Read Online Give Me Your Heart by Joyce Carol Oates - Free Book Online Page A

question from his client by telling a joke: “. . . punishment for bigamy? Eh? Two wives.” His laughter
was loud and meant to be infectious.
    Leonard smiled at the thought of Valerie stepping into such a house. Not very likely! The woman’s sensitive soul would be bruised in proximity to what Yardman described as the
“remodeled” kitchen with the “fantastic view of the hills” and, in the living room, an unexpected spectacle of left-behind furniture: a long, L-shaped sofa in a nubby
butterscotch fabric, a large showy glass-topped coffee table with a spiderweb crack in the glass, deep-piled stained beige wall-to-wall carpeting. Two steps down into a family room with a large
fireplace and another “fantastic view of the hills” and stamped-cardboard rock walls. Seeing the startled expression on Leonard’s face, Yardman said with a grim smile, “Hey,
sure, a new homeowner might wish to remodel here some. Renovate. They got their taste, you got yours. Like Einstein said, there’s no free lunch in the universe.”
    Yardman was standing close to Leonard, as if daring him to object. Leonard said, in a voice meant to be quizzical, “No free lunch in the universe? I don’t understand, Mr.
Yardman.”
    “Means you get what you pay for, see. What you don’t pay for, you don’t get. Philos’phy of life, eh?” Yardman must have been drinking in the Suburban; his breath
smelled of whiskey and his words were slightly slurred.
    As if to placate the realtor, Leonard said of course he understood: any new property he bought, he’d likely have to put some money into. “All our married lives it’s been my
wife’s and my dream to purchase some land, and this is our opportunity. My wife has just inherited a little money—not much, but a little”—Dwayne Ducharme’s voice
quavered, in fear this might sound inadvertently boastful—“and we would use this.” Such naive enthusiasm drew from Yardman a wary predator smile. Leonard could almost hear the
realtor thinking, Here is a fool, too good to be true. Yardman murmured, “Wise, Dwayne. Very wise.”
    Yardman led Leonard into the master bedroom, where a grotesque pink-toned mirror covered one of the walls, and in this mirror, garishly reflected, the men loomed overlarge, as if magnified.
Yardman laughed as if taken by surprise, and Leonard looked quickly away, shocked that he’d shaved so carelessly that morning: graying stubble showed on the left side of his face, and there
was a moist red nick in the cleft of his chin. His eyes were set in hollows like ill-fitting sockets in a skull, and his clothes—a tweed sport coat, a candy-striped shirt—looked rumpled
and damp, as if he’d been sleeping in them, as perhaps he had been, intermittently, on the long flight from New York to Chicago to Denver.
    Luckily, the master bedroom had a plate-glass sliding door that Yardman managed to open, and the men stepped quickly out into fresh air. Almost immediately there came rushing at Leonard the
frantically barking Airedale, who would certainly have bitten him except Yardman intervened. This time he not only shouted at the dog but struck him on the snout, on the head, dragged him away from
Leonard by his collar, cursed and kicked him until the dog cowered whimpering at his feet, its stubby tail wagging. “Damn asshole. You blew it. Fuckin’ busted now. Every one of em in
the fuckin’ family, ain’t it the same fuckin’ story.” Flush-faced, deeply shamed by the dog’s behavior, Yardman dragged the whimpering Airedale around the house to the
driveway where the Suburban was parked. Leonard pressed his hands over his ears, not wanting to hear Yardman’s furious cursing and the dog’s broken-hearted whimpering as Yardman must
have forced him back inside the vehicle, to lock him in. He thought, That dog is his only friend. He might kill that dog
    Leonard walked quickly away from the house, as if eager to look at the silo, which was partly collapsed in a