Read Online The Lake Shore Limited by Sue Miller - Free Book Online Page B

clear. He's made his choice."
    "Then why is he weeping?" Sam asked Pierce.
    She looked back at Pierce. He shrugged. "I don't know."
    "Maybe he doesn't know," Sam said.
    "Relief, maybe," Pierce said. "That she's alive."
    They filed out, Leslie ahead of both of them. She could hear that they were speaking to each other, still about the play, she thought, but she kept her head bowed; she watched her feet make their way up the tilted floor.
    As Sam leaned over her to hold open the glass door to the street, the cool, moist air enveloped her. It was still raining. She took a deep breath.
    "Where to?" Pierce asked. "This place we're meeting Billy."
    She pointed out a little corner restaurant about half a block away. Pierce opened the umbrella, and they started in that direction.
    After a minute Sam said, "He didn't look glad. He looked ... tormented."
    Back to the ending.
    Pierce was looking at her, worried, so she smiled at him. She knew she needed to shake this off, she needed to talk.
    "Here's what it is," Sam said. He paused, and then said, "'He asserted modestly.'"
    "You can assert immodestly to us all you want," Pierce said. "For all the good it'll do you."
    "It's that he doesn't know what he wants."
    "Then why is he crying?" Leslie asked. Why was he? But now they had to go single file to get out of the way of a man walking three dogs, and when their line reformed, neither of them took up her question. It seemed to have vanished. Maybe they hadn't heard her. She wasn't sure she wanted to listen to them offer their notions about the play anymore anyway. It was something she needed to think through for herself.
    They crossed the street to the restaurant. Pierce held the door open for her, and she stepped in, into another world: background music, loud voices. Instantly she was worried about Pierce, his reaction. Was it too loud? Would he be irritated? They had to stay. It was the place Billy had suggested.
    A tall blond waitress came, dressed all in black but for a big white apron that fell from her waist to her ankles. She led them to a high table facing out the window toward the dark street and the rain. Pierce and Sam sat at the short ends of the table, and Leslie sat at the long side, looking back the way they'd come, toward the theater. The chair for Billy sat empty next to her. She could see that a few people were still standing under the marquee, waiting for rides, perhaps, or maybe just talking.
    The restaurant was small, the walls dark, a warm cave in the rainy night. Around them, the hubbub of talk, of clinking silverware, and under it all a plaintive voice singing to a regular, bluesy beat.
    Another waitress came and took their drink order--they served only wine, to Pierce's annoyance. She left menus for them. Pierce started telling Sam about the erotic Japanese prints. He was funny, describing the Tuesday afternoon art patrons, women mostly, moving decorously around, seeming to consider with equal studiousness the prints of women in elaborate robes moving through formal and stylized gardens or theaters, and the ones that involved people screwing in inventive and unlikely ways, their faces impassive. "There weren't many," he said. "Only five or six. But all of them very ... convincing , I'd say. Very thorough." He raised his eyebrows for Sam's benefit. "And just where everything came together, as it were , there was always just the subtlest drop or two of some clear, shiny substance so carefully painted on." He grinned, widely. "Hotcha!"
    Sam laughed, shaking his head at Pierce, at all that was predictable, she supposed, about his energy, his enthusiasm.
    They started to talk about the difference between erotic art and pornography, what the line was. The wine came and they clinked the glasses, To friendship , and drank. They talked about their first experiences of porn, at what age, how it had affected them. Leslie tried to do her part in the conversation, and she was amused by them, and interested, but she still felt