The Four Temperaments Read Online Free Page B

cherished his dreams of Ginny far more than the complicated reality she presented. What had he done? he thought over and over.
    â€œOscar,” Ruth said gently when she saw that he was barely listening to her, “Oscar, dear, are you all right?”
    â€œI'm fine,” he lied, wishing suddenly that he could just close his eyes and bury his face in her lap. “I'm perfectly fine.”

GINNY
    G
inny Valentine
hated New York. She hated its horrible up and down shapes. To her, they looked like a million shoe boxes standing on end in a tacky factory outlet. She hated everyone packed in so tightly, no room to breathe. She hated the hundred and one kinds of dirt in New York—smog, soot, grime, grease, grit and of course dog excrement—everywhere she stepped. She couldn't understand why anyone would actually want to live here, and when she saw those T-shirts and bumper stickers with that idiotic slogan saying “I ™ NY,” she wanted to yell, “NOT ME!” There were only two things that redeemed the city in her eyes: George Balanchine and the New York City Ballet. Balanchine had been dead for years, but the New York City Ballet, the company he started and ran, was alive and kicking. And so here she was.
    Back in New Orleans, before she came here, Wes had promised that in New York City, it wouldn't matter who her parents were. “New York never looks back,” is what he said. “No one there gives a hoot about your past because they're too busy thinking about the future. And the future, my darling child, is you.” He had smoothed the hair off her face in a gesture that was one-quarter father, three-quarters lover. “Think of it: VIRGINIA VALENTINE. They'll call you ‘Queen of Hearts.' ”
    She would sit curled up on Wes's sky-blue sofa, the one with all the tasseled pillows and the ornate French legs, drinking in every damn word and dying for one of the cigarettes he waved around his handsome face as he talked. He refused to let her smoke. “Virgin lungs,” he kept telling her, “virgin lungs. If you want to be a star, you'll keep them that way. The rest of you is open for corruption, of course. And I'm just the man to see to that.” He leaned over to kiss her neck and her arms went around him. Sweet Wes! She did love him. Or she guessed she did. She certainly did need him. And what was love anyway, but need in a fancy dress?
    Still, she knew that going into Oscar's room last night was a dumb thing to do. Dumb because it made things more complicated. Oscar was already crazy about her. He helped her ditch Mia and find her own apartment, bought her dinners and even loaned her money. All of this without sex. She never meant to get involved with him that way. But as her mama would surely have said, good intentions were shining brightly all along that hot and dusty road that led to hell.
    She couldn't even blame it on the liquor, though she was certainly drunk enough when he brought her back to his apartment. But when she woke up—in the narrow bed with the one-eyed, nearly bald teddy bear staring at her—the effects of the alcohol had worn off and she was left with her own miserable self again. Mia. Erik chose Mia over her. By now, she had stopped feeling angry and was scared instead. Maybe she wasn't as talented as she thought. Maybe she was fooling herself, and was going to stay in the corps de ballet forever, while the Mias of the world danced right over her.
    She thought about going into Mia's apartment: another dumb thing. But she had been so angry. Ginny remembered, with some distaste, the tantrums she used to have when she was little. Once she had stretched out on the floor of the church sobbing and pounding her fists against the worn oak planks, all because her mother had said no, she couldn't play with June Bell Taylor after the service that afternoon; she had to come home instead. Everyone had stood around her, even her mother,