Read Lion House,The for Free Online

it only with us? Then there was his relationship with Frannie; I wondered about that too. While I often sensed an easy warmth between them, their outward behavior with each other was undemonstrative. I had never seen them kiss or touch or speak even the semblance of an endearment. At times they struck me as two close but casual siblings; at other times I got the feeling that Marc played Stabilizing Father to Frannie's complex and precocious Little Girl. I had recently read de Beauvoir: there was something called the infantile woman. Could that be Frannie's cubby hole? No; I was constantly having to remind myself that appearances were too often misleading. What of the sudden adultness; the unexpected femininity; the peculiarly disturbing insights which, even when unspoken but only glanced or smiled, could pierce the sheath of my own maturity and cast me headlong to the level of a child?
    As Marc stood beside me in the kitchen there were a hundred questions I wanted to ask him: about her, about him, about them; but wanting to, I was afraid; and, too, I didn't know how or where to begin. "They're getting soda," I told him. "They ought to be back any minute now."
    A shadow of annoyance crossed his face. "What's the matter?" I asked.
    "She knew I was coming, didn't she? She could have been here."
    "Well, they'll be back soon. We ran out of soda, and ─"
    "So you said." He took the bowl in which I'd made the stuffing and began washing it.
    "Don't," I said. "I'll clean up later."
    "Force of habit," he explained. "Have you ever seen our kitchen after Frannie's boiled an egg? The Augean Stables."
    "You can't have everything," I said. "Marry a writer and bask in the pride of bylines. It's worth it, isn't it?"
    "Completely invalid," he answered. "That's her theory; but the truth is: it's just an alibi for ducking the dirty work." He was taking pot-shots at her. I'd never heard him do that before.
    "Complaint Department?"
    He looked up. "Not really," he said, leaning against the sink, nibbling a heart of celery. "If she changed I'd have to adjust all over again. It was hard enough the first time."
    * * *
    We were getting nowhere; though where I wanted to get I wasn't quite sure. No; that's not true. I knew what I wanted to know: I wanted to know about Frannie. I wanted to know what she was like: all of what she was like —when she was home alone with him; when she wasn't playing to the gallery. But why? Was my curiosity strange, uncalled-for? I doubt it. Writers seem always to be objects of interest; maybe because somehow we've all come to assume they have an inside track to Love. Well then, did Frannie? Surely she had written of it; written of it well enough to sell. But that was merely a matter of words on paper. What happened when this same emotion belonged not to a cast of literary characters, but to Frannie herself? What words would she choose then for its expression? What look? What everything? But it wasn't the sort of question you went around asking people's husbands; least of all husbands like Marc. He was smart and deep and sensitive all right; but unlike Frannie who, once unblocked, could pour like Niagara, he kept his thoughts to himself.
    He was watching me now. "You're looking pensive," he said. "What's on your mind?"
    "Nothing. I was just wondering whether or not to whip up a dessert. Frannie could use a couple of extra pounds."
    He had finished the celery and was rifling through the vegetable bin. "Optical illusion," he said, coming up with a carrot. "She isn't nearly as frail as you think she is. Got a scraper?"
    I handed him one and took hold of his wrist to look at his watch. "I didn't know how late it was!" I said. "Where are they?"
    "Getting soda, you told me."
    "Yes, but that was an hour ago. The store is just down the road; ten minutes at most."
    As I said it the door bashed open and Brad staggered in under the weight of the case.
    "Where were you?" I asked. "I was beginning to worry."
    "What about?" he gasped,