Stranger On Lesbos Read Online Free Page B

hulls and barbed wire rust. She laughed.
    Bake sat with her hands on the steering wheel, not making any move to start the car. "Do you realize that we haven't eaten all day? I'm starving."
    "I could use coffee."
    "Here, let me." Bake got the top off the thermos, slopping coffee over the edge of the plastic cup. "Put a little whiskey in it. It'll warm you up."
    "I'm not cold."
    "Let's go up to my place and cook a real meal. Let's not take the edge off our appetites with sandwiches."
    "All right."
    Frances sipped the coffee and Scotch, feeling dreamily agreeable to anything Bake might suggest. By closing her eyes she could see etched bare branches wind-tossed above the leafy forest floor, and one red maple leaf slowly falling. As long as she lived, she felt, she would have the imprint of that leaf on her retina. "Lovely," she murmured.
    "Hey, you're falling asleep.”
    Frances pried her eyes open. "I am not."
    "Lean your head against my shoulder if you want to. We'll be home in an hour."
    "You won't get sleepy?"
    "No." Bake said smiling. "I won't get sleepy.”
    Frances could feel the car start. Her knees braced automatically against the jar as they lurched back onto the gravel road. Then she laid her head against Bake's soft wool sweater, feeling the good solidity of bone and the warmth of living flesh beneath. The western sky was darkly pink against a bank of curly gray cloud. It was too much for one time. She sank down into a half-sleep, unwilling to relinquish consciousness but unable to stay fully awake.
    "Your hair smells nice." Bake said. She shifted to lay an arm across Frances' shoulders, whether for support or reassurance was not clear. She's driving with her left hand. Frances thought foggily, but she felt no alarm. She had utter confidence in Bake's ability to do anything she set out to do.
    Then without any apparent passage of time they were stopping in front of a brick apartment building. Frances struggled upright and sat looking owlishly at the street lights, the passing cars and the close-set buildings.
    "Here we are." Bake said. "Pull yourself together and see if you can get out."
    Electric light beat down on the lobby floor, set with black-and-white tile squares meant to look like marble. Bake unlocked the mailbox under her name card, found nothing, unlocked the inner door. They climbed a flight of stairs, their wet shoes squishing on the thin carpeting, and walked down a long hall past a double row of closed doors.
    "It's not very chic," Bake said, "but it's in easy commuting distance of most of my clientsand anyway I'd rather spend my money on books." It was not an apology. She laid her double armful of leaves and berries on the hall floor and fished in a pocket for her door key.
    "Oh, you carried my stuff up too."
    "That's all right."
    "What a nice room!" Frances said as they entered.
    The living room looked larger than it was because it was sparsely furnished and almost bare of decoration. A chair of woven leather strips and one of steel mesh flanked a nondescript studio couch with a Mexican blanket laid across it. The walls were lined with brick-and-plank bookshelves.
    "You can look at the books as soon as you get your wet shoes off," Bake said, smiling.
    A Navajo rug punctuated the flat black of the floor, and the windows were covered with inside blinds painted dark green. Best of all, there was a working fireplace, the brick hearth dusted lightly with ashes. Bake crumpled a sheet of newspaper, knelt to arrange it with three sticks, and lit it with one of the kitchen matches she carried in her shirt pocket. A tiny blaze leaped up, primitive in its beauty.
    "What is it about fire?"
    "It's a symbol," Bake said. "Home and safetyand other things too." She snapped on a light in the adjoining bedroom, plunged into the closet, and came back carrying a pair of soft flat slippers with elastic bands across the instep. "You're taller than I am, but I have bigger feet. Maybe you can keep these on."
    "They're so