Diary of a Yuppie by Louis Auchincloss Read Free Book Online

anything they get, they've begged for. But you're going to have a hell of a row with Alice, unless I very much miss my guess. She worships old Blakelock. She was telling me so only tonight."
    "Alice will certainly be a problem. But she will be only my problem. And perhaps my only one. And she'll have to go along in the end. What else can she do?"
    Glenn and I wrestled with our project into the small hours. I continued to enjoy the prospect intensely. Indeed, I felt so excited at one point I had to go out to the porch to cool my flushed countenance in the night air. Now why should I have derived such pleasure at the prospect of putting into action a plan that might backfire and result in my finding myself not only unemployed but unemployable? Have I ever been one to court danger? No! Certainly not if there is danger of death. One of my nightmares as a boy was that I was living in the age of dueling and passing a sleepless night before having to meet my adversary in a deserted park on a chilly dawn and risk a bullet through my heart because he had chosen to misconstrue an innocent joke at a party. Whenever things go badly in real life I try to console myself with the thought that at least I am not being burned at the stake or eaten by big cats in an arena or shivering in a trench full of vermin in the hell of the first world war. I have an imagination easily inflamed by horrors. But when the penalty is not physical and where there is a reasonable chance that victory in the game will go to the player who is most skilled, then I find it high and exhilarating sport to gamble for high stakes.
    When I went at last to bed I found Alice awake and reading.
    "I couldn't sleep," she said. "I feel I've been unfair to you. You work hard and then come home to face my preaching. And when we come out here and have to stay through that ghastly party, I don't know why I assume it's all so much harder on me than you. Of course, you have to do these office things, and of course you don't enjoy them any more than I do! But you don't get snippy with Lynne Deane; you have the patience of an angel!"
    As I went to the bathroom to get into my pajamas I reflected that the last thing I was going to do was to admit to Alice that I had enjoyed the "ghastly" party. I was going to need every bit of credit that I had with her; I couldn't afford to waste a smitch.
    "Don't worry about Lynne," I told her as I emerged. "I thought you were very patient with her. God knows she
is
impossible. And of course you were fine with Glenn; he was ogling you all night. That's what peeved her."
    "He's much worse than she is, really. She's coarse and ill-tempered, but her heart's in the right place. But he's mean, Bob; he really is!"
    "Anyway, I thought you looked stunning. You were certainly the belle of the ball."
    "Oh, darling, you're being ridiculous. And I love it!"
    Alice was in one of her melting moods, anxious to make up to me for all her criticisms, seeking, as she sometimes did, to drown her doubts and misgivings about me in her memories of the blue-eyed idealist she thought she'd married. I knew that I should have to make love to her, and although I was tired and wished we could put it off till the next night, she was indubitably beautiful and so ready for love that she wouldn't mind a performance somewhat impaired by whiskey.
    So we made love, and it was well enough. Why does Alice think it is cold and hard of me to understand her and wonderfully passionate of her to misunderstand me? If she would only stop to study the nature of love she would realize that I do love her. And that there may even be some doubt about what she feels for me.

6
    G LENN AND I were agreed that we would have to move quickly to win over the four key associates of the group of fifteen that we proposed to detach from the firm. By the time we should have secured this vital quartet the project would have begun to leak, and it would then be essential to have an airtight plan, including the