Read Online Astonish Me by Maggie Shipstead - Free Book Online Page B

hand on top of his head, lightly gripping his hair. “I’m sorry,” he wheezes. “I’m sorry. It’s contagious.”
    Whether it is a blessing or curse that the contagion spreads to Sandy, Jacob doesn’t know. Probably a blessing for him and a curse for her, as Gary singles her out as the target of his most stern and outraged glaring. The children are laughing too, under the table. They are all in it together until, inevitably and abruptly, control filters back, and they pull themselves upright, hot faced, spent, vaguely ashamed.
    “Got that out of your systems?” Gary asks. He has an air of beleaguered dignity, like the only sober one in a room full of drunks.
    “I’m sorry,” Joan says. “I just lost it.”
    Sandy waves her hands. “It feels so good to laugh like that.”
    Gary’s narrow eyes cut to her, and the woman cringes. In his agitated state, Jacob is acutely aware of the guilty, animal way Sandy’s back hunches and she flashes a grimace, exposing her teeth.
    “What were you saying before?” she asks Jacob. “I was interested.”
    “I don’t remember.” Jacob gropes for the lost thread of his thoughts, his euphoria draining away.
    “Something about passion.”
    “Oh. Right. Well. My basic point was that people tend to make opportunities for themselves when they love something. Look at Joan. She saw a picture of Margot Fonteyn in a magazine when she was four and said, ‘I want to do that.’ ”
    With the air of scoring a point, Gary asks, “Did you want to be a psychologist when you were four?”
    Joan dabs her eyes one last time with her napkin, rises, and begins clearing their plates. Jacob has noticed their ongoing refusal to acknowledge her dancing. When he mentioned it to Joan, she brushed him off, saying she’s not a dancer anymore, she doesn’t need anyone to make a big deal about it. “No,” Jacob says, resisting the urge to ask if Gary had played Mall Leasing Office as a kid, “but I was always interested in people and the way their minds work.” He twists in his chair, watching his wife. Everything she does is elegant, including carrying dirty dishes for a pair of boors. “Joan, tell them how you remember feeling when you saw that picture.”
    “I was so little.”
    He holds out his hand, beckoning her back from the kitchen. “Tell them.”
    She comes closer, uncertain, like a fawn, her cheeks flushed from laughing. Even those few steps betray her as a dancer. She hasn’t lost her turned-out, precise walk. She is so upright, so deliberate; her head is supported so regally by her long neck.
    “It’s silly,” she says, “but I just loved her. I loved this woman I’dnever met. I didn’t even know what to call her or why she was up on her toes. I wanted an explanation. I had to find out what that picture meant.”
    The Wheelocks look at each other. Gary raises his eyebrows slightly, skeptically. “Well,” he says, “it’s getting late.”
    Sandy puts a hand on his arm. “No, Joan has to have cake.”
    “Did you ask her if she wants cake?”
    “It looks delicious,” Joan says.
    “Joan was the one who helped Arslan Rusakov defect,” Jacob persists, avoiding his wife’s eyes so as not to see her surprise that he would bring up Rusakov. “Did she tell you that? She drove the getaway car. Have you heard of him?”
    “I read the newspaper every day,” Gary says. “Of course I’ve heard of him.”
    Sandy is staring after Joan, who has retreated to the kitchen. “Joan, you never said.”
    “It’s ancient history.” Joan’s voice floats back from the kitchen. “It could have been anyone. I just did what some strangers told me to do. Should I light these candles?”
    “You can’t light your own birthday candles,” Sandy says.
    “ EVERY FAMILY HAS A MYTHOLOGY ,” JACOB SAYS IN BED , LYING ON HIS side with his arms folded across his chest. His pillow pushes his glasses away from his face at a funny angle. Joan has always found his postures of relaxation to