Read Don't Speak to Strange Girls for Free Online

”
    “I’m being what?”
    Her laugh was warm and throaty. “Isn’t that the right word?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Well, wait just a sec. I’ve got a dictionary right here beside me. I’ll look it up … How about — abstruse?”
    “What’s that?”
    She laughed. “Some kind of sea food?”
    He sighed. “I’m sure this is all very pleasant. But I’m afraid you’re confused.”
    “Oh, it’s hardly noticeable. I walk so you can’t tell it — ”
    “I’ll bet you do.”
    “Well, now, honey. That’s much better. You sound real friendly.”
    “I’m hanging up now, Miss. It’s been fine. Bye.”
    “Why?”
    “So you can try again and get the right number.”
    “Aren’t you Andrew Clay Stuart?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, then. What number could be righter than that?”
    “Goodbye.”
    “Wait just a minute. Aren’t you even going to ask me anything about myself?”
    “No.”
    “You look better on the telephone even than on wide screen, Mr. S.”
    “Goodbye, Miss Stark.”
    “What you’ve got is a one-track mind.”
    “It’s been educational.”
    “I’ve got this big dictionary. We could go over a lot of words — and their meanings.”
    “Goodbye.”
    He heard her sigh. “Well. All right, honey. I’ll tell you what … Are you still there?”
    “For the moment.”
    “I’ll call you again later — sometime when you feel better.”
    She was gone, suddenly as she had materialized, a voice somewhere across that line. He saw it was a mild triumph of sorts for her, she had hung up on
him,
leaving something hanging, unfinished, something left unsettled between them.
    He sat there for a moment, then replaced the receiver.
    He glanced up, caught an unexpected glimpse of himself in a mirror. He was smiling. Using muscles, he thought, that he’d even forgotten he ever had.
    • • •
    Hoff and Shatner arrived about four that afternoon. Hoff was talking to Shatner about some way a man might divorce his own daughters, but when he saw Clay, he put his family out of his mind. Shatner had not been listening to Hoff except that part about divorce — it was impossible he knew to divorce an aged father, and yet, he told himself wryly, that relationship had just about had it. But Shatner, like Hoff, tensed slightly when he saw Clay sprawled in that damned lounge chair — looking as if he hadn’t moved since the last time they were here.
    Clay had not shaved, had not changed his slacks. He resented the way they were watching him, staring at him covertly every time he looked up.
    Kay Ringling came in at five. She was carrying the battered blue script of
Man of the Desert.
But she did not refer to it. She looked him over as if he were her only chick — and God help him, he was — looked at him as if he might have grown since the last time she saw him.
    Each of them was disappointed after inspecting him. This was evident in their faces.
    Hoff said, “We got a firm offer for forty acres of your valley property, Clay.”
    “I don’t believe he should sell,” Kay Ringling said before Clay could speak. He saw this was an old dialogue between them, and Hoff hoped to do two things by bringing it up here: go over Kay’s head, and bring Clay Stuart back to the world of the realistic.
    Hoff’s voice rode over Kay’s. “Taxes are eating at us. Taxes out there are not what they were when we invested in that property. And what was it when we bought it? An investment? Right. To sell when the time was good. We are paying for something that is a thousand times more valuable than when we bought it. Should we hold it forever?”
    “He’s held it this long,” Kay said. “Nothing is going to depress valley properties.”
    Hoff snorted. “I’ll bet you’re constipated, Ringling. You want to hold on to everything. Never want to let anything go.”
    “The state of my health is no concern of yours. Clay Stuart has never suffered yet taking my advice.”
    “This buyer. A big operator,” Hoff said. “He’s