Marry Me by John Updike Page A

pleasure, its vengeance, its comprehension, its angelic scorn. ‘Keep cool, men,’ he said. ‘Let the wife get him out of the house.’
    Disproportionate laughter answered this jest. Jerry laughed too, and looked down at Sally warily, and she was disgusted; they were toadying to the Negro with their laughter. That he had noticed them at all gave them hope of passing through the gate. The gate hadbecome something shameful that they must bribe and beg to enter. When the last of the reservations were checked through, there was a consultation at the desk and two numbers were read off, numbers that had no relation to the numbers Jerry and Sally held. Two men, the mysterious elect, in costume and appearance no different from the others, detached themselves from the pack and passed through. The Negro lifted his blue sunglasses and slowly gazed at the remaining faces. His eyes were bloodshot. They rested a moment on Sally, who had risen from sitting. ‘That’s it, friends,’ he said.
    A guttural moan of protest went up. ‘What about a section?’ a man shouted. The Negro didn’t seem to hear. He side-stepped, and the steel door clanged shut behind him. A phalanx of people who had disembarked farther down the corridor marched into them; they were all forced back into the waiting room, which had grown smaller. Sally’s heels ached, her throat felt dry again, and the man beside her appeared painted and strange, both close and far, like, in a school play, another girl playing the part of her husband. His gathering fright, which she could scent, insulted her. She told him, ‘Jerry you’re not seeing the humour of it.’
    He asked, ‘Shall we try American?’
    ‘I don’t have enough money for another ticket.’
    ‘Jesus, neither do I. I’ll have to get ours endorsed.’
    He stood in the bunched, protesting line for fifteen minutes, and, their tickets endorsed, they raced down the long rats’-passage of corridors and stairways that connected the north and main terminals. The American Airlines quarters were on the far side. They were larger and more subtly lit, but the slick surfaces had notrepelled the plague of confusion. Coming away from the ticket desks were several familiar faces, other veterans of the wait. ‘No soap, kids,’ one man called to them cheerfully. So they were known. They must be conspicuous; did they look so illicit? Did they stink so of love?
    The American ticket agent, speaking like a recording, confirmed the bad news; no space north until tomorrow morning. Jerry turned, his mouth puckered distastefully under his peeling nose.
    Sally asked, ‘Can we get our United places back? We still have our passes.’
    ‘I doubt it. Oh, I am incompetent. You better get a pilot for a lover.’
    They raced back, her blistered heels crying out at every step, and Jerry stood in line again, and the girl with the artificially white hair, grimacing, cancelled the endorsements. He returned to Sally and told her, ‘She says there’s no point in trying to board the five-fifteen, but they expect a section to be ready by six. Will Richard be home?’
    ‘I suppose. Jerry, don’t look so wild. It can’t be helped. Let’s just accept these extra hours together.’
    His hands hung exhausted at his sides. He reached for her arm. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’
    They walked past machines vending candy bars and Harold Robbins, and pushed through a besmirched double door into the open air. She took off her shoes and he carried them one in each hand. She took his arm and he shifted a shoe to his coat pocket so one of his hands could hold one of hers. They found a long pavement, down in front of some faceless low brick buildings, where apparently no one ever walked, andwalked a distance down this pavement. The cement was warm to her stockinged feet. Jerry sighed and sat on a cement step between two patches of weary grass that needed mowing. She sat down beside him. They looked across a no man’s land of raw earth where a solitary