Read Online Skyscraper by Faith Baldwin - Free Book Online

besides, Lynn knew that Jennie would be lost without her dressing-table, her pots and bottles and jars of various mysterious cosmetics.
    So they settled down for the winter. Jennie was out most of the time. Now and then she threw a party at which Lynn was welcome to go or come. Generally Lynn went out with Tom, or to Sarah’s, or up to the club to see the girls, or somewhere, and would stay away as late as possible so that on her return the place would be empty of everyone save Jennie; Lynn, sleepily emptying ash trays and picking up glasses and plates and opening windows, might prepare for bed.
    Yet the flat did not work out. Oh, as far as Jennie was concerned, it did. But when Tom came into it, the flat was proving dangerous. They were in it together and alone far too much. Sarah Dennet said worriedly, still stamped with her generation’s conventions despite her madness of twenty years ago, “Does Tom come to the apartment, Lynn?”
    And Lynn had replied directly, “Yes, of course, that’s one reason why I went in with Jennie. It was too silly ranging the streets together, eating at expensive places. We can neither of us afford it.”
    â€œJennie’s there, of course, when he comes?”
    â€œSometimes,” said Lynn.
    Yes, but not often; and generally, when she was, Slim was there too, or another man. They were learning backgammon, and when Jennie’s brain reeled with that effort there might be aharmless round of poker; something to eat; something to drink. But these occasions were rare.
    It was spring. Spring makes a difference. The poets are right, whatever we may think. The poets are almost always right.
    â€œTom, please, dear! Jennie will be home any moment.”
    â€œLet her come. No, I hope she stays away. Why isn’t this our place, Lynn, just yours and mine? Why do I ever have to leave you—at night?”
    â€œTom—”
    â€œOh, I won’t hold you against your will!” He loosened his arms and watched her gloomily as she walked away from him, and then, her knees relaxing, sat down in the straight-backed desk chair, touching her disheveled dark hair with shaking fingers. Tom’s kisses were no longer boyish, delighted. They were adult and melancholy and a little desperate.
    He burst out, watching her, the gleam of the gray eyes, the hurt, bruised look of the red mouth, the clear color staining her dark pallor. “Lynn, we’ve got to get married, I can’t stand things this way—”
    â€œTom, we can’t; don’t be absurd, darling, you know we can’t!”
    He crossed the small room in three strides, kicked a silly hassock from his path, came and stood behind her, so that she was forced to turn and look up into his face.
    â€œI’ll—I’ll cut out all the radio business,” he said, a little pale. This was an authentic sacrifice. He was like an explorer giving up the sight and feel and sound of strange, enchanting countries. No one knew what radio had brought him. It is commonplace now. We all afford radios, cash or on the installment plan. We turn a switch and fumble with a dial and listen to music, to human speech, to a drama played by unseen actors. We say, “Rotten!” or we say, “That’s a good program,” and we listen to the advertisers’ sleek reminders with attention or boredom according to our amount of interest in brushes, furs, gasoline, shoes, breakfast foods. That is radio to us. A pleasure when the contrivance works; an annoyance when it does not. To Tom music, lectures, dramas, meant nothing. But the things whichbrought them to their audiences meant much. There was so much more to be discovered, so much more to learn. But it cost money, not alone the lessons, but his own private little experiments, which Lynn found so irritating and yet so boyish and charming.
    â€œI’ll give it up, I’ll save money; we can manage. I’ll hit the old Gunboat for a