Английский язык с Крестным Отцом

don't know how. But I wish he'd stay out of the rest of it."

He went back onto the sofa. He felt very tired. Ginny said, "Why don't you sleep in the

guest bedroom tonight instead of going home? You can have breakfast with the kids

and you won't have to drive home so late. I hate to think of you all alone in that house of

yours anyway. Don't you get lonely?"

"I don't stay home much," Johnny said.

She laughed and said, "Then you haven't changed much." She paused and then said,

"Shall I fix up the other bedroom?"

Johnny said, "Why can't I sleep in your bedroom?"

She flushed. "No," she said. She smiled at him and he smiled back. They were still

friends.

When Johnny woke up the next morning it was late, he could tell by the sun coming in

through the drawn blinds. It never came in that way unless it was in the afternoon. He

yelled, "Hey, Ginny, do I still rate (заслуживать, удоставиваться) breakfast?" And far

away he heard her voice call, "Just a second."

And it was just a second. She must have had everything ready, hot in the oven, the tray

waiting to be loaded, because as Johnny lit his first cigarette of the day, the door of the

bedroom opened and his two small daughters came in wheeling the breakfast cart

(тележка, тачка; здесь: поднос на колесиках).

They were so beautiful it broke his heart. Their faces were shining and clear, their

eyes alive with curiosity and the eager desire to run to him. They wore their hair braided

old-fashioned in long pigtails and they wore old-fashioned frocks and white patent-

leather (лакированный) shoes. They stood by the breakfast cart watching him as he

stubbed out his cigarette and waited for him to call and hold his arms wide. Then they

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came running to him. He pressed his face between their two fresh fragrant cheeks and

scraped them with his beard so that they shrieked. Ginny appeared in the bedroom door

and wheeled the breakfast cart the rest of the way so that he could eat in bed. She sat

beside him on the edge of the bed, pouring his coffee, buttering his toast. The two

young daughters sat on the bedroom couch watching him. They were too old now for

pillow fights or to be tossed (to toss – бросать, кидать, подбрасывать) around. They

were already smoothing their mussed (to muss – приводить в беспорядок, путать)

hair. Oh, Christ, he thought, pretty soon they'll be all grown up, Hollywood punks will be

out after them.

He shared his toast and bacon with them as he ate, gave them sips of coffee. It was a

habit left over from when he had been singing with the band and rarely ate with them so

they liked to share his food when he had his odd-hour meals like afternoon breakfasts

or morning suppers. The change-around in food delighted them – to eat steak and

french fries (картофель фри, чипсы) at seven in the morning, bacon and eggs in the

afternoon.

Only Ginny and a few of his close friends knew how much he idolized his daughters.

That had been the worst thing about the divorce and leaving home. The one thing he

had fought about, and for, was his position as a father to them. In a very sly way he had

made Ginny understand he would not be pleased by her remarrying, not because he

was jealous of her, but because he was jealous of his position as a father. He had

arranged the money to be paid to her so it would be enormously to her advantage

financially not to remarry. It was understood that she could have lovers as long as they

were not introduced into her home life. But on this score he had absolute faith in her.

She had always been amazingly shy and old-fashioned in sex. The Hollywood gigolos

had batted zero (выбивали ноль = ничего не могли добиться; bat – бита /в

бейсболе/) when they started swarming around her, sniffing for the financial settlement

and the favors they could get from her famous husband.

He had no fear that she expected a reconciliation because he had wanted to sleep

with her the night before. Neither one of them wanted to renew their old marriage. She

understood his hunger for beauty, his irresistible impulse toward young women far more

beautiful than she. It was known that he always slept with his movie co-stars at least

once. His boyish charm was irresistible to them, as their beauty was to him.

"You'll have to start getting dressed pretty soon," Ginny said. "Tom's plane will be

getting in." She shooed the daughters out of the room.

"Yeah," Johnny said. "By the way, Ginny, you know I'm getting divorced? I'm gonna

be a free man again."

She watched him getting dressed. He always kept fresh clothes at her house ever

since they had come to their new arrangement after the wedding of Don Corleone's

daughter. "Christmas is only two weeks away," she said. "Shall I plan on you being

here?"

It was the first time he had even thought about the holidays. When his voice was in

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shape, holidays were lucrative singing dates but even then Christmas was sacred. If he

missed this one, it would be the second one. Last year he had been courting his second

wife in Spain, trying to get her to marry him.