Bad Connections Read Online Free Page B

bedroom­ and took off my clothes while Conrad made an important­ phone call. He had asked me if I would mind changing­ the linen on the bed and gave me a set of sheets provided by his mother. They were printed with little daisies. As old as he was, his mother still bought him all his underwear, socks and linens­. The sheets that were on the bed had a palmtree motif. I wondered­ if he had lain on them with Roberta. I stripped them off and threw them in the corner.
    In the next room I could hear Conrad canceling his meeting. He was telling someone that a crisis had come up and he had to go to Detroit. “But, baby,” I thought I heard him say. However, it might have been my imagination.
    I was suddenly very tired and a little depressed. I spread out the clean sheets and waited.

I T’S SIX O’CLOCK in the morning again, and this time she’s in a taxi headed downtown, trying to get home before Fred wakes up.
    There is not much traffic. The streets have a clean, bare look to them. The sky is rather pale, as if there will be rain later. In the twenties there are trucks delivering flowers. She wonders what it would be like to live in the flower district. Already she has a sense of homelessness that is surprisingly exhilarating. She has been rooted in a small and stunted place. It is time for her to move on. Later perhaps she’ll buy a newspaper, look at the ads for apartments.
    Just why she’s going downtown this morning, aside from the fact that her clothes are there, is not quite clear. It seems the thing to do. She has begun to operate by a whole new set of rules. She makes them up as she goes along. Last night, for example, it suddenly seemed no longer conceivable to go, as she’d been going all along, ever since her affair with Conrad began, from Conrad’s bed to her husband’s.
    Around one A.M. when the clock radio Conrad had set awakened them, she’d announced that she was going to stay. He’d seemed a little alarmed—and she was somewhat surprised herself by this decision. “Is that wise?” he’d asked. “It’s okay,” she’d reassured him, “I know what I’m doing.” Even though she didn’t know. She was improvising, really. She’d made Conrad lie down again and wrapped herself around him. He’d tossed restlessly for a while, but had finally fallen asleep. She herself had been sleepless, her mind racing with excited, disconnected thoughts. She’d left when it became light, tucking the blanket she’d disarranged around his shoulders and whispering, “Don’t get up.”
    Her absolute failure to consider consequences will seem rather strange to her later. She actually had the idea that Fred would not particularly notice her absence, since he took so little notice of her in general. How could it matter to him whether she was in or out? Either she’d find him asleep when she arrived or not yet back himself from the night’s adventures.
    She stares out the window at the familiar neighborhood below Fourteenth Street as the cab speeds down Seventh Avenue. She directs the driver to turn right on Christopher Street and has him let her out on the corner of the block where she lives. She crosses the street to the local newsstand and buys a paper. She tries to remember whether they have run out of anything. Catfood? Coffee? Liquid detergent? For a moment she thinks of going to the all-night delicatessen around the corner, returning with groceries. She realizes she is a little nervous. It is an unfamiliar situation.
    She lets herself into her building and goes quietly up the stairs. She digs her key out of her pocket and slips it into the lock. She listens and hears nothing. Then she opens the door.
    To her great astonishment all the lights in the house are on. And Fred is up, he is fully dressed, he is just getting to his feet in the tiny dining alcove where, judging by the litter of ashtrays