Jake & Mimi by Frank Baldwin Read Free Book Online Page A

wait on my answer, the beautiful stone church dead quiet, and I will look at Mark and say
my
two words, the words that change everything, and as I do I won’t remember any of this. What is it I’m obsessing about, anyway?
     Positions? The angle of our bodies? Stray half thoughts about strangers? What are they, next to love? They are nothing.
    Tomorrow will be six months. Six months since we lay in a rowboat on the pond in Central Park, Mark on his back in the cradle
     of the boat and me on my back in his arms. We bumped the shore, and Mark pushed us out again. We drifted through sun, into
     shade, into sun again, my eyes lazily closed as he stroked my arm, up and back down, up and back down, then opening to see,
     in his hand, the shining ring.
    It still brings a surge to me. A true surge, one of love and happiness. I press my neck against the cool tile of the tub,
     finish the last of my wine, and rise from the water. I turn the shower on to its strongest setting and rinse off. The ring
     was so beautiful that day. Its diamond caught the rays of the sun, I remember, and sent them out again, up into Mark’s eyes
     and off the leaves of the trees. I make the water hotter, then hotter still, and I can feel it pounding the last troubling
     thoughts right out of me. They disappear into the steam, and when at last I shut it off, step onto the bath mat and reach
     for my soft, white towel, I am clean and clear again. Minutes later, in my slip, I walk to the bedroom and climb in the bed.
     Just an hour ago I was tense and worried, and now I feel wonderful. One song before sleep.
    The Pavarotti tape waits in the player by my bed. I switch off the light and hit the PLAY button, and in seconds his voice fills the dark room. “Nessun Dorma.” The singer cannot sleep. Not while his love is away
     from him. Such beauty. Where does it come from, in a man? I’m a fool. I wish Mark were here. It is the worst of sins, to forget
     what you have and long for what you don’t. And what I have is precious. The luckiest girl in New York, and I sit at home and
     worry. No more. Tomorrow morning I’ll step out of the office and make it to the video store while there is still a selection.
     The Oscars are in ten days, and there are still two contenders we haven’t seen. I’ll get the one Mark wants, the crime one,
     and I’ll have him over tomorrow. I’ll put out candles and make popcorn, and even before the previews are over, I will come
     on to him. It will be perfect.
    Pavarotti holds his last, soaring note, and then the room is quiet. My building is all the way east, on the water, and listening
     hard I can hear in the distance the horn of a boat. It is so peaceful. Plaintive. Sleep, Mimi. Tomorrow will be busy. Mr.
     Stein is assigning me a new account. Something special, he said. It’s the last thing I need, this far into tax season, but
     he’s giving me help. I’ll work the returns with a new associate, a young guy who just joined the firm last month.
    Jake Teller, I think his name is.
    Please let him not be difficult. He won’t be, I’m sure. Stop worrying, Mimi. Okay, I’ve stopped.
    To sleep. Dream of veils.

CHAPTER THREE
    M iss Lessing walks the same route home every day.
    It is longer by nearly a block than if she kept to First Avenue, but instead of squat bars and grim scaffolding, she ends
     her commute with a vibrant stretch of neighborhood shops. She passes first the produce stand, with its bins of fresh fruit
     open to the air; next the bustling deli, where they know her by name; and then the newsstand, where she greets the smiling
     Latino boy who, on her weaker days, will sell her a lottery ticket and then lean out the window to stare after her. At mid-block
     her eyes often drift up to the delicate stonework of the prewar walkup, then lower again as she passes the tiny art gallery,
     with the watercolors she likes in the window. Then a friendly wave to the Asian cleaners who press her suits and finally,
     just