Marry Me by John Updike Page B

I felt myself disappear in your eyes. I remembered her.
    When the telephone rang the next morning at ten, Josie blushed angrily and left the kitchen. Sally answered it in her bathing suit; Peter had been waiting to go to thebeach for half an hour. ‘Hi,’ she said. If it were someone else calling, her tone of voice would seem a joke.
    ‘Hi,’ Jerry said. His voice was frightened. ‘What happened?’
    ‘Nothing,’ Sally said. ‘I got home before midnight and he was in bed asleep. This morning, before going off, he asked me how the Fitches were, and I said fine, and that was all we said.’
    ‘You’re kidding. He must know something.’
    ‘I don’t think so, Jerry. I just think we’ve got to such a point he doesn’t really care what I do.’
    ‘No. He cares.’
    ‘How did it go with Ruth?’
    ‘Fine. The plane mix-up gave me something to talk about, leaving you out, of course. I told her about the rent-a-car girls and Fancher and Wigglesworth. It made me sort of sad, how happy she was to see me. She was about to give up hope.’
    Sunlight lay sharply on the salt and pepper shakers on the windowsill. Sally wondered vaguely if the salt would melt. ‘I saw her meet you,’ she said.
    ‘Did you? I wasn’t sure how much you could see.’
    ‘The way you hustled her out of the waiting room, it looked like she was under arrest.’
    He laughed. ‘Yes, she said, “What’s the rush?” She’s actually kind of depressed. Geoffrey broke his collarbone while I was away.’
    ‘My God, Jerry. His collarbone?’
    ‘Apparently it’s not as serious as it sounds. Charlie pushed him down on the grass and he cried all day and held his arm funny, so she took him to the hospital and all they did was wrap an Ace bandage around hisshoulders, to hold it back. Now he walks around like a little old man and he doesn’t want you to touch him.’
    Peter came into the kitchen and began bumping, infuriatingly, against her bare legs. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
    ‘Don’t be. You didn’t do it. Hey?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘You were lovely. Just killingly lovely.’
    ‘So were you. It was even nicer than the first time.’
    ‘I felt rotten about the ordeal in the airport. I’m amazed you survived it.’
    ‘I didn’t mind it, Jerry. It was fun.’
    ‘You’re great. You’re really so great, Sally, I just don’t know what to do with you. You were so beautiful in the plane back, I’m all upset.’
    ‘I felt badly about falling asleep. It’s such a waste of my time with you.’
    ‘No. It’s not a waste. It was right.’
    ‘I was really feeling quite weak. You made me weak, Jerry.’
    ‘Hey Was it really all right? Are you sorry you came?’
    ‘Of course not.’
    ‘It was sort of a sad lunch in the museum, and then the business about the toys was very sad.’
    ‘I’m sorry about that. I wish I were a bigger person. I’m just not big enough to be your cheerful broad.’
    ‘Listen –’
    ‘And you make me feel terribly guilty about Geoffrey’s collarbone.’
    ‘Why? Don’t. It has nothing to do with you.’
    ‘Yes it does. It’s the sort of thing I make happen. I’m bad luck. I’m destroying Richard, and my children, and your children, and Ruth –’ Her eyes smarted and shewondered again if the salt in the sunstruck salt-cellar were melting.
    ‘No, listen. You’re not. It’s me. I’m the man, and you’re the woman, and it’s up to me to control this, and I can’t. You’re good. You must know you’re great; but do you know that you’re good?’
    ‘Sometimes when you tell me I feel it.’
    ‘Good. Right. Do.’
    Peter began plucking at her dangling arm, and his voice began to grind. ‘Go , Mom. Go-o.’ His soft plucking body was jogging in exasperation.
    She told Jerry, ‘Peter’s being horrible and Josie is throwing one of her fits in the living room so I’d better hang up.’
    ‘Sure. In a minute I have to go to tell the big cheese what they told me in Washington about seducing the Third World.