Read Online Boys & Girls Together by William Goldman - Free Book Online

sadness, for the first time he had been bad (they had not been married a year) he had come to her and told her, painfully, explicitly. He told her and stood before her, waiting, a gigantic moppet, impatient, almost, for his whipping. And she should have whipped him, she knew that now. She should have doled him his expected portion of scorn. But she piled his plate high with forgiveness, and that night, when he wept in her arms, she joyously mistook his hatred for penitential tears.
    When Emily first noticed the small lump on the underside of her left breast she immediately decided not to think about it. She was vaguely aware of the possibility of the lump being a harbinger of a certain disease (the clean image of a crab flashed across her mind, but she would not think the word) but she doubted it. No one in her family had ever had the disease (dirty thing) and, besides, she was still under forty and it was an old people’s sickness. There was no question about it: the lump would go away. To make absolutely certain that it would, she vowed never to look at her left breast again.
    P.T. discovered it, months later. They were (for some reason) in her bed and his hands moved slowly across her body. Suddenly the hands stopped.
    “Hey,” P.T. said.
    She pulled away from him.
    “Hold still.”
    She tried getting up.
    “I said ‘still.’ ” Forcing her back, he flicked on the bedlight. “What the hell.”
    “It’s nothing.”
    “You’re a doctor?”
    “Please.”
    In answer, he took her gently in his arms. “Hey, honey?”
    “What?” she said, though she knew what he wanted. A checkup. Just a little checkup, huh? Take a little trip to Chicago and let them have a look at you. Emily resisted, but he had no intention of losing, so eventually she succumbed. She took the train to Chicago, where P.T. had arranged for a suite at the Ambassador East, and she toured the Art Institute and bought some clothes on Michigan Avenue and went to the theater twice and after a week the doctors were done testing. A sweet Jew named Berger was in charge, and when he called her into his office they lied to each other for a while.
    “I’m going to be absolutely honest with you,” Dr. Berger said. Lie number one.
    “I want you to be.” Number two.
    “Well, it could be a lot worse.” Number three.
    “I believe you.” Four.
    They went through seventeen lies without once mentioning that name (Emily stopped counting after seventeen), and when they were all done they both smiled and shook hands and as she waved goodbye and started for the elevator she knew she was a dead woman. Back at the hotel, she was tempted to call P.T. but she did not. Instead she packed, paid her bill and took a taxi to the railroad station. She arrived in St. Louis at a few minutes before seven and took another taxi to her home. P.T. was out, but the boys were glad to see her and she talked and played with them until they tired. Then she put them both to bed. After that she unpacked, carefully folding her clothes into their proper drawers. She showered, dried herself thoroughly, ran a comb through her hair. Finally, naked (no sense in hiding it anymore), she lay down in the dark to wait. She waited from ten till eleven till one till two, motionless, staring at the ceiling, feeling it build all the while inside her. She would gladly have waited a month or a year because the look on his face was going to be worth it. When P.T. came home at three she made no sound of welcome. She listened, rather, to the sounds of his undressing. When he entered their room and turned on the overhead light, she still did not move. He did, though. He saw her and his mouth dropped and he stumbled with surprise.
    “I’m going to be unfaithful to you, P.T.” The tone in her voice thrilled her. She had never thought herself capable of such honest open loathing, but now her body throbbed with it. He flattened against the far wall, watching her, and the look on his face was worth it. After