Medicine Men by Alice Adams Read Free Book Online Page A

if you can imagine. But sometimes he goes scuba diving. I think he’s a little confused.”
    Paul spoke of the sweeping Montana plains, and the colors of the light. All the greens. The beautiful west fork of the Bitterroot River. The trees, the trout. The
space.
Big skies, wide-open highways.
    In San Francisco, Paul lived on Russian Hill, one huge book-lined room with a narrow view of Coit Tower, Treasure Island, the bay, and sometimes Oakland. Molly moved in with him; unable to control the impulse, she tidied up, which seemed to enlarge the space—but they were hardly there. Paul at that time was writing a film on the Spanish Civil War, and so they were often in Spain, in Madrid and Barcelona, in Saragossa, Guadalajara. Their life was fairly frantic, and often romantically beautiful, in those settings. They were very sexually charged; always, whenever and wherever possible, they made love.
    And more or less incidentally Molly learned Spanish.
    In all their time together (later, it seemed very short to Molly), they shared a high, exuberant energy, and splendid health; neither of them had much patience for sickness.
    Looking for bad signs, combing through those months and years, Molly saw in Paul much impatience, small tolerance fordelay, postponement, for any form of enclosure. Crazy in heavy traffic, for example. But wasn’t that normal in a man who had grown up in great open space?
    And, seemingly unrelated, he was hyper-friendly (you could have called it flirtatious) with waitresses. Once, noting some flicker of discomfort (call it jealousy) on Molly’s face, he had laughed, “It’s the Montana way, babe. Get used to it, you’re not with some tight-ass Easterner anymore.” All true enough; also, some Southern men, in their fashion, did that too. Boyd had liked to kid a pretty waitress—infuriating Angelica, embarrassing his young daughter, shy Molly.
    And Paul did mention quite often strong feelings about turning forty in a year or so.
    But did any or all of that add up to wanting out of a marriage?
    “I did something funny today,” Paul told Molly, during one of their rare times in San Francisco. “I may have made you a millionairess.”
    “Oh, really? Good.” They had been on the verge of sleep when he spoke; Molly wanted to go back.
    “Yes I did. I told you that I had lunch with Matthew?”
    “Yes.” Molly had forgotten even that Matthew was in town.
    “I took out a policy. If I die in some accident you’ll be really rich.”
    “Seems hardly worth it.” She laughed. “But thanks.”
    He mused, “I hope old Matt has one for himself. With all that diving he’s a lot more in accident range than I am.”
    “He must have insurance,” murmured Molly, not caring, and caring even less for Matthew’s wife, the dread Joanne.
    “It won’t cost much. My policy, I mean. At my young age.”
    “Oh, good.” Her emphasis was ironic; what she meant was, Now can we sleep?
    “And if we break up I can always change it.”
    “Terrific. Now can we go back to sleep?”
    He whispered, “I love you a lot.”
    “I love you too. Don’t die in an accident. It wouldn’t be worth it.”
    But he had, and though he had wanted out, insisted on their separation, he either forgot or neglected to change the insurance. And later that silly, smart-ass, heartfelt conversation played and replayed in Molly’s battered brain.
    And she was rich.

FOUR
    “He wrote me such a nice note that I had to give him your phone number.”
    Felicia spoke that on-the-surface illogical remark to Molly a few days after her party. Knowing Felicia, Molly saw what she meant: the nice gesture of David Jacobs’ thank-you note had made it harder than usual, even, for her to say no, and so she had given him Molly’s phone number, presumably asked for in the note.
    But Molly told her, “I wasn’t exactly attracted to him.”
    “You don’t like bald?”
    “It’s not bald so much as those teeth. But actually it’s not his looks at all.