The Third Child Read Online Free Page A

wrong. If she had that bellowing man to deal with, she would buy earplugs, but Rich seemed to like Potts just fine. Rosemary was closeted with him half the morning. He wasn’t her usual type of flirtation, but he was a backer and thus entitled to some attention. Plus the Pottses were paying a fortune for this wedding. Rosemary felt a lavish wedding might put a freshman senator like Dick on the Washington society map. So Mr. Potts was the focus of Rosemary’s charm, along with wives of men she wanted to attend.
    When Rosemary wanted to pick the brains of some useful type, when she was buttering up a backer or a supporter or useful connection, she spoke differently than she did any other time. Her voice became soft and girlish. She was deferential and almost coy, but she never concealed her intelligence. That fine-pointed instrument was always available. She was absolutely loyal to her husband. Her world was built on Dick and his career. She did not have affairs. No, she had intense ladylike flirtations, usually knee to knee over coffee or tea or sherry.
    Alison was frantically busy with the Wedding. Somewhere a gown as large as Idaho was being sewn by angels with gold thimbles. The Save the Date invitations had been sent out six months earlier, hand calligraphy by a weird woman built like an upended box of tissues who actually wore a pince-nez. Emily and she had giggled over that. The Pottses lived near Bryn Mawr, but they had taken a house in Washington for the year so that Laura and her mother could prepare. Mr. Potts usually stayed in Philadelphia, but occasionally he appeared to roar at them. Dick always made time for him, as did Rosemary. Laura was the only daughter in a family with two boys, one of whom was whispered to be gay. Her parents were putting their all and everybody else’s into this wedding.
    “If you got married,” Melissa asked Alison, staggering by with a load of mail that would tax a healthy elephant, “would you want a big wedding like this?”
    Alison looked at her blankly. “Married? Why would I marry?”
    “Most women do.”
    “I don’t have time for all that,” Alison said. She collapsed at her desk, shaking her head slightly, and began slitting open envelopes. “Your mother needs me. She calls me her right arm.”
    Melissa was relieved when Emily finally came to visit, so she had somebody to vent to besides Billy, who was off every day with guys andindifferent to the preparations. “So it keeps Rosemary off my back. Great. Besides, there’ll be champagne. I never got loaded on champagne. They say it’s a gigundo high.”
    Emily and she lay on her bed listening to the bustle. The doorbell rang constantly. Deliverymen came and went. Alison rushed upstairs and then back down. Laura appeared in tears about jewelry. A popular ambassador who was supposed to come was recalled by his country and Rosemary fumed.
    “I don’t see why Old Man Potts couldn’t just buy them a small country like Luxembourg or Liechtenstein. I don’t understand weddings. All that preparation—nonstop for twelve months—then one day and it’s over.”
    “I don’t know,” Emily said dreamily. “You’re like the star. You get to wear an incredibly sexy dress if you want to and everybody has to look at you.”
    “I’d rather have the money. I’d buy a horse and a convertible.”
    “I’d rather have a ski chalet, like in the mountains.”
    Melissa had been off of skiing since Jonah had taken her cherry on a ski weekend they had all gone on, Chandler and Emily, her and Jonah. Chandler was the guy Emily had gone out with the longest, a whole four months. Melissa had been so depressed afterward that she had just about given up skiing. Emily said that was silly. You didn’t have to fuck some jerk every time you put on a pair of skis. Melissa hadn’t felt she had a choice with Jonah, for they had been dating all year and she had just been blowing him and putting the whole thing off.
    Em had been so cool about