Read Online The Astral by V. J. Banis - Free Book Online

It’s just that for a woman, for some women anyway, at least for me, it doesn’t really work on a purely physical level, it needs that special something. Not love, necessarily, but something more than just bodies banging together. I think for me, if he’s someone special, a private glance across a room is very thrilling, and if he is not, it doesn’t make much difference what he brings to you in looks or technique or, if you want to know, size.”
    Catherine gazed pensively into the distance. “I think you’re probably right. I think it’s the same with me.”
    â€œYou’re thinking of Walter?”
    Catherine looked directly at her mother. “I was thinking of Jack McKenzie,” she said frankly.
    â€œOh.” Sandra sounded not particularly surprised.
    â€œI seem to have loved him forever. And to have been unhappy about it nearly as long.”
    â€œOh, my dear, love has nothing to do with happiness. You can be quite happy with someone and not love him. And you can love him and despise him at the same time. It’s something spontaneous and, it seems to me, quite unmanageable. And endless, too, I don’t think once you love someone you can ever really stop loving, although you can certainly end the relationship.”
    â€œI’d have to agree. I know I tried hard enough to get Jack out of my heart, but try though I will, he’s still there.”
    â€œI don’t think I shall presume to advise you on that score. You remember your Dante, don’t you? When he first starts his journey it is Socrates, the intellect, who guides him, but when they reach a certain point, he turns the job over to Dante’s beloved Beatrice. Which was Dante’s way of saying, as I see it, there comes a time when reason be damned, you have to let your heart lead the way.”
    What a dope I have been, Catherine was thinking, to have deprived myself of this wonderful woman.
    * * * *
    She stopped at the mall again on her way home. At the entrance to Macy’s Christmas department, she had to pause to steel herself. All the bustle, the noise, Christmas music piped over speakers, the babble of voices and the jangle of cash registers. In the far corner a line of children waited to see a thoroughly unconvincing Santa. Or perhaps the children were happy to allow themselves to be deceived—children were often wiser, she thought, than parents gave them credit for being.
    She made herself go in. She picked up two strings of lights, and got a third one for good measure. Four boxes of ornaments, that ought to be enough, wouldn’t it? Tinsel, some garlands. She even got an angel for the treetop, and immediately named it Becky.
    Those purchases made, and they were the hardest, she went to men’s and found a cashmere sweater for Walter, and to women’s, where she picked out a Pashmina stole for her mother. She chose black first, and then, thinking that too funereal, traded it for a fire engine red; but she could hear her mother saying, “What on earth would I wear that with?” She settled finally for one in pale lilac.
    â€œIt’s going on sale tomorrow,” the silver-haired saleswoman whispered in a conspiratorial voice. “I’ll ring it up for you at the sale price.”
    â€œThat’s very kind of you,” Catherine thanked her. That was something she must work at remembering: there were kind people in the world too, good people. One mustn’t think that everyone was evil. To do that was to let the villains win.
    She took her packages to gift wrapping and had them wrapped. That, she decided, she still wasn’t up to. Anyway, she had never been very good at it.
    Satisfied that she had taken several good steps in the direction of recovery, she left the store. On her way home, she stopped at her regular flower shop, Rose’s Roses. They had ordered their Christmas trees from Rose Leiberman for years, always—Rose’s little