Away from Home by Rona Jaffe Read Free Book Online

sorry.” She put her cigarette out quickly and folded her hands in her lap, feeling her nails cutting into her own knuckles and powerless to stop.
    There were so many things they loved to do together: play chess, listen to music, talk, talk, talk. Sometimes, when they just wanted to talk together, she and Neil could stay up all night, each of them glancing at each other in delighted surprise when they saw the sky beginning to lighten with dawn. Sometimes then they would go out and walk on the beach, hand in hand, like friends, and perhaps they would swim when the beach was fully light. There would be no one there at seven o’clock, except for a few maids who went swimming before they returned to cook breakfast for their awakening employers. And then Margie and Neil would go back to their apartment and have coffee and toast and eggs, ravenously, and he would slap his forehead with the palm of his hand and laugh and say, “It’s all right for you ; you can sleep all day!” He would kiss her goodbye and go to the office, and she would pull the heavy curtains across the bedroom windows and curl into bed, the sheets still cool from the night breeze, and she would sleep, thinking how much she loved him. But on a night like tonight, when he did not want to talk, there seemed to be nothing for either of them to say; except for the one thing that neither of them dared say.
    “Come on,” Neil said. “It’s late.”
    It was hopeless even to try to finish her drink; the taste of it was making her feel ill. She put the glass on the coffee table and stood up.
    When they walked down the hall to their bedroom Neil put his hand on the back of her neck, and then she knew. She knew, as if there were a sign language for people who have been married for several years and know each other’s habits so well they imagine what they know is the other’s thoughts. But it’s never the thoughts, Margie thought; it’s only the habits. She looked at their shadows joined ahead of them on the white carpet and she felt very lonely.
    “Look,” Neil said, pointing. “There’s a saying in Bali that when two people walk together and their shadows join, they’ll be together for the rest of their lives.”
    “I hope so,” Margie said softly.
    “What do you mean, you hope so?”
    “I love you.”
    “I love you too, Monkey. You know that.”
    “I wish you wouldn’t call me Monkey.”
    He looked at her, astonished and almost hurt. “Then I never will again. If you didn’t like it, why didn’t you say so?”
    She shrugged. “It didn’t seem … to matter.”
    He put his hand on the back of her neck again and began to stroke her, very lightly. “It does matter.”
    She went into her bathroom and shut the door, and a moment later she heard the groan of plumbing and the splash of water as Neil turned on the taps in the sink. He’s brushing his teeth now, she thought, and felt like an idiot who had to catalogue the everyday occurrences of life in order to make them seem real. She sank down on the edge of the tub, consumed with inertia, and watched a barrata scuttle behind the sink and disappear. That was a small one, she thought—clinging to things, to objects. There are clean towels on the rack tonight. I like these pink ones. I must write to Mother and ask her to send me more just like them, and some beige ones for Neil. He likes beige towels. She felt her heart beating so hard it seemed to be pulsing in her eye sockets. How long can you keep on bribing him? she screamed at herself silently. He wouldn’t care if his towels were beige or Hell’s own color if you gave him what he really needed. She stood up then, moving as carefully as an invalid arising from bed after a long illness, and went to the sink to prepare for bed.
    Neil had turned out all the lights but one of the small lamps on their double dresser, and he had pulled the curtains closed and taken off the spread. They kept a small portable radio in their bedroom, and when she