Read Online Vermilion by Nathan Aldyne - Free Book Online

lips, when he noticed a neatly folded piece of blue notepaper resting above the jack of clubs embedded in the coffee table. He put the coffee down, picked the note up, unfolded and read it. In neat clear script was written: “ Had to get to work early. Didn’t want to wake you. Thanks for a great time. Call me soon. Your number wasn’t on the phone, so I’ll just leave mine .” It gave the telephone number, a Boston exchange, and was signed “ Gary .”
    It had been no dream. Valentine tried to remember what Gary looked like.
    Valentine raised the cup to his lips, and the door buzzer sounded. He groaned, and swallowed a quarter of the cup of burning coffee. On the fifth insistent buzz, he went to the door and pressed the intercom.
    It was Clarisse’s voice, quick and blurred. After thirty seconds of incomprehensible speech, Valentine pressed the door-release button for a sarcastically long time, opened the door, and retreated to the sofa.
    A few moments later, Clarisse rushed in. She was wearing her fur coat, but no hat. As Valentine watched, droplets of snow melted in her thick black hair like tiny dissolving pearls. Under one arm was her leather envelope with a newspaper sticking out of it, and in her other hand was a glazed paper bag, torn, with the logo of an expensive and fashionable Italian bakery on it.
    â€œGorgeous day!” she cried, and kicked the door shut. She threw the envelope and the bag onto the glass table, and then pulled off her coat. Beneath she wore full-cut black corduroy slacks and a white silk blouse opened one button too many. Around her neck was a gold chain fashioned of square links.
    The coat flew over Valentine’s head and fell behind the couch.
    â€œIt’s too early in the morning for June Allyson,” said Valentine sulkily.
    â€œNo,” said Clarisse, “I’m Faye Dunaway this morning. To do June Allyson, I’d have to be drunk.” She craned her neck in several directions. “Where is he?” she demanded.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œThe man of the hour. The trick of the day?”
    â€œHe left. I was too much for him.”
    â€œToo bad,” she said, disappointed. “I brought breakfast for three.” She ran to the kitchen, leaned through the doorframe, balancing precariously on one high-heeled shoe, and flicked on the flame under the water.
    â€œWhy are you out so early?”
    â€œGuilt,” replied Clarisse, turning back with a ravishing smile. “This morning I got up and decided I was going to pull a real nine-to-fiver. First one in, last one out. That office wouldn’t know what hit it.”
    Valentine glanced at the clock on the mantel. “You mean you already put in two hours?”
    Clarisse paused. “Actually, no,” she admitted. “I haven’t quite made it in yet. I left the apartment though at eight-thirty. I really did. But it was so cold I couldn’t put in my contacts, because I was afraid they’d freeze to my pupils, and I got on the wrong train, and I ended up at Haymarket. So as long as I was there, I figured I might as well have coffee with this cute fireman who was just getting off duty, and I did, and we have a date, and you’ll be real jealous if I ever let you meet him, and then I thought that as long as I was still there, I might as well run across to the North End and buy you and Mr. Nameless some breakfast, and then I was headed back and I remembered that my passport needed to be renewed so I stopped in at Government Center and filled out all the forms, and ran across the street to have my picture taken, and here I am. I’m considering this an early lunch hour.”
    â€œI don’t know why you even try.”
    â€œWell,” said Clarisse, returning languidly to the kitchen to prepare coffee for herself, “I feel so virtuous, you just can’t imagine.”
    Valentine had pulled the newspaper out of her leather envelope and