Read Online Menage by Alix Kates Shulman - Free Book Online

high flame. Mack decided to give Zoltan the royal treatment by driving home the long way around the mountain, past the most ravishing stands of maples and oaks. Instead of taking the service road directly to the back entrance, past the hangar and the neighbors’ property, he would let the house appear suddenly above, regal, spectacular, and serene, even though it meant they would have to carry the bags up the long stairway from the turnaround.
    While Mack walked back to the trunk for the bags, Zoltan stood up, shook out his pant legs and gazed up at the wood-and-glass edifice perched majestically just below the rounded peak. He’d known from the photo that it was more than aconventional suburban house in a wooded setting, but never had he imagined a place as grand and elegant as this. The grandeur of it, and the way the roof reached toward the sky, reminded him of the cathedral where he’d been an altar boy, only modern. He whistled long and low.
    Mack stood triumphant. It was for this he had taken such risks, moved his family to the country, founded his firm, gone for the MBA, struggled through Yale, and apologized through humiliating tears to his sixth-grade teacher Miss Harrington for having scaled the auditorium rafters. For this he had sought out Zoltan, courted him, won him east from California to enrich their lives. Zoltan’s whistle filled his head like birdsong, raising new hopes of transformations.
    As soon as Heather heard the car trunk slam she removed her smock and ran to the living room to light the fire. Mack had taught her the standard tricks of showing real estate: maximum light, soft music, multitudes of fresh flowers. In her nervousness she scorched her hand as the flames leaped from the kindling, but she ignored the pain to flick on the lights and music. Coltrane. Count on Mack to know how to impress a European. On the way back to the safety of the kitchen, she pausedat the hall window to watch Mack’s familiar bulldog frame followed by a tall slim figure in a black cloak—dramatic, operatic—mount the steps from the terrace.
    At the top they rested the bags. Mack watched Zoltan’s eyes follow the beams of the overhang into the foyer, on into the semivaulted living room, and out the far glass wall to the sky. “Go on in,” he said, holding the door. “Heather! We’re home.”
    Zoltan stood inside the door hearing the lush sound of jazz, inhaling the rich aromas of cedar logs and roasting lamb. The view was all that Mack claimed. And was that a Hockney on the wall? A genuine Hockney? And the books! An entire wall of them, floor to ceiling, with a ladder for access to the top shelves. “You didn’t say you live in a library.”
    â€œAh yes—the books. I didn’t tell you? They’re Heather’s.”
    Heather turned off the cold water tap and gently blotted her burn with a towel.
    â€œHoney,” said Mack as she entered. He pecked her proprietarily on the cheek. “Come. I want you to meet Zoltan Barbu. Zoltan—my wife Heather.” Like a shaman, Mack lightly touched a hand to an elbow of each, then stood back to admire the meeting. His best work, people said, used first-ratematerials in unusual combinations to create surprising new effects. Yet all functional. A room with a view for Zoltan to work in, and for his wife an author, a book in living flesh.
    And for himself? For himself? To be the one to make it happen.
    Zoltan, adept at entrances, bowed over Heather’s hand and lightly brushed her knuckles with his lips, her arm with the glossy lock that had fallen over his right eye. As his fingers came dangerously close to her burn, Heather braced herself but did not wince or pull away.
    â€œWhere are the kids?” asked Mack.
    â€œIn the playroom. They’re staying up tonight to have dinner with us. Want to get them?”
    â€œNot yet. Let’s get Zoltan settled first. Why don’t you show him his