The Glass House People by Kathryn Reiss

Author:Kathryn Reiss [Reiss, Kathryn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

July

Clifton had the porch to himself that Saturday afternoon in mid-July. Iris and Mrs. Savage (who now urged him to call her "Mama") had taken the trolley into the city to order the flowers for the church. Then they were going to meet Iris's old high school friend, Louise, and take her to lunch before going to Bensen's Bridal Boutique for another fitting of the bridal gown. Clifton forgot why this was necessary—something to do with having the side seams taken in or let out. It didn't matter; it was just one more of the little details women liked to fuss over when they planned a wedding. He was happy to sit back and let them go to it; he wanted only to be married to lovely Iris, living comfortably—first in a little apartment near the Main Line, then eventually out in the country somewhere. All the planning that went into becoming married he would just as soon stay out of.

There had been some sort of stink this morning just before Mrs. Savage and Iris left. Mr. Savage had taken the car out of town on business a few days before, and so Mrs. Savage and Iris had to walk the mile to the trolley. Hanny Lynn was supposed to go with them because she was another of the bridesmaids. But Hanny had vanished. Iris and her mother were furious, and they waited until they could not possibly wait another minute and still catch the trolley. So they set off up the street, calling every few steps for Hanny Lynn, as if they expected she might materialize out of thin air or pop out from hiding in the bushes. They turned the corner, their calls fading, and Clifton settled himself contentedly on the glider swing with a collection of Isaac Asimov stories.

He read science fiction avidly whenever he had a break at work, or on weekends, as on this Saturday. He thought a writer ought to keep up with what was being written in the genre. Then he would try very hard, while typing late at night, to find new solutions to old dilemmas and new twists for tried-and-true plots. Clifton had no doubt that he was a good writer—in fact, he wouldn't be surprised if one day he were classified as a great writer, right up there alongside Isaac Asimov himself. But the going was often slow and, lately, with all the planning and upheaval of the coming wedding, he found himself simply too tired at night to do anything more than tumble into the high old bed in his bedroom.

After two hours of nonstop reading he closed the book. He leaned back on the cushion and closed his eyes, kicking the glider into motion, tempted to head up to his room for a nap before Iris returned. The family used to refer to his room as "the Lodge," since they had rented it out often to lodgers in the past. Now that he had been with them nearly a year, the room had come to be known as "Clifton's Lodge.

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