Habit of Fear by Dorothy Salisbury Davis Read Free Book Online Page B

bookstore afterward, was her mother’s boss at the time Julie was born. Why had she not thought of him before? No problem with that question: she hadn’t wanted to. On the phone the man sounded as though he’d been waiting years to hear from her—a warm, self-assured voice. She tried to remember what he looked like, but her memory of him was confused with that of her late boss, Tony Alexander, who’d been Jeff’s best man when he and Julie were married. Reynolds had been her mother’s lover; she knew that now. Come on, Julie, you knew it then. When had the affair started? The earliest she could place his regular visits was when she was five. She remembered sitting in the lotus position on the coffee table with the checkerboard between them. (Her mother had been taking yoga classes and, having no place to park Julie, sometimes took her along.) Julie was still in nursery school. She tried to teach a boy named Orin Isenbox how to play checkers. The thing he did best was pile the checkers up and spill them all over the board. And Uncle Morgie thought she was ready for chess. Could she have learned it, precocious brat? Eventually she learned from Jeff, but she was never good enough to beat him, not even with a two-piece handicap.
    Uncle Morgie.
    S HE WOULD HAVE recognized him anyway, but he rose and came across the restaurant to meet her, both hands outstretched. Julie was shy, holding back, giving her hands where he would have kissed her if she’d been willing. He was big, but trim and muscular, a tennis player still, she thought, remembering one more thing about him. A blue-eyed blond, hair graying. His chin was cleft, and his cheeks dimpled when he smiled.
    It was a small, quiet restaurant on the far East Side with expensive space between tables. A half-dozen pink tea roses were at her place. The maître d’ centered the vase while Reynolds held her chair. A bottle of champagne was cooling. The whole scene made her uneasy. All she wanted was information about someone else.
    “I’ve had the fantasy this would happen someday.” Reynolds settled himself opposite her. “I hope you won’t mind if I say you are every bit as attractive as I expected?” The voice was velvet, deep, and the quick smile a sort of punctuation. But it made the compliment seem less sincere.
    “You do know that mother died a few years ago?” Julie said, wanting to divert his too intense attention.
    “I did know that, and that you were married to the columnist Geoffrey Hayes. I assumed it was that Geoffrey Hayes when I read Katherine’s obituary notice. I thought of calling you. Perhaps I should have. But I’ve always felt that if you wanted to see me, you would look me up. And now you have.” The flash smile again. Expensive teeth. Everything about him was expensive—his tailoring, his tan, his choice of restaurant and flowers.
    She could think of nothing to say. It seemed too gauche to mention Thomas Francis Mooney at once. “I remember the chess set you brought me.”
    “You were beating me too often at checkers. Have you children of your own?”
    She shook her head. “Jeff and I have recently decided on divorce.”
    “I wondered.” He indicated his own wedding band. The mark of where Julie had worn hers showed faintly.
    “And your family?” she groped.
    “My wife finally died. I say it that way because she was ill for so long. Even while I knew your mother …”
    Julie repressed a smile. It seemed corny even if true.
    “… And the girls are long since married. One lives in London and one in Baltimore. I haven’t remarried, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
    “Actually,” Julie said, “I was wondering if you knew my father.”
    He lifted his eyebrows, a reflex that caused his hairline to seem to shift downward. “And who was he?”
    Julie was taken aback.
    “That was facetious,” Reynolds said. “Don’t you think we should put such an earnest matter aside until we know each other better?”
    “All right.”