Deep Water Patricia Highsmith (elon musk reading list .txt) 📖

       There was a long pause. Horace walked about in the space between two tables, his hands in his jacket pockets, as if he were thoughtfully measuring the floor with his steps. Vic, standing up now, took a deep breath. His belt felt loose, and he tightened it one hole. He had been eating less lately, deliberately, and it had begun to show in his waistline.

       "Well—what do you answer her when she accuses you?" Horace demanded.

       "Nothing!" Vic said. "What can I? What can anybody say?"

       The blank surprise came over Horace's face again. "I could answer quite a lot. I could tell her, if I were you, that I'd put up with all I could stand, for years, and that this goes beyond—beyond putting up with. I can't believe that she means it, Vic," he said earnestly. "If she, did, she wouldn't be living under the same roof with you!"

       She wasn't really, Vic thought. Horace's fervor embarrassed him. "I don't know what to make of it, Horace, I really don't."

       "Has it ever occurred to you that she might really be—a bit off, Vic? I'm no psychiatrist but I've had a chance to watch her over the years. This goes beyond self-indulgence or the fact that she's spoiled!"

       Vic caught the note of hostility in Horace's voice and something rose in him automatically, rose to defend Melinda. It was the first time Horace had expressed his dislike of Melinda. "I don't think it's going to go on, Horace."

       "But this is something that can't be undone later," Horace protested. "Nobody's going to forget this, Vic. And I think the whole town knows by now that she's accusing you. What kind of a woman is she? I don't see why you put up with it!"

       "But I've put up with so much," Vic replied with a sigh. "I suppose it gets to be a habit."

       "A habit to torture yourself?" Horace looked at his friend with a tortured concern.

       "It's not that bad. I can take it, Horace. So don't worry. Please." Vic patted Horace's shoulder.

       Horace let his breath out in a dissatisfied way. "But I do worry."

       Vic smiled a little, went to the back door and locked it. "I'd like to ask you to come to the house for a drink—"

       "Thanks," Horace interrupted in a negative tone.

       "All right," Vic said, smiling, but he again felt the creeping embarrassment, the shame, because Horace had turned against Melinda.

       "Thanks, not now, Vic. Why don't you come over to see us? I know Mary'd like to see you."

       "Not tonight, I think. I'll take a rain check. Be sure to give Mary my regards, though. How's the pear tree looking?" "Oh, better. Much better," Horace said.

       "Good." Vic had given them some of his own fungicide concoction to spray on their pear tree because its leaves had started to develop red-brown spots.

       They strolled out to their cars, talking about the likelihood of rain that evening. There was a hint of autumn in the air.

       "We would like to see you soon, Vic," Horace said before he got into his car.

       "You will," Vic answered, smiling. "My love to Mary!" He waved cheerfully and got into his car.

       Melinda was in the living room when Vic got home, sitting on the sofa with a magazine.

       "Good evening," Vic said, smiling.

       She glanced up at him sullenly.

       "Can I fix you a drink?" he asked.

       "Thanks, I'll do it."

       Vic had washed up and put on a clean shirt in his own room before coming into the house. He sat down in his favorite armchair with the newspaper. It was strange, and rather pleasant, to feel no desire for a drink at seven o'clock. He had not had a drink in three days. It made him feel secure and self-sufficient somehow. He was aware of a placidity that seemed to surround him, to show itself in his facial expression, while within he felt a steely hardness, a not entirely unpleasant tenseness whose components he did not really know. Hatred? Resentment? Fear? Guilt? Or was it simply pride and satisfaction? It was like a core in him. Another question was, had it always been in him or was it something new?

       Melinda came in with her drink "Trixie's bringing home stories now," she announced.

       "Where is Trixie?"

       "She went to a party at the Petersons'. Janey's birthday. She should come home with some fine stories tonight."

       "Am I supposed to go and get her or is Peterson driving her hack?"

       "He said he'd deliver her at about seven-thirty," Melinda replied, collapsing on the sofa so hard that her highball almost spilled.

       Her movement blew a roll of gray dust into view under the sofa. Vic looked at it with amusement.

       "I believe I'll do some vacuuming before dinner," he announced pleasantly.

       Melinda's incongruously brooding, sullen face made him smile all the more. He got the vacuum from the hall closet and plugged it into the wall by the phonograph. He whistled as he worked, enjoying the swift disappearance of the dust rolls under the sofa, of the square of fine dust that he had found when he moved the armchair. He enjoyed, too, the strain of his muscles as lie performed the humble, domestic chore of vacuuming his living room. He drew his stomach in, did deep knee bends to reach tinder the bookcase, stretched up tall to get the top of the curtains with the brush appliance. He liked exercise when he did something useful with it. He'd tackle the windows tomorrow, he thought. They'd needed washing for months. He was still vacuuming when Charles Peterson arrived with Trixie.

       "Hello!" Vic called out to him in the car."Won't you come in for a minute?"

       Peterson looked as if he didn't want to come in. Behind his shy smile, Vic sensed his unease. But he was coming in. "How're you this evening?" he asked as he approached the