"Nina Kiriki Hoffman - For Richer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hoffman Nina Kiriki)

"No."

He looked at me with an injured innocent expression I knew well. He washed his
hands in the kitchen sink, then cocked his head at the fish. He frowned and
glanced at me. He dried his hands on the towel threaded through the
refrigerator
handle, then looked at me and smiled. "Maybe next life," he said, and went to
the living room, with me following.

I pointed to the closet. He went and fetched his coat. "It was something about
the coat, wasn't it? What?" He put it on, stared at a red spot on the rug,
then
glanced up at me. "Let's see. I came in," he said, going to the front door and
walking through his own actions. "Came in, took off coat." He draped it across
the chair. "Loosened tie, unbuttoned shirt. I get it. You want me to cook in
my
coat?" He put the coat back on. "Sleeves in the egg batter?"

I felt a smile surface before I could stifle it.

"How am I supposed to know what you want unless you tell me? You want me to
take
these goldfish away? Kill them? Get out of your kitchen? What?"

"Just leave," I said.

"Pix."

I said nothing. He smiled, shrugged, and walked out the door. I ran across the
room and locked the door and chained it. I leaned against the door.

"I love you," he said through the door. "I love you, Penny." Then I heard his
footsteps receding down the hall.

With my back to the door I looked around at the apartment. An awful place. Why
was I defending it? I hated everything about it, though I hated the Marcia
touches more than the Rich touches. We were always too poor to redecorate. I
had
asked him how he could afford this furniture in the first place, and he had
said
lucky stock speculations before he met me, all dried up now.

I turned and unlocked the door. "Rich?" I said.

He was waiting by the elevators, the "down" summons button glowing red. He
turned and looked at me.

"Can we go to a hotel?" I asked.

He smiled.