Cold Spring Harbor by Richard Yates Read Free Book Online Page A

height like a military man and made a charming little bow. When they were settled she asked the waiter for a bourbon with a very small amount of water, and the roof of her mouth began to pucker pleasurably at the thought of it. This was going to be nice.
    “… So I thought we ought to discuss it thoroughly,” he was saying, “because there may be aspects of it that do require a little—” But before he could finish that sentence one of his forearms tipped over a glass of ice water that flooded the table.
    “Oh!” she cried.
    “Oh, I’m terribly sorry. Here, let me try and—are you all right?”
    “No, I’m fine. It startled me, is all.”
    The waiter was back, expertly blotting and wiping, murmuring assurances that no harm had been done, and when he was gone again Charles said, “It’s my eyes, you see. I have very poor vision. Sometimes I go blundering into things like a blind man.”
    It was possible, then, that he couldn’t see the crepey sections of her face and neck, couldn’t see the grease stain left by a fallen slice of sausage on the bodice of this best of three dresses, couldn’t guess her age, wouldn’t have to wonder what to do about the open loneliness and longing in the way she would always look at him.
    He was talking now in a voice as proud and steady as it must have been in the days when he’d commanded soldiers, explaining how important it was that Evan be “entirely free” to enroll as a full-time college student; and hesaid he was certain Rachel understood that too. Rachel had even told him as much, during one of the times Evan had brought her out to the house, and he hadn’t been at all surprised to hear it: Rachel was far too intelligent a girl not to understand such a thing.
    “Well, of course,” Gloria said, meaning to agree only with the part about Rachel’s intelligence, and now she could feel the whiskey beginning to do its subtle, wonderful work in her blood and brains. “And I can understand it, too, Mr. Shepard, but I’m afraid I—”
    “Oh, no, please,” he interrupted. “Call me Charles.”
    “Well, that’s nice, Charles, and I’m Gloria. Still, I’m afraid I really can’t see Rachel going to work as a typist or a waitress or something for what might turn out to be years, with no security beyond a vague plan of marriage at some future time. The point is there mustn’t be any chance of her being hurt.”
    “How would there be any chance of that?”
    She had to think it over for a minute, watching her empty glass being taken away and replaced with the gleaming fullness of another drink. Young Evan might occasionally strike her as a boy who could treat a girl lightly, or badly, but he was, after all, the son of this good and thoughtful man who wanted nothing but the best for both children. Even if his going to college did entail some element of risk for Rachel, well, life itself was a risk. Maybe you had to have a man’s mind to think as straight and as clearly as that.
    “Oh, well, I don’t know, Charles,” she said at last. “I suppose it’s just that I still think of Rachel as a child.”
    “Well, that’s—curious,” he said, “because I think I’d describe her as a mature and responsible young woman.”
    And she could tell from his face and the texture of his voice that he knew he’d won the argument.
    For another hour and more, using each other’s first names a little more often than necessary, they talked anddrank as if their interest in each other were spontaneous—as if they were friends—until suddenly it was past seven o’clock. Charles had meant to be home by this time, but now it seemed only courteous to ask Gloria Drake if she would join him here for dinner. First, though, he said he would have to make a phone call.
    Waiting at a phone booth with a dollar bill in his hand while an obliging bellhop placed the call for him (“There you go, sir; oh, thank you, sir”) Charles knew it was foolish to be spending so much time and