Evil Eye by Joyce Carol Oates Read Free Book Online

. . .”
    â€œI don’t have my cello with me. You didn’t see me bring my cello, did you.”
    Hortensa’s reply was just slightly sarcastic. Mariana chose not to hear.
    â€œWell, I mean—sometime, Hortensa! When you and Ines visit Austin again.”
    Mariana rose to pass the appetizers another time. She saw that her hands, chilled, were trembling slightly.
    â€œAh!—you have the nazar here, still. This is very wise, Austin!”
    In the dining room, Ines inspected the blue-glass “eye” beside the arched doorway. Mariana held her breath for it seemed that Ines was lifting the nazar from its hook and might drop it.
    Two glasses of Austin’s favorite chardonnay in the living room had brought a feverish flush to Ines’s face, discernible even through the thick white cosmetic mask. Seen from behind, the white-haired woman looked touchingly frail—her bare shoulders, prominent backbone—the upper arms like those of a malnourished child. Yet Mariana felt that of the four of them, including even Austin, Ines was the most strong-willed and forceful.
    â€œYou see—I am never without my nazar ”—Ines lifted her thin arm, to show the company a linked-gold bracelet on her left wrist, to which was attached a coin-sized nazar of blue glass. “Though it is ‘just superstition’—as Austin says—it would be very foolish to travel across the Atlantic Ocean without such a precaution. And I insist my dear niece wears a nazar, too.”
    Hortensa, with the air of a put-upon adolescent, dutifully lifted her fleshy arm to display the bracelet on her wrist.
    Ines said reprovingly: “The evil eye is all around us and now in cyberspace, too. One cannot be too cautious.”
    â€œYes! So true! And yet—one must live. ”
    Austin helped Ines settle into her chair, and would have helped Hortensa except the dour young woman had already seated herself. And there was Mariana, fully capable of seating herself, even if Austin had taken notice of her.
    Four places at the dining room table, two on each side. Austin and the fourth wife would face the first wife and Hortensa, inescapably.
    But Mariana was thinking now, though Austin was ignoring her, Austin was only stiffly attentive to Ines, looking toward her rather than at her. In the living room he’d remained sitting perpendicular to her, like a figure in an Edward Hopper painting in the presence of, yet not with, other figures; his smile was fixed, forced.
    â€œSo beautiful, as always! For a man alone, Austin knows to surround himself with the most exquisite things.”
    Ines was referring to the dining room, with its dark-red walls, brass-framed mirrors, and lithographs by Klee, Chagall, and Picasso; gaily she leaned over the table to sniff at a vase of purple and yellow iris Mariana had cut in the garden beside the house.
    It wouldn’t occur to Mariana until later, nor did it seem to have occurred to the others, that Austin was no longer a man alone .
    â€œAh, these are—artificial? I think so.”
    Mariana said no, she’d cut the flowers herself.
    â€œLong ago, there were very fragrant flowers growing around this house,” Ines said, cocking her head at Mariana, squinting her single sparkling eye, “but each year I have visited there are fewer. These have no fragrance at all, and could pass for artificial. ” Ines gave the word a chic Spanish pronunciation.
    Mariana glanced at Austin for support, or sympathy, but Austin didn’t appear to be listening. Between his eyebrows was a sharp knife-crease.
    The first course was a light, frothy, and creamy mushroom soup Austin had prepared. Ines praised the soup effusively—“Ah! Perfecto. ”
    For the evening, Austin’s longtime housekeeper Ana was helping in the kitchen, but Austin preferred to serve dinner guests in person, as if he had no hired help at all. Of course, Mariana was enlisted to help