Read Online The Celebrity by Laura Z. Hobson - Free Book Online Page A

had owned a pharmacy before him, and his only ambition, as a boy, had been to own one too. From the moment he had married, he had never loved any human creatures except Geraldine and the children, but the store was the other half of his nature and he always went to it with an eagerness that was like love. Once inside, looking out at the world through the plate-glass window, he was undisputed master of everything, challenged by nobody. It was a kingly feeling and he would never be truly old as long as he had it.
    Mysterious vitality, coursing through Geraldine’s nervous system, reduced the burden of her housework to the merest chore, and by nine, she had swept and dusted and made beds and washed dishes, had sprinkled and rolled up yesterday’s wash, had made the chocolate nut pudding which would be dessert for supper, had dressed for the street and started down the path to the front gate. She left the house as hurriedly as if she were late for an appointment. Then she paused uncertainly. Nothing was ahead but the marketing.
    It was mild for January, but the wind was blowing in steadily from the bay and she shivered. Across the street, Amy Persall, wearing only a gingham house-dress without even a sweater over it, was briskly sweeping the steps of the porch. Gazing vacantly at Amy’s back, Geraldine thought, That’s what it is to be young—she can’t be more than a couple of years older than Gregory, and how surprised she would be if she knew that he had just made a fortune! Geraldine stared at Amy thoughtfully.
    The broom made a pleasing swish-swish-swish across the dry planks of the steps. If she were to go across and tell Amy, her broom would drop, her mouth fall open, and her eyes start from her head. Geraldine smiled and remembered her own wisdom at the breakfast table. She promptly opened the gate and turned left. At the click of the latch, Amy looked around and called, “Hello, there.”
    “Morning, Amy.”
    Amy’s broom came to an expectant standstill, but Geraldine only said, “My marketing,” and went right on. She had said she wouldn’t and told Gerald he mustn’t and that was that.
    Suddenly she felt tired. At the corner, the wind flung itself upon her and she shivered again. She had been casual about Gerald’s talk of a nap, but now she wondered whether excitement could support you very long after so little sleep. If you were young, yes; but not if you were growing old. Her blood seemed lukewarm, her bones huddled together. She walked more slowly.
    She turned into Main Street, already crowded and bustling though it was still early. Cars honked irritated horns, people went by with blank eyes, even the traffic cop was a stranger. Freeton was growing old too. When Gerald and she had first moved out here, a year after Thorny’s birth, it was scarcely more than a village, with meadows and fields just back of the houses and stores, with sandy gravel roads that had to be tarred each summer, and with so few families you knew everybody. The Long Island Rail Road station was a long wooden platform instead of the concrete and brick slab it had become and there was only a two-story grade school. When boys and girls were ready for High, they had to go to Mineola or Jamaica, and the first talk of building a big high school right in town had seemed like the talk of radicals. And yet, ten years later, when Freeton High was ready, pupils swarmed to it from every direction and it seemed only a matter of months until the building which had seemed so spacious began to be called inadequate. The war had done the usual trick to Freeton’s population. The first war. She always forgot, these days, to specify the number when she said “the war,” but it was that earlier one which would, for her, always remain The War.
    Geraldine shook her head, and tried to recapture her earlier mood. Long before there was even a hint of gray in the sky, she had waked with a kind of bubbling-up in her mind. My own child, she had thought