Read Online The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: John Updike
Tags: Fiction, Literary, Fiction - General, Fantasy, Fantasy - Contemporary, Contemporary, Witches, Large Type Books, Science Fiction And Fantasy, Women, Devil, Rhode Island, Women - Rhode Island
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knew; she had a lot still to learn about overcoming accul-turated female recessiveness.
"The interface between solar energy and electrical energy," Van Home told Sukie. "There has to be one, and once we find the combination you can run every appliance in your house right off the roof and have enough left over to recharge your electric car in the night. Clean, abundant, and free. It's coming, honey-bunch, it's coming!"
"Those panels look so ugly," Sukie said. "There's a hippie in town who's done over an old garage so he can heat his water, 1 have no idea why, he never takes a bath."
"I'm not talking about collectors," Van Home said. "Thai's Model T stuff." He looked about him; his head turned like a barrel being rolled on its edge. "I'm talking about a paint."
"A paint?" Alexandra said, feeling she should make a contribution. At least this man was giving her something new to think about, beyond tomato sauce.
"A paint," he solemnly assured her. "A simple paint you brush on with a brush and that turns the entire epidermis of your lovely home into an enormous low-voltaic cell."
"There's only one word for that," Sukie said.
"Yeah, what's that?"
"Electrifying."
Van Home aped being offended. "Shit, if I'd known that's the kind of flirtatious featherheaded thing you like to say I wouldn't have wasted my time spilling my guts. You play tennis?"
Sukie stood up a little taller. Alexandra experienced a wish to stroke that long flat stretch from the other woman's breasts to below her waist, the way one longs to dart out a hand and stroke the belly a cat on its back elongates in stretching, the toes of its hind paws a-tremble in this moment of muscular ecstasy. Sukie was just so nicely made. "A bit," she said, her tongue peeking through her smile and adhering for a moment to her upper lip.
"You gotta come over in a couple weeks or so, I'm having a court put in."
Alexandra interrupted. "You can't fill wetlands," she said.
This big stranger wiped his lips and repulsively eyed her. "Once they're filled," he said in his imperfectly synchronized, slightly slurring voice, "they're not wet."
"The snowy egrets like to nest there, in the dead elms out back."
"T, O, U, G , F," Van Home said. "Tough."
From the sudden stariness of his eyes she wondered if he was wearing contact lenses. His conversation did seem distracted by a constant slipshod effort to keep himself together. "Oh," she said, and what Alexandra noticed now gave her, already slightly dizzy, the sensation of looking down a deep hole. His aura was gone. He had absolutely none, like a dead man or a wooden idol, above his head of greasy hair.
Sukie laughed, pealingly; her dainty round belly pumped under the waistband of her suede skirt in sympathy with her diaphragm. "I love that. May I quote you, Mr. Van Home? Filled Wetlands No Longer Wet, Declares Intriguing New Citizen."
Disgusted by this mating dance, Alexandra turned away. The auras of all the others at the party were blinding now, like the peripheral lights along a highway as raindrops collect on the windshield. And very stupidly she felt within herself the obscuring moisture of an unwanted infatuation condensing. The big man was a bundle of needs; he was a chasm that sucked her heart out of her chest.
Old Mrs. Lovecraft, her aura the tawdry magenta of those who are well pleased with their lives and fully expect to go to Heaven, came up to Alexandra bleating, "Sandy dear, we miss you at the Garden Club. You mustn't keep so to yourself."
"Do I keep to myself? I feel busy. I've been putting up tomatoes, it's just incredible the way they kept coming this fall."
"I know you've been gardening; Horace and I admire your house every time we drive down Orchard Road: that cunning little bed you have by your doorway, chock-a-block full of button mums. I've several times said to him, 'Let's do drop in,' but then I think, No, she might be making her litde things, and we don't want to disrurfc her inspiration."
Making her
"The interface between solar energy and electrical energy," Van Home told Sukie. "There has to be one, and once we find the combination you can run every appliance in your house right off the roof and have enough left over to recharge your electric car in the night. Clean, abundant, and free. It's coming, honey-bunch, it's coming!"
"Those panels look so ugly," Sukie said. "There's a hippie in town who's done over an old garage so he can heat his water, 1 have no idea why, he never takes a bath."
"I'm not talking about collectors," Van Home said. "Thai's Model T stuff." He looked about him; his head turned like a barrel being rolled on its edge. "I'm talking about a paint."
"A paint?" Alexandra said, feeling she should make a contribution. At least this man was giving her something new to think about, beyond tomato sauce.
"A paint," he solemnly assured her. "A simple paint you brush on with a brush and that turns the entire epidermis of your lovely home into an enormous low-voltaic cell."
"There's only one word for that," Sukie said.
"Yeah, what's that?"
"Electrifying."
Van Home aped being offended. "Shit, if I'd known that's the kind of flirtatious featherheaded thing you like to say I wouldn't have wasted my time spilling my guts. You play tennis?"
Sukie stood up a little taller. Alexandra experienced a wish to stroke that long flat stretch from the other woman's breasts to below her waist, the way one longs to dart out a hand and stroke the belly a cat on its back elongates in stretching, the toes of its hind paws a-tremble in this moment of muscular ecstasy. Sukie was just so nicely made. "A bit," she said, her tongue peeking through her smile and adhering for a moment to her upper lip.
"You gotta come over in a couple weeks or so, I'm having a court put in."
Alexandra interrupted. "You can't fill wetlands," she said.
This big stranger wiped his lips and repulsively eyed her. "Once they're filled," he said in his imperfectly synchronized, slightly slurring voice, "they're not wet."
"The snowy egrets like to nest there, in the dead elms out back."
"T, O, U, G , F," Van Home said. "Tough."
From the sudden stariness of his eyes she wondered if he was wearing contact lenses. His conversation did seem distracted by a constant slipshod effort to keep himself together. "Oh," she said, and what Alexandra noticed now gave her, already slightly dizzy, the sensation of looking down a deep hole. His aura was gone. He had absolutely none, like a dead man or a wooden idol, above his head of greasy hair.
Sukie laughed, pealingly; her dainty round belly pumped under the waistband of her suede skirt in sympathy with her diaphragm. "I love that. May I quote you, Mr. Van Home? Filled Wetlands No Longer Wet, Declares Intriguing New Citizen."
Disgusted by this mating dance, Alexandra turned away. The auras of all the others at the party were blinding now, like the peripheral lights along a highway as raindrops collect on the windshield. And very stupidly she felt within herself the obscuring moisture of an unwanted infatuation condensing. The big man was a bundle of needs; he was a chasm that sucked her heart out of her chest.
Old Mrs. Lovecraft, her aura the tawdry magenta of those who are well pleased with their lives and fully expect to go to Heaven, came up to Alexandra bleating, "Sandy dear, we miss you at the Garden Club. You mustn't keep so to yourself."
"Do I keep to myself? I feel busy. I've been putting up tomatoes, it's just incredible the way they kept coming this fall."
"I know you've been gardening; Horace and I admire your house every time we drive down Orchard Road: that cunning little bed you have by your doorway, chock-a-block full of button mums. I've several times said to him, 'Let's do drop in,' but then I think, No, she might be making her litde things, and we don't want to disrurfc her inspiration."
Making her
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