Crucial Conversations by May Sarton

Author:May Sarton
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781497685499
Publisher: Open Road Media

Chapter VII

The talk with Cecilia had helped. Having to defend Poppy had clarified his own thoughts and Philip felt as though a fog had lifted. In a burst of euphoria he called Kathy that very afternoon and invited himself to dinner.

“Well, you’re lucky it’s my night off,” she said. “And I have salmon—cooked it this morning. You might bring a bottle of wine.”

It was a warm evening, so warm he had not even put on a jacket, but dashed off in sneakers, shorts, and a short-sleeved cotton shirt. And all the way through the traffic, across bridges, and up the river he was tremendously excited and so impatient to get to Kathy at last that he drove recklessly. Her apartment was on the third floor of a red-brick apartment house. He stupidly ran up and was panting when she opened her door.

“I’m out of breath.”

“What’s the hurry?”

“Oh,” he flung himself down in the big blue chair by the sofa, “I’m a fool. But suddenly I just couldn’t wait to see you.”

At this Kathy laughed. “Suddenly … after three weeks? You’re nuts.”

He looked up at her standing there so large and natural in a comfortable housecoat, and sighed.

“I know. I’m nuts. But I’m awfully glad to see you anyway.” And now the distance between them became intolerable and he had to get up and take her in his arms, squeezing her hard against him in a warm hug. “Kathy,” he murmured, kissing her ear before he let her go, “Kathy, what would I do without you?”

“You seem to have done very well without me lately.”

“No, badly.” He shook his head. “I’ve been feeling old and scared.”

“You need a drink. Gin and tonic? I have limes.”

“I’ll make it.”

While they got things together in the tiny kitchen, Philip was savoring the experience he had found here for ten years, the experience of feeling absolutely at ease and himself. They had done this many times before, teasing each other over small things like the bottle opener never being at hand, amicable and loving. Why was it so good here? Philip had never really found the answer. The apartment was nondescript except for an English highboy Kathy had inherited from her mother and two rather charming water colors of flowers that Philip had brought back from Paris once. But back in the living room with the drinks Philip looked around him in great contentment, while Kathy, still in the kitchen, was busy cutting a slab of sharp cheese into pieces.

“You’re a handsome woman,” he said when she came back. She had a round, strongly molded face, penetrating gray eyes, and a look of being in perfect command of herself and of being—how to say it?—very much a woman but with none of the usual affectations. He loved her plumpness, the innocent unsophisticated embonpoint. “Mmmm,” he murmured, “you know, you’re the best-looking woman I ever see.”

“Thanks, chum. The only compliments I hear at the station are when some guy says I remind him of his mother!”

They laughed at that, laughed in the pleasure of being so old and so in love.

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