The Air We Breathe Read Online Free

another country or on a boat: anywhere but this diseased place. Up and down the hills ran the cottages, lumpy with porches, packed with the sick. Some catered to Cubans, some to vaudeville players, some to insurance workers. Their house catered to the rich.
    This afternoon, she was hoping to pry a favor from Miles Fairchild, the wealthiest of her mother’s boarders. Early in his stay he’d taken over their largest room, gaining with it a red armchair, a walnut bed, and paneled bookshelves near the fireplace. His radiators always worked, while his cure chair, as she was reminded when she stepped onto his porch, offered an excellent view. The lake shining at the foot of the hill was green and calm and shaped like a mitten, sprinkled here and there with boats. Nested in soft kapok cushions, Miles might have enjoyed the couples courting in sailboats, children dangling handlines from rowboats, a great blue heron rising from the reeds and flapping slowly, just above the water, to the park at the distant end—but instead, he was reading. The umbrella fixed to the back of his chair he’d angled to shade his pages, shielding his eyes from any brightness.
    She straightened her shoulders and moved toward him with her tray. A red ribbon held her hair in a way she knew made her look her best. Her sleeves were turned back to expose her wrists, her apron was fresh and neatly ironed, and as she set his rice pudding down, she willed him to look at her. He was thirty-seven, nearly twenty years her senior, but not yet dead; during the last month he’d gained weight and grown restless in a way she thought she might turn to her advantage.
    â€œLovely,” he said, glancing first at the dish but then at her, shifting his legs and closing his book as he did. “Thank you.”
    â€œExtra whipped cream,” she announced, stepping back and framing herself against the view. When his eyes followed her figure, she added, “What you said last night…”
    At dinner, as she handed around the roast chicken and parsnips, he’d asked if anyone knew where he might hire a car and driver. He was starting a new project, he’d said, obviously pleased with himself. Something involving the inmates at Tamarack State, where he planned to visit one afternoon each week; he needed a chauffeur. She’d continued walking around the long white table, poking the platter between dark shoulders while her mother managed the gravy boat, nodding silently when a boarder thanked her, still saying nothing as she set the platter down on the sideboard and straightened the vases. Even before she pushed through the swinging door to the kitchen, though, she’d started scheming.
    â€œYes?” Miles said now, his spoon poised over the dish.
    â€œI thought I might drive you to Tamarack State,” she said. “I’m an excellent driver; I already run most of the household errands but I’d like a chance to work on my own. To earn some money.”
    Over the last six months, she explained, as he looked dubiously at her hands, she’d been thoroughly trained to drive by Eudora’s brother, who worked at the Tamarack Garage. She’d also learned a number of basic repairs, including how to change a tire and use the instruments tucked in the toolbox on the running board. “So you won’t need to worry about breaking down,” she concluded. “Also I know every road in the village, and most of what’s between here and Lake Placid. I can bring you wherever you want, at any hour.”
    â€œWednesdays are when I’d need you,” he said. “At least at first. You’re free then?”
    Pushing aside her mother’s endless demands, and also the fact that the Model T in the carriage house wasn’t actually theirs, she said, “I can be.” The car, like all but their most personal belongings, really belonged to Eudora’s aunt, along with four more of Tamarack Lake’s