Leap Year by Peter Cameron Read Free Book Online

days in rainy, gray New York like a tourist. She would look about her—now at breakfast, later on the subway, or crossing 57th Street—and say to herself, This is New York, this is me in New York, trying to be aware of the city in a way only a visitor can be, really seeing things, and wondering, am I happy here?
    ***
    “Wait up!” called Tamra, the receptionist at the Margaret Sanger Medical Cooperative Clinic. “Judith, you have some massages.” Tamra always called messages massages. She called everything the sexiest thing she could think of.
    Judith accepted the pink slips. She was between patients and had gone out to get some yogurt and Evian. In Pennsylvania she would have died before paying a dollar for a bottle of water imported from Switzerland, but here in New York she didn’t resist.
    She returned to her office and scanned her messages. Two were from patients canceling appointments, the third was from Henry, the last name looked like Fank—who could that be? Well, there was only one way to find out. She dialed the number, which was answered by a vaguely familiar male voice.
    “Hello,” said Judith. “This is Doctor Judith Connor. Is Henry—I may have this wrong; I’m sorry—Fank there?”
    “Hello, Doctor Connor. This is Henry Fank. Thank you so much for returning my call. It is very kind of you.”
    “You’re welcome,” said Judith. Who is this person? she thought. “What can I do for you?” she continued.
    “I don’t think you remember me,” Mr. Fank said. “May I refresh you?”
    “Please do,” said Judith.
    “We met in the park. The Central Park, in Manhattan, last week. We did some chat together—do you remember? And watched for birds.”
    The man in the park. The incredibly white teeth.
    “Of course I remember,” Judith said. “Could I ask you how you got my phone number?”
    “You had told me the place of your work. This Margaret Sanders Clinic. And I call directory information, and they tell me its number.”
    “I see,” said Judith.
    “I call to see…to ask you if, well, perhaps you like music? Is that true?”
    “Yes,” said Judith. “I like music.”
    “Do you know of Ravi Shankar? He is an Indian musician?”
    “I’ve heard of him,” said Judith.
    “He plays a concert next week—on the eleventh of May, at Alice Tully Hall, and I wondered if you might be happy to come to hear it with me?”
    “Oh,” said Judith.
    “Am I being rude in asking you?”
    “No,” said Judith. “It’s just that…”
    “Well, perhaps you must think about it? Maybe you do that, to think about it, and then call me back? Or I could call you?”
    It is all well and good to meet a pleasant man in the park, Judith thought, but it is quite another thing to, well, to let things progress. Not when one is a married woman of a certain age; not in New York City in 1988. No, thought Judith, definitely not. “I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to join you,” she said. “It was very kind of you to ask me, though.”
    “Oh,” said Henry. “I’m so sad. I had hoped…”
    “I’m sorry,” said Judith.
    “Perhaps another time? Could you join me another time? You see I have a subscription.”
    “I’m afraid not,” said Judith. “Good-bye.” She hung up and discarded the pink piece of paper. She sipped her Evian. She thought of Leonard far away, in India. Ravi Shankar, she thought, how funny…what a coincidence. Perhaps it is a sign? And then perhaps I am being an alarmist; what danger is there in a concert? None. This is my year to do things, she reminded herself. To have fun. To meet people and go places. I do not want to return to Ackerly with any regrets. She leaned down and retrieved the pink paper from the garbage. It was stained with coffee yogurt, but the telephone number was quite legible. It marched itself boldly across the page, and Judith found dialing it delightful.
    Lillian’s law of health clubs was this: Never join. Several times throughout her somewhat sedentary