Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk Page A

and
     blocked their way. “Sorry, restaurant all full.”
    “I have a reservation. Drobes is the name.”
    The man glanced at a scribbled list in his hand. “Sorry, sair. No Traub on the list.”
    “Not Traub. Drobes. This is ridiculous.” George raised his voice. “I made the reservation
     at noon. For six o’clock.”
    The headwaiter took another look at the list. “Mr. Traub, sair,” he said in a tone
     of heartbroken reproach, “it is quarter past seven.”
    “That’s too bad. We got caught in the parkway jam. We’ve been driving two and a half
     hours, and now we’re here and we’re hungry.”
    “You have to wait, Mr. Traub. Maybe long wait.”
    “Okay, we’ll wait. Come on in, Marge.”
    The headwaiter stepped back, shrugging, and showed George and Marjorie through a brightly
     lit dining room full of cheerful chattering diners into a shadowy parlor that served
     as a bar, furnished with dingy brown plush armchairs and sofas. Now that beer and
     wine were legal, restaurants like the Villa Marlene were taking further liberties
     with the expiring law. In one corner at the bar a group of college boys with shaven
     heads were making drunken noises. There were about a dozen other couples in the bar,
     some drinking, some just sitting. They were all very well dressed, and they all had
     in common an expression of suffering hunger. “Let’s have a table as soon as possible,
     we’re famished,” said George.
    “Sunday night bad, Mr. Traub. Do my best, sair,” said the headwaiter, addressing George
     with the back of his head. He bolted away to greet some newcomers at the door, dropping
     two of the menus as though by mistake on the arm of George’s chair.
    After much hand-waving and finger-snapping George caught the attention of a waiter
     in a red mess jacket hovering by the college boys. The waiter came, flourishing his
     pad; stared at Marjorie’s slippered foot, peered down his nose at George, and said,
     “What you want, sair?”
    “One rye and ginger ale and one Coca-Cola.”
    The waiter looked revolted, made a note, and walked back to his post by the college
     boys, where he stood unmoving for perhaps fifteen minutes. George began to fidget.
     Then he began to wave his hands and snap his fingers. The college boys meanwhile were
     boisterously ordering another round of drinks. The waiter bowed, smiled, scribbled,
     and came hurrying past George, who reached out and jabbed him in the side. The waiter
     halted, looking down at George as though he had meowed.
    “How the hell about those drinks?” said George.
    “Coming right up, sair.”
    “Why do we have to wait a quarter of an hour for them?”
    “Sunday night is bad, sair.”
    The frosty Coca-Cola brought little relief to Marjorie’s empty stomach. George sipped
     his drink moodily. The college boys, shepherded by the headwaiter, weaved to a large
     round table in the dining room, shouting jokes. They could not have looked more uniform—all
     stringy, bristle-headed, jaunty, long-jawed, with gold rings and cuff links, very
     white shirts, and baggy brown jackets and gray trousers. Marjorie resented them because
     George looked so unlike them, because only one of them glanced at her, and because
     they were going to eat. Sandy Goldstone, she thought, was handsomer than any of them.
    One by one couples were called in to dinner, and others arrived to sit around looking
     hungry. After a while George noticed that some of the newcomers were getting tables.
     He jumped up and sawed his arms in the air until the headwaiter came. “We were ahead
     of those people!”
    “Sorry, sair, Mr. Taub. They have reservations.”
    “I had a reservation two hours before they did.”
    “Right away, sair. Not long now, Mr. Taub.”
    When the bar was almost empty, and the waiter was yawning and washing the tables,
     the headwaiter came smiling. “This way, sair.” He put them at a flower-decorated table
     on the glassed porch, next to a large party of