Burnt Offerings (Valancourt 20th Century Classics) Read Online Free Page B

ride over the grasslands, a picnic lunch with all your favorite yummies. Don’t make me a liar. Say yes.”
    “No.”
    But of course he’d go along with her, just as he had for the past several years. He’d mouthed the words, offered the obligatory protest, and she’d reacted antiphonally. They’d start with the reasonable thousand-dollar-a-month beach cottages and work their way down to the jerry-built lakefront cabins, or the bungalow colonies with their tribes of screaming kids and five-day widows. Queens transplanted. Cots, rickety furniture, dimestore landscapes on the walls, and bare wooden floors that were always damp and gritty with sand. He could just see Marian in a setting like that. But the fantasy persisted.
    She was silent, waiting for him to relent, and he could feel a sly, sneaky touch inside the leg of his trousers.
    “I suppose,” he said finally, “there are worse ways to spend a Saturday.”
    She smiled, but with no hint of triumph. The voice was vaguely repentant. “You’re not mad are you – about the calls? I should’ve waited, I know, but you can be – and I love this in you, I really, truly love it – you can be so impossibly negative at times.” She brought her face level with his. “It could be so good for us if it worked out. No worrying about Davey and that damn bike. Or me, for that matter; wondering whether you’ll find me here or splattered on the pavement below, if I have to spend another summer in this bin.”
    “I’m not mad.”
    “That’s my Benjie.”
    He shifted position, a little uncomfortably. “What I am, however, is something close to horny, and unless you want to give all the folks yonder a really hot show – ” He was sliding back up on the couch, freeing himself from Marian who looked quickly in the direction of the open window. The Supervisor was still at her perch, fat breasts pillowed on the sill. Below her the courtyard continued to roar. “Besides,” he said with a small chuckle, “we don’t have a car anymore, remember?” And as he said it, the piano below thundered to an off-key climax, and the name Mayberry Heights came into his mind. And the building half a block away from it on Wood Avenue where he’d parked the Camaro – absolutely, no question – in front of its large lobby window. He remembered very clearly the plastic fern, the lamp, and the chairs inside, all of them chained to the wall.

(2)
    The next morning Marian called Aunt Elizabeth and told her they would be away all day Saturday; could Ben take her to the supermarket Friday night instead? Aunt Elizabeth, who was seventy-four, said that Friday was her poker night. Then what about Thursday? Art class, and Wednesday was out – she was going to the theatre. Aunt Elizabeth told Marian not to worry, she could easily wheel her shopping cart the three blocks to the A & P, but Marian, who like Ben assumed that a seventy-four-year-old woman living alone must be helpless, insisted, and so they settled on Friday afternoon when Ben usually got home earlier. Aunt Elizabeth, although she didn’t mention it, would have to cancel her three o’clock appointment at the beauty parlor.
    Much of Ben’s reluctance to leave the city for any length of time was based, Marian knew, on Aunt Elizabeth’s supposed dependence on him. She was Ben’s only living relative, his father’s sister; bright, witty and good-natured, he was devoted to her. Although she lived fairly nearby, they saw her infrequently; her schedule always seemed to be booked solid. But at least he was there if she needed him, which, surprisingly, she did that morning – her air conditioner had broken down. But no rush, Friday would be fine. She wished them success with the summer house and said that her bikini and her water-wings were all ready.
    “Are you serious, Aunt Elizabeth?” Marian asked her.
    “About the bikini? Of course I’m serious.”
    “Besides that. I mean, if we were to find something, would you consider