Read To See You Again for Free Online Page B

something unusual, a triumph of goodwill and sophistication over more primitive and sometimes stronger emotions. And, curiously, this confirms, at least momentarily, her sometimes-wavering faith in her own work, her artistic skill: if she is so much cared for, by such friends, perhaps after all she is a talented, worthwhile person?
    However, it really is January, and by midafternoon the nearly invisible sun sheds no warmth. This has happened quite abruptly, or so it seems to Clover, who, suddenly shivering, wraps herself in the heavy old sweater, out at the elbows, in which she no longer feels beautiful.
    “You girls have really put down a lot of wine,” observes Josiah. The “you girls” is a tease; he knows they both dislike that appellation, but perhaps this afternoon he is also anxious to link them? he wants them to be friends?
    As though at his suggestion, Clover begins to feel the wine, not as an intoxicant but as a weight in her head, a heavy dull ache.
    Collecting possessions, bundling garbage into a bag, seems to take much longer than it should. The sky has gone gray at the edges, the sea is gray and cold and they are all slightly chilled.
    However, finally at home, and lounging in her deepwarm scented bath, Clover still thinks of the day and their picnic as a success. It
was
love that she felt from Hope and Josiah, intensely, from both of them.
    “Clover is promiscuous for precisely the same reason that I am not,” Josiah once remarked to Hope. “Because sex is not important to her.” Cold with terror, Hope sees the truth of this, at least in regard to Josiah. He has attachments to women that are
worse
than sexual, from Hope’s point of view. She has even thought what a relief it would be to have a simple ordinary husband who chased girls into motel rooms, out of her sight. But no: with Josiah there is always another woman, but Hope has to be there too.
    In New York there was Isabel, a lonely cellist, a gaunt dark girl. (They never look like me, Hope has noted; does he secretly hate blondes?) Josiah and Hope were always with Isabel, concerts, plays, the ballet. Hope despairingly thought that Isabel was with them for life; eventually there would be trips to Europe with Isabel, finally hospitals and death with Isabel. She even considered hiring someone to murder Isabel, but she had no idea how you would find such a person. And then she had her inspiration: “Wouldn’t it be funny if Isabel married Walter?” she remarked to Josiah, and Josiah (how gratifying!) fell apart laughing; it was the best idea Hope had ever had. And so, insofar as it is possible, Hope and Josiah arranged that marriage, from introductions to flattering confidences (“Isabel said she thought you were exceptionally
sensitive
, Walter”) to weekends at Hope’s family’s house, in Newport—to the gift of a wedding reception. Tall, talented, formerly lonely Isabel, and Walter, a crippled, mildly alcoholic cornetist, out of work.
Very
funny.
    Maybe Clover could marry someone?
    “Do you think Clover will ever remarry?” Hope asked Josiah.
    “Oh, I doubt it. She’ll more likely kill herself, in a couple of years. That’s what happens when a woman of her sort runs out of affairs.”
    Hope isn’t sure that she can wait for a couple of years.
    Then another inspiration reaches Hope. “I wonder,” she says to Josiah, in a tellingly idle way. “Do you suppose Clover ever runs into several of her lovers at the same party, some of them with their wives?”
    Josiah looks at her for a long moment of speculation, and then he bursts into a laugh of pure delight, which to Hope has the sound of sacred music. “Fantastic,” he says. “My dearest Hope, you are invaluable. I will have to keep you forever.”
    “I think a party sounds terrific,” says Clover to Hope, on the phone. “February is such a depressing month, neither one thing nor the other.”
    “
Really
,” Hope agrees.
    Clover sighs. “I seem to be freshly out of gentlemen