Read Online Trophy House by Anne Bernays - Free Book Online Page B

them?” she said.
    I told her I wouldn’t be able to live with the subject for the time it would take to complete it.
    â€œBeth,” I said, “how long are you going to stay here with me? Not that I wouldn’t like it to be forever. I was just wondering about your job…”
    â€œI don’t really know.” She sat in a chair that faced halfway away from me. “I loved it in the beginning. I loved seeing my name on the masthead.”
    I nodded, knowing the feeling. But it was Andy, she told me in the most roundabout way, who wanted her to stay at Scrappy. Was it the paycheck? It seemed that was a part of it. He wasn’t bringing in any money, but he would graduate soon; he had been just about promised a job in one of the firms hard at work on designing a plan for Ground Zero. “An entry-level job, but it’s a high-visibility place—and his uncle’s one of the partners.”
    â€œThat’ll do it,” I said. “And why not? Why not make use of every door open even just a crack? He’d be stupid not to.”
    â€œUsing pull,” Beth said, as if she were considering this amazing concept for the first time. “Andy’s not stupid.”
    Again, I asked her what she had told her boss, Maria, when she’d come up here. “I saved a bunch of sick days I didn’t use. Then Maria told me to take an extra few days if I needed to. She likes me, she likes my work. I guess she doesn’t want me to leave. Jesus, I don’t even wear lipstick. And I certainly don’t put goop on my eyes. And here I am, advising these teenagers to waste their money…”
    â€œDoes Maria like Andy?”
    â€œWhat’s that got to do with anything?” Beth said. “You know what, Mom, I think you’re hooked on this Andy thing.” Her eyes filmed with tears. I wanted to tell her how lucky she was to be out of his clutches but, wisely, bit my tongue. Instead, I apologized and suggested we drive into town. “I’d like to see Tom,” I said. Beth brightened somewhat and said she thought that was a good idea. Then she stuck it to me. “Why do you two spend so much time apart?”
    This was sort of abrupt. But I guess she had every right to ask me this. It was an odd arrangement, more interesting in what it suggested than in what it really was—or so I thought at the time.
    â€œWhat do you think, Beth?”
    â€œWho cares what I think. But it’s not my idea of marriage.”
    â€œI care, Beth.” She turned away as it occurred to me that maybe she didn’t really want to know.
    â€œOkay, we’ll go to Boston. I can miss the stop-the-Stop & Shop meeting and my lunch group. I’m tired of this place.” I was lying. I almost never tire of Truro. The longer I live here, the more I admire the land and its moods. I like being here by myself and working in the quiet and the occasional wind. Beth can’t understand this, but she will when she acquires some patience. It’s not that I don’t miss Tom, because I do, but it’s not an ache the way it used to be when we were living apart; it’s that I like our conversations, I like to watch his brain at work and I’m delighted that he seems to enjoy being with me. I don’t even particularly mind his libertarian take on things; it’s a good corrective for my going off half-cocked and always jumping to the left.
    When I was in Watertown, I felt like that very rich woman they used to write about in the gossip columns who owned four houses and had a complete wardrobe stashed away in each one so she wouldn’t have to bother with the business of packing each time she moved from one to the other. “I only need a teeny overnight bag,” she was supposed to have said. I have two sets of art materials. So it’s no big deal with my work. But the pace is different; the air isn’t so clean; the noise, even on quiet Whitman