The Flaming Corsage by William Kennedy Read Free Book Online Page B

long-standing family link through Lyman, was now a figure to be kept as remote from Katrina as possible; but Giles, Katrina’s
childhood friend, was eternally welcome in this house, his father being the Taylor family physician, his mother Geraldine Taylor’s colleague in maintaining standards for Albany’s social
elite.
    “Where shall I take you?” Giles asked when Katrina had settled into his cabriolet (top down), his horse leading them at a sprightly pace up Broadway. Katrina covered her lap and legs
with Giles’s blanket. It was the time of sublime autumn in Albany, the day bright and warm with sunshine, explosive with the reds and oranges and yellows of the dying leaves.
    “We should go to the most beautiful place we know,” she said. “The cemetery.”
    “Oh you are cheerful,” Giles said.
    “But I’m serious. I want to see where the Staatses and Taylors are buried, and decide should I be buried there.”
    “What puts you in such a morbid mood?”
    “Contemplating death isn’t morbid, Giles. It’s liberating.”
    “But why now? You’re so young and healthy. Why not think of life instead?”
    “But I do. And death is so important to it.”
    “You’re as odd as you are beautiful, Katrina.”
    They drove past St. Peter’s Hospital, where Giles was a medical intern, following his father’s career, and past her grandfather’s foundry. Without Lyman, Katrina and Edward
might never have met, and most certainly would not now be contemplating marriage.
    “What do you think of me these days, Giles?”
    “I think you’re heavenly, a goddess among us. I love being with you.”
    “Will you be my slave?”
    “Gladly.”
    “Oh that is good.”
    They rode over the small bridge where the Patroon’s Creek crossed Broadway, through the tollgate by the sandpits onto the Troy Turnpike; then they turned west up the Loudonville plank road
toward the cemetery.
    “Do you like Edward Daugherty, Giles?”
    “He seems a fine fellow, but he’s a few years older than I, so we’re not close.”
    “I’m going to meet him.”
    “When?”
    “This afternoon.”
    “Aren’t you with me this afternoon?”
    “You’re taking me to him.”
    “Katrina, I don’t understand anything about you.”
    “That’s all right, Giles. I understand everything about you and I’m very fond of you.”
    “ ‘Fond’ is a terrible word.”
    “A true one.”
    “Where are you meeting him?”
    “At the cemetery. By the Angel of the Sepulchre. ”
    “This is ridiculous. I feel like a fool.”
    “But aren’t you my slave?”
    Giles fell silent and they turned and drove along the crest of the hill that was Rensselaer Avenue, past the Fitzgibbon country mansion, where her mother’s eccentric brother Ariel dwelled
in baronial excess, and where Katrina had never been at ease. When she saw that Giles’s silence had become a sullen pout, she reached over and took his hand in hers. By the time they passed
through the south gate of Albany Rural Cemetery and were approaching the Angel, his pout had melted into an abashed smile.
    “Come back for me at four o’clock,” Katrina said as she stepped down from the cabriolet near the statue of the Angel. She folded Giles’s blanket over her arm.
“I’ll take this in case I have to sit somewhere and wait.”
    “Why are you meeting him?” Giles asked.
    “I’m not sure. If I find out I may tell you.”
    “You know he just writes for the newspaper. He’s only a writer.”
    “I read him with great appreciation for his intelligence. Have you read the novel he just published?”
    “I don’t bother myself with novels. But I’ve heard it said he keeps fast company.”
    “There is none faster than I,” Katrina said.
    “At that the slave exits,” Giles said, urging his horse forward.
    A quarter hour early for Edward, Katrina walked to the Angel, who was sitting on the rock he had rolled away from the sepulchre of Jesus, atop the gravestone of the Banks family from Albany.