Blood and Oranges by James Goldsborough (latest books to read txt) 📗

Why shouldn’t Cal know he was in love? He’d think it was a regular affair, though in fact it was the first time Angie had come home with him. He’d been nervous as a debutante about it, and now was calm. Augustine understood that he wasn’t ready. He hadn’t been ready either.

Angie knew it was coming from the first day in the soda shop. Preacher or not, he’d seduced her with his eyes just like the others did. She’d been wary, tested him and he’d made good. What’s more, she’d grown fond of him, even come to like the idea of being seduced by a preacher like her daddy, older even than her daddy, she imagined. The problem was not Willie; it was Gil. He’d disappeared, but she’d have to see him again if only to divorce him. If he found out she was with another man, he would kill her, she had no doubt about that. Kill her and the man, too, if they were together. Maybe she would get lucky and he would fall off a derrick, but she knew he wouldn’t. He could dance up there like a ballerina.

“Where will you go?” asked Willie.

“Bel Air.”

“It’s late.”

“It’s not even eleven.”

♦ ♦ ♦

He did not go to Bel Air. He stopped at the front desk and called Lizzie. Lizzie and Maggie lived together in Westwood, just down from the UCLA campus. Maggie was a fifth-year senior in engineering, and Lizzie a senior majoring in English literature. With Maggie at his place, he could sleep in her room until Harold was gone. Lizzie was up writing when he called, as he knew she would be.

She was not physically fearless like her sister, but she was a talented writer and she was tenacious. By all rights she should have been editor of the Daily Bruin, the student newspaper, except that the boys who voted for editor didn’t think a girl should get the job. She was the only one on the staff who’d published anything outside the Bruin itself—including a piece in the Times on the Ku Klux Klan in Los Angeles. She also had the most story ideas, was the best editor and best rewriter for breaking stories on deadline. But she was a girl. She knew she had no chance but ran anyway to embarrass them, and when they offered to make her number two said no thanks and went back to writing.

She met him at the door of the apartment, upstairs in a long two-story stucco affair on a leafy Westwood street named Tiverton.

“Uncle Willie has a guest? What do you mean a guest? What kind of guest?”

“Don’t ask.”

“But he’s a preacher,” she said. “Aren’t preachers supposed to be better than the rest of us?”

He didn’t answer. “Can I get a beer?”

“Get two—I’m done for the night.”

The sisters were as different as ever but had never been closer. The major change was that Lizzie no longer copied Maggie. If anything, it was the other way around, Maggie coming to appreciate her sister’s composure. Lizzie had decided early on that if she copied Maggie she would die for she lacked her physical skills and fearlessness. She’d never been an equestrian, never climbed an oil derrick or into the cockpit of an airplane. She didn’t drive fast or challenge men to physical contests. She was not as striking as her sister, but she was attractive. She was also talented, focused and gritty. You could not bully Lizzie Mull.

He opened two Eastsides and returned to the living room where she’d moved from desk to couch. She wore shorts and a T-shirt, and her bangs looked more like a boy’s cut than a girl’s.

“Who is she?”

He sighed. He hated gossip. “Sister Angie. Do you know who that is?”

“With that name I suppose some old bag in black high-buttons and chignon singing contralto in Uncle Willie’s choir.”

He laughed. “Not quite. Your age but sexier.”

Her eyes doubled in size. “No! And they are . . ?”

“Reading scripts.”

“At midnight?”

“I suppose they’ve finished reading scripts by now.”

Now she laughed. “I never saw Uncle Willie as the type.”

“What type?”

“As someone who fooled around.”

“You haven’t seen Sister Angie.”

“My goodness. What is that I hear—envy, jealousy, desire?”

“Moving on. So, tell me, are Maggie and Harold finally going to tie the knot?”

“He wants her to go back to Honolulu with him.”

“And?”

“No way she’ll quit school ahead of finals.”

“Tough choice.”

“Not really. Maggie has her priorities—though I know she wants to try marriage someday, try children.”

“Has to try everything, right?”

“If not Harold with someone else.”

“I imagine she can have her pick.”

“And do better than Harold.” She smiled nicely. “So here we are, dear cousin, thrown together once again while everyone else out there is making love. Uh oh.”

They heard the key and saw Maggie at the door.

“Don’t tell me.”

“Cal, you might as well go home.”

“What happened, Mag?” said Lizzie.

“Just who does that guy think he is?”

“You mind if I stay?” said Cal. “I imagine my place is a mess.”

She laughed. “Broken plates everywhere.”

“There’s always the couch,” said Lizzie.

“First I’m going to get one of those,” said Maggie, slipping into the kitchen for a beer. “Why exactly are you here, Cal?” she called out. “I thought you were staying with Uncle Willie.”

“It seems Uncle Willie has a girlfriend,” said Lizzie.

“No!” she cried, coming back.

“I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Who is she?”

“Look, I don’t even know if she is a girlfriend. She works at the temple. They brought scripts home to work on.”

“At eleven at night,” said Lizzie. “Cal wasn’t supposed to be there.”

Maggie sat down next to her sister, Cal in an easy chair. He looked from one to the other. Though they didn’t look alike, a keen eye could pick up similarities—shape of the head, line of the mouth, little mannerisms with the hands. Maggie was taller and more athletic, generally more spectacular. Her hair was darker and her skin more olive—more genes from her father’s side, Nelly liked to say. She turned heads wherever she went. In UCLA’s engineering