The Quirk Read Online Free Page B

expectancy.
    “It would have to be when the light’s good. Could you have lunch with me tomorrow?”
    “I’m afraid tomorrow is not possible,” she said with a little laugh.
    It grated on him. Polite society. Everything turned into such a bore. All he wanted was to tell her that she was a very intriguing girl and that he wanted to spend some time with her and maybe to go bed with her, but there always had to be complications. “Well, maybe I’d better call you,” he said.
    “Of course. Any time. Unless–”
    He saw the expectant look fade and her eyes fix on his face assessingly. He knew very well what she saw, having spent hours studying himself in a mirror when he had no more interesting model to draw. He hadn’t been paying much attention to his hair lately. It fell around his head in thick dark shaggy locks. Framed as it was, his face was like a work that had been intended to be rough-hewn but had been worked over too much and refined beyond the artist’s intentions. It was his mouth that caused the trouble. It was delicately modeled, full but sensitive, so that the straight strong lines of nose and jaw were negated and the whole looked romantically rustic. He could start a drawing of himself looking like a hawk and end up with it looking like a pretty boy. Neither was the truth. People–girls–had told him that his eyes were fierce, but he suspected that that was because they found the idea of “fierce eyes” exciting. He knew that his eyes were simply penetrating and attentive.
    “Unless what?” he asked before the silence between them became a problem.
    “Oh, I thought that if you wouldn’t mind leaving out lunch, I could come in the afternoon.”
    He smiled down at her, feeling that they were getting somewhere now. “No, that would be too much like business. Lunch is the part that interests me most. I’d like to talk to you. Can I walk you home now?”
    “No, no,” she said hastily. She returned his smile playfully, shadowed with guilt. “To tell you the truth, I will meet somebody around the corner. I don’t tell those two everything. They are so wicked.”
    “I know what you mean. Lola had us married before you arrived.”
    “How dreadful of her. Were you terrified?”
    “I could think of worse ideas.” They were smiling into each other’s eyes with open appreciation. Rod’s thoughts became explicitly erotic. Perhaps he was making the complications. Perhaps she was ready and willing for an uncomplicated affair.
    “I must go.” She put a hand on his arm. “You will call? I look forward to it.”
    The hand made him jealous of whomever she was meeting. It also reminded him that he didn’t want to make too much of it He shifted his feet and used the hand on his arm to set her in motion once more. “Don’t worry. I’ll call,” he said. Maybe he would. Maybe he wouldn’t. Keep all the options open.
    She withdrew her hand, and they descended the stairs side by side. The moment of parting on the sidewalk in front of the building became inexplicably awkward. They shook hands, and he held hers a moment too long. They simultaneously opened their mouths to speak and uttered brief laughter. Their eyes met and flew from each other. He made an effort to recover his social ease. He was behaving like an inexperienced kid.
    “I’m glad we’ve seen each other again,” he said. “I’d like us to get to know each other.”
    “Perhaps we will. You don’t seem like an American in spite of your looks. Perhaps it’s because you’re a painter.”
    “You don’t believe I’m a painter yet. You’ll see.”
    They said good night and turned from each other and set off in opposite directions.
    He turned his coat collar up against the night’s damp chill and resisted an impulse to look back. He would call her, but not for a couple of days, after he had had time to find an undisturbing place for her in his mind. He wasn’t going to fall for her. He didn’t need her. He had his Bohemian pals on