Read Online Rose's Garden by Carrie Brown - Free Book Online

at the weak gray light that drained from the heavy bank of clouds over head. The mica in the sidewalk glittered, winked. Miss Barteleme glowered behind him, a tissue protruding from her sleeve. For a moment, Conrad imagined her, Miss Betty Barteleme, dropping slowly to her plump knees, rendered silent for once, her mouth in a gentle O, awestruck.
    But then the telephone rang. Miss Barteleme threw Conrad a glance and turned to lift the receiver.
    And in the opportunity created by the ringing phone, Conrad saw that he could make one more effort on his own behalf, one more appeal. Giving up now was just—what would Rose have said?—fainthearted. No man who’s seen an angel ought to be fainthearted.
    Miss Barteleme waved the letter opener at him as he brushed past, her eyes and mouth popping protest.
    Conrad stepped around the corner of the hall and then stopped, for Nolan had someone with him. Conrad looked through the glass partition. Nolan’s back was to him, but Toronto stood before Nolan’s desk. He looked up, caught Conrad’s eye, and then quickly averted his gaze.
    â€œLook at this,” Conrad heard Nolan say.
    Conrad paused, strained to overhear. He watched Toronto, realizing that Nolan expected a laugh, for it was Conrad’s letter Toronto was now holding.
    But Toronto read quietly, his lips moving slightly, standing before Nolan’s desk. Conrad watched his face, not knowing what to expect.
    â€œWell,” Toronto said at last. He did not look up from the page. And then, with an athlete’s agile grace, and before Nolan could say anything further, Toronto stepped out of the office, closing the door behind him. In the hall he stopped, looked up, and met Conrad’s eyes. Conrad glanced into Nolan’s office, saw him, dismayed, rearrange his collar, swivel around, and open his mouth to call after Toronto, “Kenny, don’t get any—” And then Nolan saw Conrad and froze.
    Just then, having disentangled herself from the phone, Miss Barteleme came after Conrad, huffing and puffing, affronted. “Mr. Morrisey,” she said. “Time to go.”
    Conrad allowed himself then to be taken by the arm and escorted to the door, but not without casting a look back over his shoulder toward Toronto, who put up his hand, a small wave.
    Maybe there’s hope, Conrad thought. But then, surprised, he thought, That man really has the kindest face I’ve ever seen.
    STANDING ON THE street before the plate glass window of the Aegis’s office, Conrad glanced into people’s faces. Laurel was a small town, not more than nine hundred people, and he recognized, at least vaguely, many of the passersby. But now every old man he saw reminded him of Lemuel, hawklike and proud, his mane of white hair and soft beard folding tentlike around his long face, making him look like an exotic Jacobin pigeon, its eyes peering through its feathered ruff. Every woman, small and slender,was, for a second, Rose. He put his hand against the door frame, steadied himself against the sensation that he had been uncoupled from his life. That he no longer knew anyone. That he was surrounded by strangers. Someone, a woman he did not recognize, passed him and nodded. “Good morning,” she said, her voice pleasant, sympathetic. Conrad stared after her.
    He had no plans, no destination. He stepped off Main Street and walked down the hill to River Road. Behind him the town resolved into the small inverted bowl of its streets and roofs. On the far side of the river rose the coarse foothills of the Sleeping Giant, the last of the low-lying crests of the White Mountains. To reach Laurel from the south, one had to pierce the slumbering body of rock through its low granite heart. The mountain’s brow, nose and chin, rising chest, sweeping legs, and protruding feet looked unmistakably like an enormous man laid down heavily upon the sloping fields.
    Conrad had been hired as a junior member of