Read Online Shadow Traffic by Richard Burgin - Free Book Online Page A

bird. The details don’t really matter, do they?”
    I nodded quickly to acknowledge her point.
    â€œI’m sorry it happened to you,” I said, wondering if she’d been drinking herself through her crisis, too.
    â€œThat’s why I’ve started going to this new church I’d heard about, I suppose, to help me get through it …”
    â€œThe Spiritual Church,” I said, quasi-embarrassed to pronounce its absurd-sounding name.
    â€œIt’s not as daft as it may sound. It’s a very liberal, modern church. Its members all share their different stories with each other. It was very comforting the first night I went, but somehow I got lost tonight and couldn’t find it.”
    â€œI’m sorry I thought you wanted money.”
    â€œAm I really that shabbily dressed?”
    â€œNot at all,” I said, before I realized she was joking.
    The rest of the dinner went more smoothly. We talked about the usual things—movies, the Beatles (who everyone still talked about then), our families, a bit about our jobs. I told her that my plans were uncertain as to how long I’d stay in London, which I rationalized could be technically true. I just didn’t add that my return ticket to St. Louis was in five days and that there was no chance I wouldn’t take it, as I had to get back to my job.
    She asked me about the States, of course, and why it was I was considering not returning. It was in that context that I told her my father had recently died and saw the same look in her liquid eyes she had when she told me the story of her lover’s betrayal.
    Shortly after that we left the restaurant. She lived only ten minutesor so from my hotel, but the last few blocks were walked in silence. Finally I said, “Is there any way I can see you tomorrow?”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œYes, really.”
    â€œYou think we’re well suited for each other, then?”
    â€œI think I’m going to miss you after you go,” I blurted, which was about as much as I’d ever said to any woman, being the cool, intentionally detached, idiotic type I was then.
    â€œAll right, if you really think so. I feel I was such a burden to you all night going on and on about my problems.”
    I assured her she wasn’t.
    She smiled, with a trace of a blush. “Well, then, can you come by tomorrow around seven?” she asked, very softly.
    I was surprised how much I thought of her the next day. I figured it was because I hadn’t had sex since my father died but sensed I liked her, too. Either way, waiting was a part of the seduction process I had little patience for in my twenties, though not succeeding at all would be still worse, of course. With Paulette I sensed I’d have to wait to succeed, although I couldn’t wait too long since I had to fly back to the States in five days.
    Instead of a pub, we met at a Japanese restaurant on Queen-sway Road. She’d dressed up more this time, wearing a conservative navy blue dress that screamed priggishness. It looked like a flight attendant’s uniform, I thought, or something a middle-aged librarian from St. Louis would wear. Meanwhile, I was dressed all in black, which I thought was cool at the time, though I now see I must have looked like a priest or a funeral home director.
    Conversation was not as easy this time. We spoke in brief, halting sentences about nothing in particular, as if it were taboo to talk about anything that mattered to us. I’d just finished orderinganother sake to try to rectify the situation when she suddenly started talking. “Obviously I’ve been a big disappointment to you tonight.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?” I said, trying to say the words as if I meant them.
    â€œYou can barely bring yourself to look at me, much less talk to me.”
    I knew women were more emotionally open than men by and large (though not so with my mother and father), but she was