In The Garden Of The North American Martyrs by Tobias Wolff Read Free Book Online

about lovers. I like to read about how beautiful the mountains are, and the stars and so on. I like to read about people taking care of injured animals and setting them free again.”
    â€œYou are very beautiful,” Brooke said.
    â€œYou don’t know what I look like,” Ruth said. “This isn’t my hair. It’s a wig.”
    â€œI wasn’t talking about what you look like,” Brooke said, and this was partly true.
    â€œHello there,” said Riley, who had come up to their table with Abbot. Both of them had their overcoats on, and Riley was doing his smile and blowing into his cupped hands. His face was white with a suggestion of blue, like milk. Brooke wondered why red-haired people went pale from the cold when others turned florid. It seemed strange. Abbot swayed back and forth in time to music only he could hear. “We’ve been making the rounds,” Riley said. “Mind if we join you?”
    Ruth moved closer to Brooke, and Riley slid into the booth and immediately began talking to her in a low voice. Abbot sat next to Brooke. He was quiet at first, then he abruptly leaned against Brooke and spoke into his ear as though it were a telephone receiver. “Been thinking about what you said today. Interesting. Very interesting. But all wrong.” He began to repeat the arguments he had made earlier that day. When the waitress brought his drink, a tomato-juice concoction, he spilled most of it down the front of his shirt. “Can’t be helped,” he said, brushing away the handkerchief Ruth held out.
    Brooke turned to Riley. “How did your paper go?”
    â€œIt was brilliant,” Abbot said. “Brilliant beyond brilliant.”
    â€œThank you,” Riley said. “It did go quite well, I think.”
    â€œI’m sorry I missed it,” Brooke said. “We went to the Dillon reading.”
    â€œI’ve just been hearing about it,” Riley said. “Your friend…”
    â€œRuth,” Brooke said.
    â€œRuth! What a beautiful name. ‘Whither thou goest I will go; wherever thou lodgest,’” Riley said, looking right into her face, “‘there also will I lodge.’”
    This man is outrageous, Brooke thought, and groped under the table for Ruth’s hand. He took it into his own and squeezed it. She squeezed back. What in the world am I doing? Brooke thought happily.
    â€œExcuse me,” Abbot said. He stood, then sat again heavily and pitched face down onto the table.
    â€œI’d say it’s taps for that soldier,” Riley said.
    â€œWould you mind taking him back to the hotel?” Brooke asked. “I’ll see Ruth home.”
    Riley hesitated, and Brooke suspected that he was trying to think of a way to reverse the proposal. “All right,” Riley said at last. “I’ll call a cab.”
    At a table across the room a group of scoutmasters leaned together and sang:
    â€œOur paddles clean and bright
    Shining like sil-ver
    Swift as the wild goose flies
    Dip, dip and swing,
    Dip, dip and swing.”
    When the song was ended they howled in a way they all knew and one of them did a somersault on the floor.
    Â 
    Brooke had intended to go back to the hotel after he’d seen Ruth to her door, but he couldn’t think of the right words to say and followed her inside. There were red pillows arranged in a circle around the living room, and a fat candle in the middle of the floor. Next to the door hung a framed, blown-up photograph of three sea gulls in flight with the sun behind them. Several wooden elephants, placed according to size like a growth chart, marched trunk-to-tail across the top of the bookshelf. “I believe in being honest,” Ruth said.
    â€œSo do I,” Brooke said, thinking that she was going to tell him about a boy friend or fiancé. He hoped so.
    Ruth said nothing. Instead she brought both of her hands up to her hair and lifted it off