Private affairs : a novel by Judith Michael Read Free Book Online Page B

years.
    "That's what I expose on my show," Tony was saying. "A whole person. Sometimes that makes glamorous people more glamorous, knowing their secrets, because you assume they're keeping back something even worse. Others become less glamorous: their warts show. Either way, audiences eat it up. Why are you still living here?"
    "We're not glamorous people," said Matt shortly, and then they ate Elizabeth's caramel flan, and drank coffee flavored with cinnamon, and Tony talked about other interviews, in Russia, Afghanistan, Hong Kong, India, Brazil, the Netherlands—"and even in Amalfi, where I have my new villa; I do want you to see it; we'll have to get you over there. Both of you, of course."
    How civilized this is, Elizabeth thought; but she wanted Tony gone, and when dessert and coffee were finished he did leave, citing plane schedules, meetings and interviews in New York, and a hectic week ahead. He thanked them for lunch and good company, and when Elizabeth saw him to the door he did not even say, as he usually did, that he would telephone as soon as he could, and stop off to see her again whenever he could. He simply lifted her hand in his, kissed it gently, and then was gone, leaving Elizabeth wondering how he had managed to control his arrival and departure and almost all the conversation in between.
    "Holly and Peter will be home soon," she said to Matt when she returned to the kitchen. "I want to talk to you before they get here."
    He was standing at the counter making another pot of coffee. "How often does he show up?"
    Stacking dishes at the table, Elizabeth glanced at him. "I've told you every time he's been here. About five times in the past year."
    He nodded. "So you did. You did tell me. And he calls more often that that."
    "I've told you that, too."
    "And he didn't think I'd be home today."

    "I'm not sleeping with him, Matt"
    "You brought it up; I didn't."
    "But that's what you meant," she said angrily.
    "That's what he wants. That's what he expects. Does he think I'm blind? Do you?"
    "Yes, if you think I'd go to bed with him. Why would you accuse—?" She caught herself.
    "Past history. Isn't that enough?"
    "Matt! It was more than twenty years ago! And it ended long before I met you, and I told you about it before we were married. We agreed we wouldn't talk about it again."
    "We didn't know he'd be lounging in our kitchen sixteen years later, gorging himself, lording it over us with his fame and fortune."
    "You're jealous!" Elizabeth said hotly.
    "Is that what you call it? Because I'm not an adoring fan of my wife's former lover? You let him call; you let him come for long lunches, 'between planes' as they say. Who the hell believes that? Between planes. Now there's an idea for a new airline bonus plan: Los Angeles to New York, with a stopover for screwing—"
    "Matt, stop it!" Elizabeth perched on the edge of the table. "You're looking for reasons to be angry. You're not jealous because Tony and I were lovers one crazy summer when I was seventeen; you're jealous because he's made it very big and he has a lot of the things you want, or seems to have." She went to him where he stood leaning against the counter. "Please let's not quarrel. When you were in the hospital I was thinking I'd almost lost you and I couldn't bear it; it was so terrible. We mustn't fight, especially over Tony, of all people; he doesn't mean a thing to me."
    "Doesn't he? Didn't someone say first loves never die?"
    "That's the most idiotic— Who was yours?" she asked abruptly.
    "You," he said, and smiled—in memory, Elizabeth thought, not to end their quarrel.
    She threw back her head. "Why can't we be grown up and laugh together? I told you, it took me a long time to get over Tony after he dropped me, but I did, and then a couple of years later I met you and you were so much more wonderful—more honest, more real—I was crazy about you from the minute you put your arms around me and made me feel I belonged . , . Oh, damn it, Matt,