The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller

Author:Robert James Waller [JAMES WALLER, ROBERT]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780759521728
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2001-03-15T05:00:00+00:00

Room to Dance Again

On that Tuesday evening in August of 1965, Robert Kincaid looked steadily at Francesca Johnson. She looked back in kind. From ten feet apart they were locked in to one another, solidly, intimately, and inextricably.

The telephone rang. Still looking at him, she did not move on the first ring, or the second. In the long silence after the second ring, and before the third, he took a deep breath and looked down at his camera bags. With that she was able to move across the kitchen toward the phone hanging on the wall just behind his chair.

“Johnson’s…. Hi, Marge. Yes, I’m fine. Thursday night?” She calculated: He said he’d be here a week, he came yesterday, this is only Tuesday. The decision to lie was an easy one.

She was standing by the door to the porch, phone in her left hand. He sat within touching distance, his back to her. She reached out with her right hand and rested it on his shoulder, in the casual way that some women have with men they care for. In only twenty-four hours she had come to care for Robert Kincaid.

“Oh, Marge, I’m tied up then. I’m going shopping in Des Moines. Good chance to get a lot of things done I’ve been putting off. You know, with Richard and the kids gone.”

Her hand lay quietly upon him. She could feel the muscle running from his neck along his shoulder, just back of his collarbone. She was looking down on the thick gray hair, neatly parted. Saw how it drifted over his collar. Marge babbled on.

“Yes, Richard called a little while ago…. No, the judging’s not till Wednesday, tomorrow. Richard said it’d be late Friday before they’re home. Something they want to see on Thursday. It’s a long drive, particularly in the stock truck…. No, football practice doesn’t start for another week. Uh-huh, a week. At least that’s what Michael said.”

She was conscious of how warm his body felt through the shirt. The warmth came into her hand, moved up her arm, and from there spread through her to wherever it wanted to go, with no effort— indeed, with no control—from her. He was still, not wanting to make any noise that might cause Marge to wonder. Francesca understood this.

“Oh, yes, that was a man asking directions.” As she guessed, Floyd Clark had gone right home and told his wife about the green pickup he had seen in the Johnsons’ yard on his way by yesterday.

“A photographer? Gosh, I don’t know. I didn’t pay much attention. Could have been.” The lies were coming easier now.

“He was looking for Roseman Bridge…. Is that right? Taking pictures of the old bridges, huh? Oh, well, that’s harmless enough.

“Hippie?” Francesca giggled and watched Kincaid’s head shake slowly back and forth. “Well, I’m not sure what a hippie looks like. This fellow was polite. He only stayed a minute or two and then was gone…. I don’t know whether they have hippies in Italy, Marge. I haven’t been there for eight years.

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