One Good Turn by Judith Arnold Read Free Book Online

Jenny reminded her.
    “And you told me I was wrong.” Sybil skillfully wove Jenny’s hair into a smooth plait. “You also told me he hit on you for an easy score.”
    “That won’t happen tonight,” Jenny said confidently. “We’re going to be outdoors in a public place. And anyway...” She fastened two shiny gold hoops to her ears and grinned. “I trust him.”
    “You are too trusting,” Sybil commented. “Trust him all you want, but if he tells you he’s had a vasectomy, you make sure you help yourself to my top drawer supply.” She stepped back and assessed Jenny with a critical eye. “You look great, Jen. And really, if things go well, I don’t mind spending the night on the living room couch. I’d expect you to do the same for me if the occasion presented itself—which I’m sure it will,” she added with a saucy smile.
    “For your sake, if not mine,” Jenny said, sharing her roommate’s grin, “I hope it does.” She grabbed her purse, stepped into her sandals, and checked her hair in the mirror one last time. “You’re an artist, Sybil. Thanks a million.”
    “Thank me in the morning,” Sybil teased before chasing her out of the bedroom.
    It was a few minutes past six when Jenny left the apartment, and she decided to walk to the Mall. While warm, the air had lost its midday humidity, and after a tiring day of typing memos, she believed a stroll would rejuvenate her. Besides, she still hadn’t figured out the city’s bus system. The Metro seemed less complicated, but there was no subway stop in Georgetown. As for the cabs, they were much too expensive.
    Jenny liked walking, and she especially liked walking in downtown Washington. She was aware that the city contained its share of rundown neighborhoods, but it also contained buildings of great splendor, monuments, parks, upscale boutiques, cafes and majestic houses. The sidewalks teemed with pedestrians, vendors selling flowers, religious cultists, protestors wagging signs, women and men not much older than Jenny, carrying briefcases and looking extremely important.
    She wondered whether someday in the not too distant future Luke Benning would be one of those important-looking young movers and shakers strutting down M Street or Pennsylvania Avenue with a briefcase gripped in one hand. That was evidently what he was grooming himself for, and yet she couldn’t see him happy at it. Sure, he was an eyeful, as Sybil had observed, but beneath his handsome veneer Jenny sensed a turbulence, a sadness, something she wanted to heal.
    She’d always been that way, adopting stray cats and nursing ailing Boston ferns back to health. At school she befriended not just the strong students but the weak. Among her achievements at college she counted not only her years on the Dean’s List but also her having talked an anorexic sophomore into seeking therapy and her having persuaded her freshman-year roommate not to quit school after she’d flunked Physics. Some of the girls at Chapin House had nicknamed her “Little Jenny Sunshine,” but they used the moniker affectionately and Jenny didn’t mind.
    She didn’t know whether Luke needed rescuing—and, if so, whether he wanted to be rescued. But when she’d seen him at the party the other night, she’d felt a powerful urge to try.
    And, if nothing else, he was an eyeful.
    At Lafayette Park she handed out two dollars worth of loose change to the homeless people who resided on the park’s benches. Then she turned south, heading for the Mall. As usual, it was teeming with tourists. She had learned to identify the tourists by their cameras, their backpacks, their wide-eyed expressions and their cranky, dog-tired children. Jenny was proud to think she was less a tourist than a resident. Even if she hadn’t yet mastered the public transit system she had come to think of Washington as her temporary home.
    Reaching the Mall, she turned left. Luke had promised to meet her in front of the National Gallery of