dizzy dame. It’s just that she was not a dumb dizzy dame. It was a subtle distinction, and not all men had minds that could grasp it.
    Sid could see that his son was twitching with pleasure, galvanized. “Okay. You’ve had your laugh. Now go.”
    â€œI’m leaving,” Norman said. He reached down and plucked Birdie’s hand from her lap to shake it. “Nice meeting you, Miss Mickle,” he said.
    â€œMe too, I’m sure,” she said.
    â€œHalf a million