Second Chances Read Online Free Page A

in New York. Well, why not? It was certainly impossible to deduce anything from their later relationship; Celeste treated Sam with the same friendly flirtatiousness that she used with all the men she liked. And Sam with Celeste was affectionately courtly.
    Some time ago Dudley even considered or fantasized having an affair with Charles Timberlake, husband of Celeste, as a sort of rounding out of (possibly imagined) sexual connections. Also, more to the point, Charles was extremely attractive, though perhaps a shade too attractive? Lean dark elegant Charles, with his famously jutting eyebrows, was surely an antithesis to Sam, who tended to be messy, given to ragged sweaters, shabby tweed and baggy flannel. But nothing came of that plan, that fantasy—well, of course not, and how ridiculous, really, to have thought of it at all.
    “Just when is Sara coming, actually?” Sam now asks. A slight surprise; Sam is apt to wait and more or less see what happens.
    “Oh, well, that’s another thing, Celeste’s so vague about it all.” Dudley finds herself a little breathless, and conscious of an oddity that she has observed before: these non-alcoholic cocktails still can make her a little drunk. “I think maybe she doesn’t know when Sara’s coming. Sara will simply arrive. You know how young people are.” Dudley refers to Sam’s four daughters by two earlier marriages. All four, no longer children, closer to middle age (and all four, curiously, lawyers), still tend to arrive inconveniently, to be vague as to plans.
    “But Sara’s not all that young,” says Sam. Meaning, no doubt, that he
knows
his own girls are too old to behave as they do.
    At just that moment, as Sam and Dudley regard each other for an instant, slightly unwelcome thoughts on both their faces, into their silence the phone begins to ring. As always, too loudly. Jarring.
    Sam says, “I’ll get it,” and he lumbers toward the hall, just catching it on the third loud ring. “Oh, hello, honey. Well, honey, how’ve you been?”
    Celeste. Sam calls her honey because she says she hates it, or so Sam says; Dudley believes that it is really because he likes her so much. As he speaks, Dudley hears the familiar teasing in his voice, the old affection—although he says very little beyond “Yes,” “Yes,” and, once or twice, “Oh, really?”
    Looking out into what is now pure blackness, beyond the glass, Dudley thinks that she should go in to baste her chicken; she canjust catch its garlicky aroma. But phone calls are rather like visits, she reflects; they make you less lonely, even when you are two people, who in theory should never feel alone. And then she has a fearsome thought, the most impermissible thought of all. She thinks, Oh, what will I do if Sam should die before I do? She prays, she murmurs (to no one), “Oh, please, couldn’t we just go together, please? Don’t let Sam leave me again.”
    Because, in their worst times, that is what Sam always did: he left her. In the middle of a quarrel, he would rush to the door, rush out into the night and away, away for days, weeks, months. And this leaving came to be Dudley’s greatest fear—although when they spoke of it Sam claimed it was the sensible thing to do: “Why stick around to get hit? You can look pretty dangerous when you’re angry, lady.” He did not always leave when they fought; more often he stuck around for his own share of shouting, accusations. But those quick and total departures haunted Dudley. As sometimes, these days, she is haunted by fear of his death.
    Returning from the phone all smiles and affability (this is an effect that Celeste often has, on many people), Sam announces the news: “Well, some of your mysteries seem about to be cleared up. Sara is getting here next month. In early February. And Celeste is giving a Valentine’s dinner for her. Why Valentine’s I’ve no idea.”
    “Oh, you know Celeste. She likes holidays. Celebrations.”
    “Sure, but why