"David Gerrold - Love Story in Three Acts" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gerrold David)

allowed our situation to reach the point that you and your wife have, but I can tell you that we have never
regretted it."
"Never…?" asked John.
"Never," said Wolfe, and he smiled proudly.
 Act Three
After the installation men had left, John looked at his wife as if to say, "Now what?"
Marsha avoided his gaze. It was almost as if she were having second thoughts herself. "I'll get dinner,"
she said, and left the room.
Dinner was a silent meal, and they picked at it without relish. John had an irritating feeling of
impatience, yet at the same time he dreaded the moment that was rushing down on both of them. Neither
of them referred to the new machine waiting in the bedroom.
Finally, he pushed his plate away and left the table. He tried to interest himself in the television, but it
was all reruns except for the movie, and he had seen that at the local theater last year—with Marsha, he
remembered abruptly. He switched off the set disgustedly and picked up a magazine instead, but it was
one that he had already read. He would have put it down, but Marsha came into the room, so he feigned
interest in an article he had already been bored with once.
Marsha didn't speak; instead she pulled out her mending and began sewing at a torn sock. From time
to time she gave a little exhalation of breath that was not quite a sigh.
It was his place to say something, John knew, but at the same time he didn't want to—it would be too
much effort. He didn't feel like working at being nice tonight. He could feel the silence lying between them
like a fence—and on either side of it the tethered dogs of their tempers waited for the unwary comment.
John dropped the magazine to the floor and stared at the opposite wall, the blank eye of the TV. He
glanced over at Marsha, saw that she was already looking at him. He glanced away quickly, began
rummaging through the rack for another magazine.
"You know," she said, "pretending that I'm not here won't make me go away. If you don't want to do
it, just say so."
He dropped the magazine he was looking at, hesitated, then continued to rummage. "What's your
hurry?" he said.
"You're just as curious as I am," she answered.
"No, I'm not I really don't think that it's going to make that much difference. I only bought it for your
sake." Then, having sunk his psychic barb, he returned his attention to the magazines.
She bent to her mending again, biting her lips silently, thinking of all the things she wanted to say, but
knew she shouldn't It wouldn't take much to make him storm out of the house and not come back until
after the bars closed.
After a while, she bit off the end of the thread and said,
"There's nothing to be afraid of," and immediately regretted having said it.
But he did not take offense. He just said, "I'm not afraid," and continued paging through an old copy
of Life.
She put her mending down. "Remember when we were first married…? How we used to stall all
evening long—both pretending that that wasn't the only thing on our minds…?"
He grunted. She couldn't tell whether it was a yes-grunt or a no-grunt.
"Don't you feel something like that now…?" she asked. "I mean, doesn't it feel the same to you?"
"No, it doesn't," he said, and there was a hardness in his voice that made her back off.
She sighed and put her mending basket aside. She went into the kitchen and made coffee instead.
Once she started to cry and had to blink back the tears. She thought that John hadn't heard, but suddenly
he was standing at the kitchen door. "Now what's the matter?" he asked tiredly.
"Nothing," she snapped and took the cream out of the refrigerator and put it on the counter. "I burned
myself, making you coffee."
"I don't want any," he said, then as an afterthought, "Thanks."
She put the cream back in the refrigerator and followed him into the living room, "Then what do you