Read Neither Five Nor Three (Helen Macinnes) for Free Online

meanwhile? Ditched? And why? No doubt with a wife and kids: that kind of unfortunate always had hostages to fortune.
    I don’t like it, Paul thought. Sure, the magazine game was a hard one. Here today, failed tomorrow. Yet Trend for all its fancy title was a fair-minded place. Its reputation was solid. But I don’t like it, Paul thought: I’m not going to be the cause of ditching some guy with a couple of kids to keep in shoe leather.
    He looked up at the green shutters on the top floor of the brownstone house. Perhaps Rona knew what was happening at Trend , perhaps she could tell him the score.
    Is that the only reason why you are walking up these steps? he asked himself suddenly. But it was too late to answer that question: he was already inside the glass doorway of Rona’s house, his finger was already pressing the button beside the little white card with “Metford” in its neat script.

3
    Paul Haydn pressed the bell again. Behind him, the roller skates were still grating shakily over the sidewalk. Some more dogs were straining towards the interesting hydrant. People, homeward bound, glanced at no one. An elevated train roared up Third Avenue.
    Then the front door gave a hoarse warning rattle, as Rona released its catch from upstairs. He grabbed the handle too late, and found the door had locked itself again. He shook his head and grinned. You’ve a lot to relearn, he told himself. Again he pressed the bell. And this time he was ready, and got in. He was still smiling at himself as he went up the narrow flights of stairs past the doors to the other apartments. He heard Rona’s voice calling, “Stop for breath on the second landing!”
    She was waiting at the door of her apartment. “Oh!” she said when he came into sight. She was obviously dismayed.
    “I’m too early?” He looked at his watch in alarm. It was just one minute after six o’clock. He backed down a step.
    “No.” She was laughing now, holding the door open. “I needed someone to help with the ice. Come in, Paul. Welcome!”
    “Sorry, Rona. Give me a few days to break army habits.” He entered the small hall, cursing himself. He had forgotten that six o’clock for cocktails in New York meant six-thirty with luck. He looked round, searching for some place to lay his cap. He put it on the little telephone table, but it looked too conspicuous, too possessive lying there. He picked it up again, and stood holding it, feeling still more uncomfortable.
    Rona took it and dropped it on a chair inside the bedroom. “The cloakroom for tonight,” she explained. “Now, here’s where I’m having a slight battle with the shrimps. I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t thought they were a better idea than smoked salmon.” She led him into the kitchenette. She tied an apron—a white organdie thing with roses and frills—around the waist of her elegant black suit. Paul looked at her, then at the neat white miniature kitchen, then at the platter of food which she was arranging with some care.
    “They’re being obstinate, today,” she went on. She concentrated on removing the few remaining shrimps from their hard transparent cases. “Coy, that’s what they are. And yet if you hurry them, you mash them into pieces.”
    He kept looking around him as she talked. She was more embarrassed than he had been by his promptness, but she was doing her best to tell him to stop feeling worried. “This where you keep the ice?” he asked, his voice aS casual as hers. He didn’t tell her that, flushed with all the rush and excited by her party, she was the prettiest girl he had seen since he had said goodbye to her.
    “Yes. Careful of that refrigerator door, Paul. It swings back on you.” She looked up from her work to catch him smiling at her. She raised an eyebrow.
    “Your apron,” he explained. “Is that what the well-dressed housewife is now wearing?”
    She smiled and handed him a bowl for the ice. “The tray is set up in the living-room,” she said.