Read Online Bound by Antonya Nelson - Free Book Online

curtsying bumblebees—to the array of empty homemade bird feeders and dutifully covered lawn furniture outside.
    I’m falling in love with you , he’d texted her. For her, he’d learned the technology.
    I already fell , she’d texted him back, alert and swift on the keypad. What Oliver had yet to discover was the nature of her love. They had shared their histories, he had heard of the others in her past, but he could not discern the precise dimensions of her proclaimed love for him, the scale it represented in the grand scheme, the place he occupied in her assemblage. If her love were a pie graph … If she had to rank-order … If one love was the indisputable winner … She had declared it so easily, so early. While he was still falling under love’s revered spell, into its cloistered chamber, she had already, she said, arrived. She looked at him as if he were the sun. She undressed as if her exquisite body embarrassed her. After sex she clung to him and wept, whereas at Wheatlands, which she managed, she had the reputation of a wisecracker, an even-keeled, efficient, unsentimental straight-shooting no-nonsense boss.
    He kissed the part in her hair because she had a hard time meeting his eyes.
    They drove away in their separate cars. They would meet here tomorrow. Oliver had held her at the door and experienced a strange light-headedness, as if she had somehow lifted him, relieved him of his body at a moment when he’d briefly left it. And then he was suddenly heavy again, with things to do. Unlike his wife, he had a day planner filled with appointments.
    The last of these was the charity auction being held across the street. It had been a piece of luck that Roe and Roe and Roe were to host their party at the Hyatt, at the same general hour. The Sweetheart and the bakery she managed were catering the auction, a bakery that had been Oliver’s most recent successful venture. It occupied an old car dealership in dying downtown; the picture windows now exposed ovens instead of Fords, a fleet of youthful staff wearing aprons rather than auto salesmen in cheap suits. At the thought of the Sweetheart in her Wheatlands apron, her hands powdered with flour, Oliver’s heart suddenly began drumming. He relished the thrill of this sensation, the impending encounter. He wished to delay it, to revel in anticipation of it, let the snow continue to fall in its perfect way.
    “You’re whistling ‘Here Comes Santa Claus,’ ” his wife informed him now. She was busy folding the paperwork Junior had returned to her to tuck it into her cocktail bag, discarding the envelope in the trash can before the bank of elevators. There in the container’s rimmed lid full of sand was an ornate letter H. “Someone has to go around all day, putting H’s in the trash-can sand,” Catherine marveled. “You can’t even smoke in here, and still there’s an ashtray, with a cute cursive H.” She glanced around before swirling her hand through the carefully raked golden sand.
    “Brat,” her husband said as the elevator arrived.
    Inside, there they were once again, mirrored in golden tone on the ceiling. They both glanced up at their faces and elegant clothing. Was his tuxedo older than his wife? Oliver wondered, doing the math. Very nearly. The music continued in the elevator. “You want a drink before we meet up with the rest of the penguins?” he asked the reflection overhead.
    “Sure.”
    “That kid, Joshua, I probably met him before. There was a kid at a party, years ago.”
    “Really?” Rilly , he heard; people were always saying it, uselessly.
    “Yes, really . His parents used to throw parties, when I first moved to town. He might have been the one driving home the drunks one night, yours truly included, plus the wife.”
    “Which wife?”
    “YaYa.”
    “That starter wife of yours. Will I never hear the end of her?”
    “That one,” he agreed. “And you asked.”
    They sat at the bar and admired themselves in its mirror,