Read Online Anna in Chains by Merrill Joan Gerber - Free Book Online Page A

I’m limber on my toes like a ballet dancer.”
    â€œIt’s these rubber soles,” he explained. “New shoes. They glue me down. It’s like wearing suction cups.”
    â€œYou want to go on the sand?” Anna asked. “You want to stick your toes in the water?”
    â€œIn my heart, I’m running down to the waves already,” Irving said, stopping to lean on the rail, breathing hard. “I’m splashing you with water. I’m ducking you under.”
    â€œAnd I’m jumping over waves,” Anna said, looking out at the blue wide ocean.
    â€œI’m tickling you,” Irving said.
    â€œI’m laughing,” Anna said. She turned her head away from him.
    â€œSo how come you’re crying?” Irving asked after a minute.
    â€œBecause it’s a pity,” Anna said, wiping her eyes with a tissue. “What we used to have, and what we can’t have anymore.”
    â€œAt least let’s take what we can get,” Irving said. He held out his hand. Anna studied it. Then she crooked her fingers in his. He brought their hands up to his mouth and kissed Anna’s fingers. “I’m doing more than this with you,” he said. “Much more. You understand what I mean?”
    â€œDon’t have a dirty mind,” Anna said.
    â€œI’m doing everything,” Irving said. “Every sweet thing. We’re in heaven.”
    Anna was silent.
    â€œI’m going too far?” Irving asked.
    â€œNo,” Anna said. “I appreciate it.”
    The next afternoon, the last of her visit, when the Red Top Cab had been called and was to pick her up in one hour for the trip to the airport, Anna put on her new silky flowered dress and got everything else into her suitcase. Ava was already down on the front porch playing cards. Anna realized that if she stayed here for a year, the sister business wouldn’t improve. Ava wasn’t going to get sentimental. A big bossy sister stays a big bossy sister. To cheer herself up, she sprayed herself five times with Ava’s expensive perfume, and by the time she rode down in the elevator with her suitcase she smelled like a lilac tree. She would be lucky if in two minutes there weren’t bees landing all over her head.
    Irving was spiffy in a plaid jacket and a red bow tie.
    He saluted her from his chair. “Forgive me if even on this farewell occasion I don’t stand up,” he said. “One knee isn’t so good today.”
    â€œStand up anyway, Irving,” Ava called over to him. “Use it or you’ll lose it.”
    â€œHe lost it already,” Sadie said, with a hoarse laugh. “Otherwise I’d go with him on a cruise.”
    â€œI didn’t lose it, sweetheart,” he said, getting red in the face. “I just don’t give it away to big-mouth yentas.” He turned to Anna. “You’re lucky you’re getting out of here. If I could go with you, I’d run in a minute.”
    â€œSo where am I going that’s so special?” Anna said, suddenly seeing a picture in her mind of her tiny dark apartment, of her pianos, two of them, with the lids down over the keys, of the milk going sour in the refrigerator.
    â€œMaybe you could get a room here,” Irving suggested. “You know,” he called over to the ladies at the card table, “I don’t think Hyman rented the room yet from after when Sam Kriskin died.”
    â€œNo thank you,” Anna said. “I’m not interested in living in a dead man’s room.”
    â€œHe didn’t die in the room,” Irving assured her. “Only on the way in the ambulance. Not a single bad thing happened in the room. Kriskin was an immaculate person. That man was as clean as holy water.”
    â€œWhat’s the rent?” Anna said. It was a question she didn’t expect to ask. It was meaningless, it was to make talk. It was stupid to have brought it up,