Read The Girl in Times Square for Free Online

not hot, and when she walked into the water she was not cold. The water and the air were the same temperature. When she finished swimming and came out, she did not feel wet. She thought she could not get a suntan in weather that felt so mild, yet when she pulled away the strap of her bathing suit, she saw white underneath it, and next to it skin that was decidedly not white. That made her incredulous and happy and when she returned she was ready for rapprochement.
    But in the darkened condo, Allison was still lying down, and Lily, not wanting to disturb her mother, went into her own room. It was only four o’clock in the afternoon.
    She had a nap, and at six when she came out, her mother, her hair all done, and her make-up on, was ironing a skirt in the living room. “Come on, do you have anything nice to wear? Or do you want me to lend you something? I’ll take you to a wonderful oceanside cafe your father and I go to sometimes. It’s dressy, though, can’t go there in that little bikini you’re wearing.”
    “I have a dress.”
    “Well, let’s go. They have great lobster.”
    All dressed and perfumed they went. Watching her mother walk in so elegant, so slim, so tall in her high-heeled shoes, smile at the host and be escorted on his arm to their beachside table, Lily thought that her father was right—when Allison was on, there was no woman in the room, regardless of age, more beautiful. Anne, Amanda, Lily, they inherited some of their mother’s remarkable physical traits, but parceled out, not in total, whereas their mother had all her remarkable physical traits to herself. The thick, wavy, auburn hair, the wide apart, slightly slanted gray eyes, the regal nose, the high cheekbones, the perfect mouth, elegant and slender like the rest of her. Amanda got the hair and the nose, Anne got the height and the cheekbones and the slimness. Anne got a lot. Lily got no height, no cheekbones, no hair, and no gray eyes. She got the slant of the eyes and a certain fluid grace of the mouth and the neck and the arms.
    Before the water was poured, Allison said, “I’m not feeling well, Lil. This medicine I’m taking for my stomach is making me feel awful. I don’t know why I’m taking it.”
    “Why are you?”
    “Why, why. Because the doctor told me to, that’s why. I have a great problem with my stomach. You know how sick I am.”
    Lily stared straight ahead. Ten years ago, Allison had an emergency operation for a perforated ulcer.
    Ten years ago!
    “You didn’t ask about Joshua, Mom.”
    “How is that Joshua?”
    “We broke up. Rather, he broke up with me.”
    “He did? Why? I thought you got along so well.” She managed to inflect but just barely.
    “Not really. I wasn’t a good enough listener for him, I think. All he wanted to do was talk about himself.”
    “Ah, well. You’ll find somebody else. You’re still so young.” She sighed operatically. “Not like me. I’m so depressed, Lily.”
    Of course you are. “Mom, how can you be depressed in a place like this? Look all around you.” Where depression was loss of color, Hawaii was color’s surfeit.
    “Oh, what’s Hawaii to me? I’m so unhappy. Don’t you know you carry what’s inside you wherever you go?”
    Lily supposed. For Hemingway, Paris was a moveable feast. For her grandmother it was Poland—one word synonymous with apocalypse and kielbasa. Lily’s mother’s moveable feast was misery.
    Not this conversation again. “Why are you unhappy?” she said, trying to inflect, trying and failing, trying not to let lifelong impatience creep into her voice. “Why are you unhappy? You have a beautiful life. You don’t have to work. You don’t have to worry about money. You can travel, you can read, you can swim, fish, snorkel. You have all your faculties, plus a husband who loves you.”
    Allison sighed again.
    “Mom, Papi loves you.”
    “Oh, Lily, you’re so naive.” She shook her head and looked into her food. “What is this love you