Read A Kind of Flying: Selected Stories for Free Online Page B

brought the wonderful brown beer, and I lift my glass in my hand. The beer is cool and sweet.
    “Judith,” I say.
    “Doug, remember that bitch at the Spaniards who wouldn’t serve us because we were five minutes late for pub hours?”
    “No,” I say. There is no sense in starting. I could ask her now the name of that pub at Highgate, the coach stop, Judith would remember. But: no.
    The King’s Head is empty now: four o’clock. By seven, every English starlet on the coast will be in here. “Judith. Hey. Don’t cry.” I push her glass across so it just touches her elbow. “Judith. Here. Drink this. How about the turkey sandwich?”
    She nods, her head in her hands.
    “Don’t cry,” I say. “It’s possible to write a good movie. It’s a livable country. Judith, you are the most clever woman I ever met. But, you were right about that little guy. He doesn’t want the girl. He wants to run back and forth. He wants to jump the barrels and not get burned.”

OLYMPUS HILLS

    I LEFT THE party early, finding my coat on the bed, surprising Karen and Darrel, who stood when I entered. “It’s funny,” I said, trying to ease their embarrassment, “but I know every coat in this pile.” I lifted Cindy’s rabbit fur jacket. “For five points. Careful: she does not wear this thing to work.”
    “Cindy,” Karen said, her voice husky.
    I had just left Cindy in the kitchen. She and Tom were sitting on the counter drinking tequila and having a heart to heart. Whenever people drink tequila, they always talk about it, the worm, a war story or two, and then maybe mushroom experience and it’s a heart to heart. Cindy was wearing a white silk dress, sprayed with little red dots which turned out to be strawberries. I have been in these kitchens before and when Cindy hoists her bottom onto the kitchen counter and, nursing a tequila and lemon between her knees, starts telling drug experiences, it’s just enough. Even Tom sitting up there by her looked a little spent. He’s too big a guy to sit on a kitchen counter and look natural anyway.
    Karen and Darrel had forgotten to let go of each other’s hands and their faces were smashed red from all the kissing. They looked like the two healthiest people at the party. I was surprised, because I’d seen Karen with another guy from the firm, a programmer named Chuck who does our board overlays, at a dozen lunches in the last month. And I admired Darrel’s ability to struggle in there with Karen, while we could all hear his wife, Ellen, singing along with Tommy James and the Shondells in the other room. It was a small house for Olympus Hills.
    “Victor, Ted, Sharon, Tom, Ellen,” I said, laying the coats aside, until I found the tan raincoat. “Lisa,” I said, looking at it. The bed was a little archaeology of the party: all those layers of beautiful coats. Victor and his new leather flight jacket. Tom and his bright swollen parka. And Lisa’s classy raincoat second from the bottom. She must have arrived early.
    “My coat,” I looked up and said to Darrel, and when I saw how embarrassed he still was, leaning there against the wall as if I was going to scold them, I added, “I’m leaving early. No problem.” I patted my coat. “I’d say you’ve got an hour before another coat is touched. I’ll close the door. Happy Valentines.”
    I didn’t put my coat on in the hall, because I didn’t want Ted or Sharon to make a fuss, to cry out, “Hal, you’re leaving! Before charades! You can’t leave before charades!”
    I wanted to leave before charades. I’d played charades with this group before and it was worse than college. Victor, Ted, and about five others played solely to humiliate everyone. They would select unproduced plays from Gilbert and Sullivan, and then explode when people would claim to have not heard of them. “You ignorami!” I’d heard Victor scream. “You aborigines! Swinesnouts! This is incredible.”
    My wife, Lisa, could be wicked too. She would