Free Away from Home by Rona Jaffe Page A

instant more of an individual than she had ever been in her life.
    For a moment Margie, standing before the mirror, was breathless with the realization of how important she was, and of how unimportant she was. It was as if she could see the whole meaning of life revealed. For that moment the chatter of the bridesmaids seemed as hushed as the whisper of their taffeta skirts. There was no one in the room for her except herself, and her reflected strange self, and those billions of brides with veiled eyes, taking measured steps into the heart of the measureless universe.
    Her father was standing at the doorway of the room looking at her, and there were tears in his eyes. Margie ran to him and put her arms around his neck. “Look out for the veil!” her mother cried, and then it was all over; she was Margie preparing for her wedding and these were her parents and friends, and there were still many little things to be done before the ceremony, like being sure that the right person had the ring, and the plane tickets, and that Great-Aunt Fanny would be given a seat down front because her hearing was not what it used to be.
    They went to the Virgin Islands for their honeymoon, for two weeks in a luxury hotel. It was the beginning of May and the weather in the Caribbean was bright and hot. Margie and Neil lay on the beach under the sun, putting suntan oil on each other, went skin diving with masks around the coral reefs under the transparent sapphire water, and strolled through the narrow old streets of the town, hand in hand. It was on her honeymoon that Margie Davidow fell in love with her husband for the first time. The feeling was so new and so unexpected (because she had thought she loved him all along) that it came to her as a shock. She had never felt this depth of tenderness and admiration for anybody. She had never before been alone with one person for so long a time, and with Neil she was never bored. Being with him all day, every day, gave her a dependence on him she had never known before. She almost could not bear to have him out of her sight, and since they did not know anyone else in St. Thomas he never was out of her sight for more than half an hour. The only thing that was strange, the only moments when she was completely and frighteningly alone, were the nights when they were the most together.
    She had expected the act of love to hurt her at first, and it did, but for longer than had ever been written in her pristine books. It was mainly because she was tense, and the more she tried to hide this from Neil the worse everything became. Many girls Margie’s age come to their marriage technical virgins, but Margie was completely one, body and mind. She was pleased and embarrassed that everyone in the hotel knew they were a honeymoon couple. Her pretty new clothes, her self-concious pretense at casual worldliness, gave her away. The hotel manager even sent them a bottle of champagne the first night. Margie saved the cork, in her suitcase. On picture post cards, which she sent to her friends in New York, she wrote her married name with a flourish, and then looked at it, not quite believing all this was really her.
    It was in St. Thomas that Margie discovered banana daiquiris, that they were sweet and deceptively mild, that they did not taste like liquor (which she detested), and that if she drank three before going upstairs to bed she could feel a pleasant numbness and the stirrings of desire. It was easy to fool Neil about the banana daiquiris because he could not drink more than one, claiming they were too sweet and a girl’s drink. To him they seemed a minor vice, like chocolates. Fortified by the banana daiquiris, Margie lay in her husband’s arms, stroked his face, and thought how wonderful it was to be cherished. She liked to be near him, and at those moments if she had known what reactions to pretend to be having she would have gladly done so. She would have given anything to be able to make him think he was