Read Online Swindlers by D.W. Buffa - Free Book Online

if she had not always been so remarkably kind to
me, I still would have felt an obligation to let her down gently,
to make it sound as if I was not saying no at all.
    “I like living in the city,” I said, feeling
foolish and defensive; “but if I ever change my mind….”
    She filed it away, another name, different
because of the minor part I had once played in her life, but
another name on the list that grew longer every week, names to
remember, names to call again. I lived in San Francisco, and I
liked it there, but people change and, even if they don’t, no one
stays in the same place for very long.
    “This week has been just impossible: new
houses to see, buyers who have to be taken around, buyers who
usually have to wait until their own house sells.” Something caught
her eye, a drawer that had not been completely shut. “Anyway,
you’re here, and this isn’t a bad place to talk.” She shut the
drawer the other side of the kitchen and came back. “I was a little
surprised when you said it was something about Justine.”
    I told her what had happened; not all of it,
of course. I did not tell her what had happened on the deck of Blue
Zephyr late at night while the other guests were getting drunk down
below and how close we had come to being caught; I did not tell her
that Justine had slipped into my bed hours later, after she and her
husband had quarreled. I told her only that I had not recognized
Justine, that I had no idea that Danielle was the kid I used to
tease when I was going out with her sister.
    “Half-sister,” said Carol Llewelyn. She
turned away, as if there was something not quite right about it,
something she would have preferred to keep hidden, and then,
reaching across the table, gave my hand a squeeze. “I didn’t do a
very good job of things. The girls had different fathers. At least
I was married to the first one.” Crossing her arms, she leaned back
and fixed me with a warm, steady, glance. “He was gorgeous, Jean’s
father: blonde, blue eyes, with tight fitting jeans and a summer
tan, nineteen years old and he stole my seventeen year old heart,
along with my virginity. I was pregnant before the summer ended and
married in the fall.”
    She paused, and then laughed quietly at her
hesitation even now to discuss what she thought the failures of her
life. The laughter died away and her mouth began to tremble, but
she stopped it with a smile, brave and sad and determined.
    “I always liked it, when you and Jean were
engaged, how easy everything seemed, how I never felt I had to hold
anything back, whenever we talked. It must be those honest eyes of
yours. I knew that whatever someone told you, you would not think
less of them because of it. I’ve never told anyone what I just told
you. God, it was so long ago; I was so young, so….It doesn’t matter
now; I can’t go back and change it. We were married in the fall,
and he left a few months later. He told me he was going, that he
just couldn’t settle down, stay in the same place, work a regular
job. He said he knew it wasn’t fair, but he couldn’t help what he
was, and so he left me and I cried for weeks, praying he would come
back and knowing he never would. He only married me because he
thought he had to, and then, before he could see the child he
fathered and maybe feel something that might make him stay, he ran
away. Maybe that’s where Jean got it, the blonde good looks she
had, the refusal to take life on anyone’s terms but her own, the
way she only wanted to think about today and never tomorrow, the
only thing important having a good time. That’s why you fell in
love with her, isn’t it? – You were always so serious, and she
could pull you out of that, make you think about nothing but her.
Justine was not anything like her.”
    The doorbell rang. Startled that she had not
heard the car, she jumped up from the chair and went to greet the
young couple that had just arrived.
    “Take your time; look around. If you have