Page Turner Pa by David Leavitt Read Free Book Online Page A

carpet. Unfolding it, he read, "Summit Printing, Inc." Then:
    Â 
Dear Paul,
I have left your mother. I am in love with Muriel Peete from the office. We plan to marry as soon as we obtain our divorces. I'm sorry if this news comes as a shock, but I am 53 yrs. old and cannot continue living a lie...
    Â 
    After he finished the letter, he refolded it and put it in the breast pocket of his jacket. Then he pulled open the curtain and looked out onto the street. It was empty except for a boy walking two poodles. What the Germans call an ear worm had tunneled into his head, as always, some insidious ditty from his childhood. "Good morning, good morning, We've slept the whole night through ..."
    And the whole night,
he thought,
it will play in my dreams ... if I sleep at all.
    He let the curtain fall shut. The boy with the poodles turned the corner. On the glass, against which the rain slanted ceaselessly, the glare of a streetlamp illuminated five oily moons where his fingers had rested.

5
    S OPHIE DIED that afternoon. This wasn't really such a tragedy, Joseph tried to convince himself. After all, she'd had a good life, had lived to be thirteen—old for a dachshund. Still, as he hailed a cab outside Dr. Wincote's office, a sensation of hollowness rose up in his stomach. His breathing got choppy. Safe inside the taxi, he had to loosen his tie. "Central Park West and Sixty-third," he told the driver, who made an efficient U-turn, scissoring his way through the clotted midday traffic. He was an older fellow—that is, older than Joseph—and his name was Manny Litwak. "Pretty rare you get a cabbie these days who speaks English," Joseph said.
    "Most of the guys out there, they're immigrants," the cabbie answered. "Puerto Ricans, Russians."
    "Yeah, the other day, I had an Oriental? I said to him, 'I need to go to White Street.' 'What street?' he kept asking me. 'White Street.' 'What street?' I tell you, it was like an Abbott and Costello routine."
    They turned onto Broadway.
    "White Street's down in Tribeca," Joseph added. "I've got a friend who has a loft there."
    "I know where White Street is."
    "Of course. I didn't mean to sound insulting. I'm not myself today because my dog just died. I'm on my way back from the vet's."
    "Sorry to hear it."
    "Thanks. It's strange, coming back empty-handed. And when I think that just an hour ago, I was riding downtown, her in my arms. My Sophie. She was thirteen."
    "Pretty old for a dog."
    "And then I had to pay the bill. Isn't it strange that even when something dies, you still have to pay the bill?"
    The driver did not respond. Leaning back, Joseph found himself remembering the afternoon he and Kennington had driven out to the house of the breeder lady in Morristown, watched as she extracted Sophie from the wriggling mass of the litter: "like a furry worm," Kennington said later. That same week, he had moved into the loft on White Street, and Sophie had peed on the antique Bokhara, leaving a dark stain.
    On Central Park West, the traffic eased. Because the driver knew the exact speed at which to coast in order to make all the green lights, they arrived at Joseph's building in a matter of minutes. Climbing out, he tipped too lavishly—payola for his need to confide—then stumbled toward the revolving door, where Hector, the handsomest of the doormen, awaited him.
    "Afternoon, Mr. Mansourian," Hector said. "Everything go okay?"
    "I'm afraid not, Hector. I'm afraid Sophie's passed on."
    Hector's brow tensed, but it was the fabric braids glinting on his wide shoulders that captured Joseph's attention.
    "Gosh, Mr. Mansourian, I'm sorry to hear that. She was a nice dog."
    "Thank you."
    "I know what it's like. A couple of years ago my mother lost her dog. Tidbit, we called him, on account of he was so small. It was very upsetting."
    "Yes, it always is. You love them like children, you know?"
    "I know, sir." With which regretful observation Hector pushed the revolving door. When he'd