The War of the Roses by Warren Adler Read Free Book Online Page A

terry-cloth robe.
    He wasn't he realized, simply observing her as he did frequently. He was inspecting her, noting that the years had been kind to her willowy body. Her legs and thighs were still tight and youthful, and her large breasts still high, although their weight had begun to bring them lower then when he had first seen them. He felt the urge to touch her, and there was a brief hardening in his crotch, but she seemed self-absorbed, her mind elsewhere.
    'You'd be proud of me, Oliver. I sold the Ecuadorans a weekly package. Next week my chicken galantine . After that my cassoulet. And, of course, my pate de campagne. '
    He was always supportive, and he was surprised that he could not concentrate on what she was telling him.
    She had moved to her Queen Anne dressing table and began brushing her hair. Still, she seemed elusive, like a stranger.
    'I thought I was checking out,' he said, turning his eyes to their lacy bedspread with its battery of high pillows against the carved headboard. Dominating one wall was a high chest of drawers with an elaborately carved bonnet in the rococo manner, which they had both stripped and finished. The drapes were not drawn and through the floor-to-ceiling sixteen-light windows, he could see the moving lights of the rush-hour cars crossing the Calvert Street Bridge. Between the windows was a Capucius secretaire, with its top open. Barbara used it as a working desk. On its surface was a picture of the four of them at the Grand Canyon, a color print with a blaze of orange painting the rear clifls. On the walls were prints of slender Art Deco ladies, languorous and sensual. He looked at them, but they gave him no pleasure. Watching them, he felt the sense of emptiness begin again.
    'I can't understand why you didn't come,' he said, swallowing hard, talking to the pictures. So this was the elusive chess move, he discovered suddenly. He had cut to the heart of the matter. Although he did not see her, he knew she had turned toward him.
    'I was in constant telephone touch,' she said testily, with a hard edge to her voice.
    They had no definite diagnosis until this morning.' He spat the words at her, still not looking at her face.
    They said your condition was stable.'
    'I was in pain. I thought I was dying.'
    'But you weren't.'
    'You could not have known that.'
    'Don't get prosecutorial, Oliver.'
    He allowed himself a long pause, surprised that his chest was free of pain, although his stomach seemed to have tightened. He burped and his breath tasted sour.
    He looked at her now. This time it was she who turned away.
    'If the situation were reversed, I'd be there as quick as I could.' The display of his own vulnerability galled him.
    'But it wasn't reversed,' she said, getting up and going to their dressing room. She emerged quickly in a long robe. 'I've got to see about dinner. The kids should be home soon.'
    'It's your attitude,' he said. 'I don't understand it.' He deliberately moved so that he could see her face. It was composed. Her hazel eyes scrutinized him calmly. He detected no outward signs of insecurity or lack of self-confidence. There was no tension or anxiety. To him now, her persona seemed reconstructed, different.
    'Maybe I'm suffering from the escape-in-the-nick-of-time blues.' He sighed, acknowledging to himself this gesture of surrender, certain that it was a lie. 'It's just that ...' He began to grope for words, uncommon for him. 'When you're on the edge of the abyss, you think everyone is writing you off. It's a nasty feeling.'
    'I think you're overreacting, Oliver.' She started to move, but his voice recalled her.
    'I guess I just wanted reassurance.' He sighed, deliberately posturing. He was surprised that he knew this. What he needed now was to be held, caressed. Perhaps like a baby at his mother's breast. God damn it, he screamed within himself. I need y ou to love me, Barbara.
    'Believe me, Oliver,' she began. 'If I'd thought it was something awful, I would have come. You