Read Online Gaudi Afternoon by Barbara Wilson - Free Book Online

restaurant tomorrow. When the time is right I’ll introduce you.”
    â€œWell…”
    â€œAnd then I’ll give you your check for two thousand plus today’s and tomorrow’s expenses and you can be on your way.”
    â€œI’ll think about it,” I said moodily. But we both knew I’d help her out yet again.
    Carmen was blow-drying Frankie’s hair. She hadn’t done a bad job with the cutting—Carmen would never do a bad job— but neither had she thrown herself into it. Frankie seemed too distracted to notice.
    â€œSo you followed the two women, hmmm?” she asked. “Where did you say they went?”
    â€œTo the Parc Güell. It looks like they probably eat their lunch there regularly. And that’s where Ben joined them.”
    â€œI’ve heard of that park,” said Frankie. “I hope I can sightsee a little while I’m here.”
    Carmen stood back and handed Frankie a mirror so she could check the back of her head. It was a nice style job, if you liked pageboys. I knew Carmen didn’t.
    â€œThank you dear,” Frankie said indifferently as she got out her red purse.
    â€œYou pay the cashier,” I whispered, as Carmen’s eyes smoldered at this final insult. She flicked the towel off Frankie’s shoulders as if it were a bullfighter’s cape.
    I accompanied Frankie to the door.
    â€œCassandra,” Carmen called sternly after me. “Can we talk a minute?”
    â€œI’m late to meet Ana,” I said, hoping to avoid another lecture, this time on American manners. “Can you call me tonight?”
    She raised her eyebrows. “I suppose it’s not that important.”
    I’ve never lost my nerve when it really counted, but I’m a complete coward when it comes to facing an angry woman. As usual, I escaped.

6
    I T HAD ALL STARTED, ANA said that evening after dinner, when a newly pregnant client came to her and requested a house for herself, so that she could lie in it and think maternal thoughts. Ana at first thought of it as something of a challenge, because she had never been pregnant. A thorough researcher, Ana went to the library and bookstores and obtained big tomes on pregnancy and childbirth, complete with full-color photographs.
    She was fascinated by the thought of a house that grew, month by month, and at the beginning investigated pliable construction materials into which could be pumped air or water. There was even a point at which she envisioned the house as a giant amniotic sac in which the woman could float like a fish in an aquarium. However, like all architects, even of miniature houses, Ana had to reckon with the conservatism and impatience of her client.
    She wasn’t going to be pregnant forever, the woman reminded Ana.
    So Ana had come up with a bright papier-mâché shell in the shape of a woman with a big belly and huge, wide-spread legs. The entrance was between the legs and the interior was fitted out with a foam mattress covered in rose velvet. There was a little skylight in the belly button, and a tape recorder in the head that played gentle pop music.
    â€œBut all that reading about pregnancy and childbirth had done something to me,” said Ana. “I’m thirty-five and I’ve been constructing children’s houses for ten years. Am I never going to have a child of my own?”
    â€œI thought you said you got what you needed from making children happy with their houses?”
    â€œI used to,” said Ana, absently stroking her flat belly. “But all those books awakened deep-seated feelings. Strange maternal feelings. On the streets I sought out pregnant women and stared at them, I haunted maternity clothes shops, I even arranged with a doctor friend of mine to be present at a birth in the hospital.”
    â€œI think you should just go ahead and have a child,” I said.
    â€œI couldn’t raise a child alone.”
    â€œOf