Read The Race for Free Online Page B

late-afternoon shadows lengthen and, against his will, recalled a time when, unschooled in love by anything he saw in his parents' marriage, he had imagined himself capable of better.
    JANICE HALL WAS the commandant's daughter.
    The first time Corey saw her, at a formal ball in the fall of his fourth year, she was someone else's date. But even gliding in Bob Cheever's arms she was the image of the woman he had wanted but never found: tall and elegant, with a widow's peak and long brown hair that framed a face he could not stop watching—a perfectly formed chin, even lips, high cheekbones, and, most arresting to Corey, cool gray eyes that at once suggested challenge and vulnerability, the need to hold something back. He stared at her across the room until, inevitably, she saw him.
    There were other things she could have done—pretend not to have noticed or redirected her glance in shyness or annoyance. Instead, her face resting on Bob Cheever's shoulder, she gazed back at Corey as though daring him to look away. Though it might have been mere seconds, the moment seemed frozen, a still photograph of desire imprinted on Corey's mind. And then the dance ended, and the girl seemed to remember Bob Cheever. But for Corey, his own date, currently occupied in the ladies' room, was already consigned to history.
    "Who's the girl with Cheever?" he asked Jerry Patz.
    Jerry told him. "Cheever's afraid to touch her," he added. "Can you imagine fucking the commandant's daughter?"
    For the rest of the evening Corey danced with his date and joked with his peers, acting as though the commandant's daughter had vanished from his thoughts. Only at the end of the evening did he contrive to brush her shoulder as they passed. When she glanced at him, he saw that she was as aware of his presence as he was of hers.
    Under his breath, Corey said, "I'll call you."
    Janice's level gaze did not waver. "Is this about me, or my father?"
    "You."
    For an instant, Janice hesitated. And then she murmured a telephone number and turned away.
    Two days later, Corey called her. Coolly, she told him, "My father says you can come for dinner."
    This was not what Corey had envisioned. Nor had he anticipated that when he arrived at the commandant's house in crisp military dress, General Hall, a widower, would be in Washington and his daughter would be alone.
    When Janice opened the door, her father's house was nearly dark. Corey entered, and then she closed the door behind them.
    "So," Janice said softly, "is this what you wanted? Or dinner with Dad?"
    Corey could feel his own pulse. Pushing aside his misgivings, he answered, "This."
    He reached out for her, cradling her against him as he smelled the freshness of her skin and hair. She held her body separate, neither yielding nor resisting. But when Corey kissed her neck, she quivered and then whispered, "God, you are so not what I wanted."
    For Corey to ask why, he sensed, would destroy his chances of possessing her. Instead he cupped her chin, kissing her softly, until the resistance of her body dissipated with a slow intake of breath.
    As they kissed, Corey found the zipper of her dress. Her back felt cool, a slim sculpture of perfection. He no longer thought of consequences.
    When they were naked, Janice led him to the living room.
    They made love on the floor, Janice moving with him and yet silent, as though she had willed her soul to depart her body. Even before she cried out in ecstasy or anguish, Corey somehow knew that her eyes, though averted from their act, were closed.
    Her first quiet words, oddly toneless, answered the question he had not dared to ask. "My mother was a drunk. Not because she liked the taste of it, but because she hated this life. Suicide was her ultimate escape."
    The bitter story evoked in Corey his clearest thought: they were both escapees, but running in different directions. "I'm not your father," he answered.
    She turned to him, and he felt her search his face in the darkness. "Maybe