The Crossroads by John D. MacDonald Read Free Book Online Page A

secretive. For a time Jeana had been as sure of love as he was. But now in June she had come full circle, had begun to wonder, aloud, if it was only the rationalization of the strength of the physical attraction. Though the savageness of their need seemed to grow ever stronger, he had begun to wonder if he would lose her through her own self-doubt. Their helplessness seemed to increase her doubt and her sense of guilt. I want you is a shallow substitute for I love you .
    He knew there could never be enough of her, of her supple, nimble pleasures. During all the hours he could not be with her she stood smiling in one corner of his mind, stepping out from time to time with a bawdy demureness to stop him in the middle of a sentence, or blur the page in front of his eyes. Their excesses led to renewal rather than exhaustion. He felt more intensely awake and alive than ever before in his life, his mind more quick and sharp, his energies keyed higher. And, as though her body sought to please him, there had been an actual physical change in her slenderness obvious to both of them, a deeper, warmer curving of her hips, a swelling heaviness of breast, even a more resilient texture and pliancy to her skin. Her eyes were shining and shewalked, swaying, on tiptoe for him. For a time she thought that the physical changes, in spite of her precautions, might be due to pregnancy, and she was terrified. When she found her fears were groundless she was pleased that she could change in this way for him, that the body had this magical ability. She sat at her dressing table and smugly admired her new abundancy, telling him that this was by far the most pleasant solution to her ancient dilemma of whether or not to experiment with falsies, having spent, as she said, all her college years looking like a smuggler of small green pears, two at a time.
    The shop bell jingled and he had no way of knowing whether the customer had left or another had arrived, until he heard the quick tick of her heels coming toward the storeroom. He got up and stubbed out his cigarette in the ash tray on the shelf under her mirror, and turned toward her, smiling.
    “Don’t you dare come near me,” she said.
    “Sell anything?”
    “A wildly expensive little music box. And I felt sad while I wrapped it. It plays that Sugarplum Fairies thing.”
    “Tomorrow, then.”
    “Oh, yes, darling. Yes. Yes.”
    “It is love, you know.”
    “Keep telling me. Please.”
    “I’ll tell you tomorrow. Forty times.”
    “Make it fifty.”
    “You’re beautiful.”
    “You can keep saying that, too. A lovely lie, darling.”
    He got back to his house a little after eleven. He called Nancy but there was no answer. Clara was sitting in the living room. The blinds were half-closed against the sunlight. She sat on the couch wearing a dressing gown, her graying hair stringy, a glass at her elbow, staring at the television set. It was turned very loud. She liked it loud. He went and stood over her and said, “Where’s Nancy?” You had to speak loudly and distinctly and then wait in patience for her to comprehend the question.
    She looked up at him slowly. She was never too bad in the mornings. “Nancy? Uh … Nancy went out.”
    “Where?”
    … “I don’t know.”
    He checked the kitchen. There was no sign of Nancy having fixed her own breakfast. So he rode over to the Motor Hotel Restaurant. She was alone at a corner table in the almost empty room, reading a book as she ate. She was wearing her most recent favorite costume, leotards or leotights or whatever they called them, and an exceptionally baggy sweater. A lock of her black hair fell across her forehead. The young beauty of her pinched his heart. Though she was not as big as her grandmother had been, she looked very much like the girlhood photographs of Martha McCarthy. Chip guessed that was why Papa liked to have her come and see him.
    She looked up as he approached the table and smiled and closed her book. He sat down