Free Marry Me by John Updike Page A

man, beat them back to the waiting room.
    Here an instinct of movement seemed to have seized the human tides; almost all the people were movingtowards the boarding gates. Jerry and Sally, alarmed, followed them out of the doors and down the corridor. A crowd had accumulated. A strange chant was going up; it seemed to Sally to be ‘The bridesmaid, the bridesmaid.’ She thought it was another hallucination, but it proved to be exactly what they were shouting. At the centre of the crowd the Negro in blue sunglasses was conferring with a sandy-haired man wearing a company coat and carrying a clipboard. Beside them, a shinily dressed arc of the middle-aged was urging forward, with deep Dixie accents, a girl in a flowered hat and a shimmering dress of yellow silk. Sally understood: she was a bridesmaid, and had to be on the plane or miss a wedding; or had she come from a wedding? The chant deepened. Jerry joined in. ‘The bridesmaid, the bridesmaid!’ Indignation bit into Sally’s stomach, and the press of tears overwhelmed her eyes. What was so unfair, the girl was not even pretty. She had a strawberry birthmark beside her nose and a tense wrinkled simper. The sandy man nodded to the Negro, who flashed his deep ironic smile and took the bridesmaid’s ticket. A cheer went up. The girl passed through the door. The gate clanged shut. The seven-fifteen flight to New York had departed.
    Back in the waiting room, Jerry left Sally and went to look for Mr Cardomon. As she stood alone by the tired blue wall, a tall man came up to her and said gently, ‘Aren’t you Sally Mathias?’
    It was Two Initials Wigglesworth. The two initials abruptly came to her: A.D. He asked, ‘Are you here with Dick?’ He spoke with a velvet smoothness; he was well shaped and very combed, and so wealthy that Richardhad fairly danced the few times he had come to the house.
    ‘No, I’m here by myself,’ she said. ‘I do this every so often. My mother lives in Georgetown. Are you trying to get to New York?’
    ‘No, I’m en route to St Louis. My flight leaves in half an hour. Could I get you a drink?’
    ‘That would be lovely,’ Sally said, ‘but I’m a standby and I think I’d better stay here. We’re waiting for a section.’ She adjusted the pronoun. ‘I’ve been here since three o’clock. It’s a grotesque mess.’
    ‘I do think you could use a drink.’ He smiled like a great brushed cat purring; he was perfectly handsome and perfectly repulsive, and beneath all his grooming he knew it.
    ‘I think I could too,’ she said, glancing around for Jerry. He wasn’t anywhere.
    Wigglesworth interpreted her glancing around as acquiescence, and took her arm. She snapped it away. She hadn’t realized how tense she was. ‘I’m sorry’ she said. ‘I’m honestly on the verge of tears; Richard expected me back by supper.’
    ‘It makes one rather miss the dear old trains, doesn’t it?’ he said soothingly, offended.
    ‘What are you going to do in St Louis?’ she asked. She felt the tight mask of charm fitting across her face; felt herself, unstoppably beginning to flirt.
    ‘Oh, very dreary. Banking business, a rail merger. A desperation move. I loathe the Midwest.’
    ‘Do you?’
    ‘Tell me, how did Dick do with his Canadian oil issue? I was fascinated, but I couldn’t interest Father.’
    ‘I never heard about it. He never tells me anything. How is Bea?’ She had been groping for his wife’s name, remembering only the woman’s waxen ballerina’s face and that her name, too, was some sort of initial.
    ‘Very well. We have two children now.’
    ‘Do you? That’s wonderful. Another girl?’
    ‘Another boy. Are you sure you wouldn’t like that drink?’
    ‘It’s tempting,’ Sally said.
    ‘Have you heard about Jamie Babson? He’s married again – a spectacular Indonesian girl. She does simultaneous translation at the U.N.’
    ‘Yes. He would like that.’
    Wigglesworth laughed; his teeth were immaculate, but small