Rich Rewards by Alice Adams Read Free Book Online Page A

despite Ruth, and Stacy, and even Agatha’s possible feelings. I wondered what he did all day. I wanted him to notice me in some way.
    While coffee was being served, by a trio of handsome young blond men in red jackets, yet another good-looking young couple arrived, hurrying through the patio and into the living room, laughing, seemingly delighted with each other. At first glance one would surely have taken them for lovers. A tall blond young man, a much smaller, darker girl. But then I recognized the man: it was Whitey, but all dressed up in something suède.
    Royce went over to greet his son—enthusiastically, hugging his shoulders, obviously crazy about his boy—and then he hugged the girl, and I heard him say, “Ah, Caroline. You got here.”
    So—the young couple were Whitey and his sister Caroline, not lovers. Caroline looked very like her mother, small and dark, but she was much happier, more attractive than her mother was, although with something wistful in her eyes. And I thought how strange the genes were in that family. Sexist genes: the large blond beauty all going unfairly to the men.
    How strongly, too, they all felt about each other, Royce and his son and daughter! Did Ruth, the mother, feel left out? Powerful feelings were visible in their very postures as they stood there together for a minute. Caroline seemed to adore her father and her brother; that was on her face when she looked from one to the other of those men, their similar handsome faces—similar except for Whitey’s moustache and beard. And Royce adored both his kids. Did Whitey “adore” anyone? His face, as he looked at his sister and responded to something she had said, bespoke amusement and affection, maybe some stronger feeling too. I got no sense of how he felt about his father.
    I was introduced to the kids, and it was soon clear both that Whitey remembered me very well and that he did notlike me at all. Quite possibly, of course, he had sensed what I felt about him; I certainly did not trust him—not at all.
    Caroline and I liked each other very much, on sight. It was the sort of affinity that women sometimes feel toward each other—Agatha and I; I guess men too. It is not at all like “falling in love,” there being no sense of dizziness, of doom. Caroline said that she had heard I was doing Agatha’s house, how nice. She lived not far away from me, she said, out on Clement Street. She had a studio where she did sculptures in wool. I had seen some things of that sort in New York, and found them interesting. She said that I should come out to see her; have tea. There were some nice Russian tearooms out there, she said.
    Good, I’d like that, I told her.
    That day Caroline was wearing a sweater she must have made: very coarse, irregular wool, colors from natural to yellow to pale orange. Becoming to her hair, and her sun-brown skin. She had what is called an “interesting” face—meaning, I guess, more intelligent than pretty.
    Something about me at that moment seemed to have caught Royce Houston’s attention. His son’s hostility? Caroline’s affection? My height? Impossible to tell. But he came over and said that he thought I hadn’t seen his study: would I like to?
    Yes
, I would.
    He opened a door to a flight of stairs, leading down. I followed his broad shoulders, narrow waist, tight Levi’s over a very handsome ass. Such a huge man, hard not to think about the size of his cock. I must have been a little tipsy, too, all that nervously gulped white wine. Dizzily, I imagined hot embraces.
    At the bottom of the stairs, Royce turned and took my hand, and though I did not lurch against him, I am sure hemust have seen lust written all over my face—seen, and dismissed it. For which I never quite forgave him. He could have spared a Sunday afternoon kiss, I thought.
    He said, not looking at me, “It’s kind of an interesting room, don’t you think?”
    All that was interesting about it was its situation; it had somehow