Best Friends by Thomas Berger Read Free Book Online Page A

interested in seeing this handsome vehicle. Francine had a total disregard for all machinery. Also, her ego was such that she refused to acknowledge any departure from the mean on the part of anyone but herself. He could have driven a handyman’s Chevy pickup or a king’s Hispano-Suiza without attracting her notice.
    He walked up the lane from the parking lot to the inn, looking for the nearby willow-bordered duck pond, which was too dark to see except as a glimmering reflection in the wan light from the carpark. The Hedges was a fetching place outside and within, warm in winter, refreshing in summertime, with alert but unobtrusive servitors and short but well-conceived menus and wine list. It would have been an excellent destination with any woman, or least any Roy was likely to court, but it was perfect for clandestine dates—and a discreet glance around the room most evenings would suggest many of one’s fellow diners could qualify for the latter.
    Roy had been introduced to the place by its owner, to whom he had sold a classic 507 BMW Sports-Tourisme, exported from Munich by a NATO general. Francine was the only woman with whom Roy had yet visited The Hedges. On the threshold now, between the wrought-iron lighting fixtures that bracketed the entrance, he found himself yearning poignantly to do so with someone other than she.
    Hand on the thick doorknob, he heard his name hissed from the darkness behind him. He turned, stepped back, and peered at the thicket near the pond, but could discern nothing through the foliage.
    â€œIs that you?” He received that most annoying answer, palpable silence. “Francine?”
    Suddenly there she was, not where he looked but just behind his right shoulder, having stolen out noiselessly from some nearer cover, probably the large shrub to the left of the entrance. But playing such games was not like her. Francine was never kittenish.
    â€œ We have to get out of here. ” Her voice was intense but scarcely louder than a whisper.
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œ Get going. ”
    Disinclined to take such direction, Roy did not move. “I want a drink,” he said. “And I’m hungry.”
    She seized his arm at the elbow and tugged with unusual strength in someone so small, who however in any posture other than standing at full height seemed much larger than she was. “ Will you get out of here? ”
    â€œJesus, Francine.” As so often, it was less fuss to comply with her wishes than to resist, even though he was well aware it was because of just this sort of gutlessness that he had come to the point at which he found her unbearable. And it was more self-respecting to walk as if of one’s own volition than to be pulled. His decision was further influenced by the exit of some people from the building behind them and the simultaneous appearance of a party of three at the bottom of the path from the carpark, making for a potential jam in human traffic.
    His fear that Francine would want to display her anguish to these strangers proved groundless. She freed him from her grasp and walked decorously beside him. Roy scanned the faces of those in the oncoming group, so as not to cut anyone with whom he had done or might do business, but recognizing nobody, he smiled faintly toward all while stepping off the narrow path in deference to the other claimant to the same space, an adolescent girl who surprised him with her murmured thanks. He quickly discerned that she was not the date but the daughter of the portly middle-aged gentleman in attendance, and her slender and still handsome mother brought up the rear, proving that the clientele of The Hedges was comprised of more than furtive adulterers. He must congratulate his friend Jack Judd, innkeeper and car collector.
    In the parking lot Roy stopped, though Francine continued to walk, even now picking up the pace, and he asked, raising his voice, “Wait a minute, will you? My car is over there.