Pretty Leslie Read Online Free Page B

the street, a bonus of beauty that people passing would notice.
    In the dark cubby her underwear gleamed—reminiscent, oddly, of the incandescent color she loved on Bill’s wings and breast. She had never liked white underwear, nor bedclothing either. Too hospitally, she had always told Ben. So they slept on sheets striped brown and white or yellow and white, like Christmas candy. What if she were to buy—this afternoon, perhaps, since she and Martha had three hours free for shopping—some really gaudy underthings? A new costume for Ben to be devoted to. A girdle, say, in “parakeet green,” though she never wore girdles, owned only one. She would say to the salesladies, “What, you have nothing in parakeet green?” Then mauve, or orchid at least. Something to make Ben laugh, part of the endless act they carried on. If she could costume herself recognizably like Bill and then, with dramatic silliness, undrape and say, “Look at who you really dreamed about. Poor Leslie.” Ah, she really wasn’t as silly as that, but all these little touches were fun. Were more of an asset to The Marriage, she supposed, than the makeweight job she worked at five mornings a week in Bieman’s Studio. That barely paid for her lunches and clothes. Still the massage today was on her own money, and she had enough left for lunch and drinks with Martha.
    â€œWhere do we eat?” she called to Martha. She heard the pages of a magazine slap shut before Martha answered, and she could picture Martha’s eyes narrowed in calculation. Martha weighed every decision, no matter how small.
    â€œDepends on whether you want to see my husband or not,” she answered. “Since we’re late, we can catch him now.”
    â€œGoodness yes,” Leslie said. “Dave’s always so pleased to see me. Golly. Of course.”
    â€œMmmmm. I was afraid of that. I told him we might meet him in the Oak Room. So he’ll be there. But it doesn’t matter. He only has to cross the street.” Martha’s husband was advertising manager for the Sardis Record . He was forty-five to Martha’s thirty-five to Leslie’s twenty-seven. He had cynical lines in his face, though his character—what one knew of it—was more complicated than that. And it was perfectly true that he was always glad to see Leslie anywhere and any time.
    On their way to the Oak Room—just after they had crossed Governor in a glorious noontime hiss and honk of traffic—they ran into Donald Patch. He was window-shopping in a sporting goods store, and from the way he turned just as they approached, Leslie supposed he must have recognized her—her walk or something—in the reflections on the glass. He turned, anyway, with a big-toothed grin that absolutely excluded Martha, seemed to blot her out of his field of vision as mechanically as if he had held one hand up over his left eye.
    â€œGo-eeng feesh-eeng?” Leslie asked without slowing her stride.
    â€œAny time you see me, I’m fishing,” he said. He had no chance to say anything more, for they swept on past him like ladies who have already sniffed the crystalline fragrance of a lunchtime martini.
    â€œFishing for what?” Martha said. Her lips were pursed quite unattractively as she waited for the obvious admission. “What a plebeian little sniffer.”
    â€œFor me.”
    â€œI’m sure. What’s he got for bait?”
    â€œJust nothing, darling. Just nothing. Unless you like curly red hair.”
    â€œIn a sofa pillow, baby. I have to admit I haven’t seen anything quite like it since we mistakenly detoured through the Ozarks last winter. It’s a coiffure I believe to be favored by the Sunday-school dandies of Petal, Mississippi. How hick.”
    â€œDonald’s not exactly a hick. He does free-lance for Bieman’s. Some photography. Some airbrush stuff. He’s supposed to be pretty good.