69 Barrow Street Read Online Free

seemed to be hesitating.
    “Come on,” he said, indicating that she could sit on the stoop beside him. “The sun’s nice and it’s still cool out. Later in the day you’ll want to spend your time sitting in front of a fan, but now it’s nice enough just sitting in the sun and enjoying it.”
    “All right,” she said. “But only for a minute.” She sat down.
    He wasn’t sure where to begin. He felt that he wanted to get to know this girl, wanted to talk to her, but it was hard to hit on a conversational opener. Still, she was obviously willing to talk with him. Otherwise she wouldn’t have sat down.
    “My name’s Ralph,” he said. “Ralph Lambert.”
    “I’m Susan Rivers.”
    “Have you had breakfast, Susan?”
    “Not yet. I just got up.”
    “There’s a place down the street where they make a good mushroom omelet. Interested?”
    She hesitated, and this time it wasn’t hard to see her hesitation. She seemed genuinely worried about something and he wondered idly what it might be.
    “I’m not trying to make a pass,” he assured her. “I live on the first floor here and there’s a girl who lives with me, so I’m not a guy on the make. I just thought you might like to have breakfast with me.”
    She relaxed visibly. “All right,” she said. “A mushroom omelet sounds like a good idea.”
    They stood up simultaneously and began walking along Barrow Street toward the restaurant, a small quiet place around the corner on Bedford. He noticed things: the way the top of her head was just level with his shoulder, the clean freshly bathed smell of her that rose to his nostrils, the cool, calm air about her. As they walked they talked about nothing in particular and he hardly managed to follow the conversation even though he was a participant in it. His mind was wrapped up in an appraisal of the girl. He felt that he wanted to get to know her, wanted to find out for himself just what sort of a person she was and what made her tick.
    They both ordered mushroom omelets at the restaurant, with orange juice and toast and coffee. They ate in relative silence—the food was good and they were both quite hungry.
    Then, over coffee and cigarettes he said: “Do you work, Susan?”
    She nodded.
    “Where?”
    “Do you know the ceramic and jewelry shop on Macdougal Street just below Eighth?”
    “I think so.”
    “That’s where I work. I design ceramics and do a little of the actual throwing myself, too.”
    “That sounds pretty good.”
    She shrugged. “It doesn’t pay much but I like it. I can work pretty much my own hours and knock off for a day or two whenever I feel like it. And it’s…well, creative, I guess.”
    “That makes a difference.”
    “It really does, Ralph. I’m not talking about the artistic angle of it or anything. I don’t pretend to be artistic, whatever that means exactly. I’m just making things—ashtrays and vases and bowls that people can use and enjoy. It’s more a craft than an art.
    “But the thing is that I’m figuring out a way to make something and then making it, sort of with my own two hands.” She held up her hands to illustrate the point. He noted that her hands were quite small with slender and well-formed fingers. Her fingernails were clipped short and she didn’t wear any nail polish.
    He said: “I know what you mean.”
    “It’s a feeling of building something,” she went on. “It makes a difference, a tremendous difference. Sometimes I get the feeling that my life is just a waste, that I’m not doing anything important and I might as well not be alive at all. But then I put on a smock and go in the workroom behind the shop and put some clay on the wheel and throw a pot and bake it and glaze it and…it just makes me feel a lot better, Ralph. As if I’ve accomplished something. As if I have a…a reason for existing, if you can understand what I’m trying to say.”
    “I understand.”
    They fell silent. He took a last drag on his cigarette and ground