The Girl Who Passed for Normal Read Online Free Page B

looking at her, and turned out the light without saying anything to her; and eventually she had fallen asleep.
    When she woke up, David was not there. He didn’t return for a week. He had gone to Switzerland with Marcello. When he did return he was tanned and looked relaxed. Barbara felt that she had withered in his absence, and become twentyyears older than he, instead of the five that she was.
    She had tried not to mention his week’s absence, but she couldn’t help it; and when she did mention it she said the wrong thing. “Why do you live with me if you don’t like me?” she had asked.
    David had looked at her angrily and said, “Did I say I didn’t like you? And anyway, where am I supposed to live? This is my apartment, isn’t it?”
    She had said no more, and slowly they had resumed their old relationship, had started talking to each other again, and laughing with each other.
    *
    Perhaps he had gone off again like that, for a week. Perhaps he didn’t really mean to hurt her, and it was his way of maintaining his independence. Perhaps he did it to prove to himself that he was free. It was silly, of course; she had always insisted that he was as free as he liked. He didn’t have to prove anything, either to himself or to her. But then he wasn’t always logical, and sometimes wanted to demonstrate that the relationship they had agreed — or at least understood — to have with each other was valid. Barbara loved David, and David liked Barbara. That was it, that had always been it. But perhaps, she thought, there were times when he felt that he loved her, or that she was trying to hold him with her love; and then he did something deliberately, inexplicably hurtful, to restore the balance.
    She had never dared to suggest this to David. It would have outraged him. He would have said, “That’s your perfect-secretary’s mind.” He had told her once, when she had claimed that their relationship was ideal, “For you the ideal relationship is that between a perfect secretary and her boss.”
    She was right, nevertheless; she was convinced of that. She understood David. She loved him. So perhaps he was testing her now. Well, she would try to stand up to it. She tightened her lips, as if she were about to be injected with a pain-killer.
    She left the study and went into the living room. She sat down on the sofa and wondered who, if not Marcello, David could have gone away with.
    She wondered if Marcello was lying. Perhaps David was with him. Perhaps any moment he would come through the door, and say with a grin, “I was at Marcello’s.” If he wasn’t with her he must be with Marcello, because she and Marcello were the only two people in the world David was close to. Perhaps any moment …
    But no one came through the door, and the apartment was very quiet, and outside it was dark and cold and November.
    She rang everyone she knew, everyone that David knew. No one had any idea where David was.
    Finally she rang Mary Emerson.
    Iva, the housekeeper, answered, and said, “Ben tornata.” Barbara wanted to ask her if she knew anything about David, but she didn’t feel capable of speaking Italian, so she closed her eyes and held the receiver tight against her ear until she heard Mary Emerson’s deep drawl.
    “Barbara, my dear, welcome back. How’re you? And how’s your mother?”
    “I’m fine. Mother’s much better. How’s Catherine?”
    “Oh, Catherine’s all right. She says she’s missing you.”
    “Look,” Barbara said, “I’m terribly sorry to bother you like this, but do you know where David is? I got in this afternoon and he’s not here.”
    “No, my dear.” Mrs. Emerson paused, and then went on. “I’ve been wondering myself.”
    “What do you mean?” Barbara said. “Hasn’t he been coming ?”
    “Oh, yes. He came every day. It was all going very well, and Catherine loved him. But the funny thing is, Barbara, David hasn’t come at all this last week. I haven’t even heard from