The Early Stories by John Updike Page A

kind of opportunity were you waiting for?”
    â€œWell, see, that’s it; I didn’t know.” He wished, in a way, she would go out the door. But she had propped herself against the wall and plainly awaited more conversation. “Yuh-you were such a queen and I was such a nothing and I just didn’t really want to presume.” It wasn’t very interesting; it puzzled him that she seemed to be interested. Her face had grown quite stern, her mouth small and thoughtful, and he made a gesture with his hands intended to release her from the bother of thinking about it. After all, it was just a disposition of his heart, nothing permanent or expensive; perhaps it was just his mother’s idea anyway. Half in impatience to close the account, he asked, “Will you marry me?”
    â€œYou don’t want to marry me,” she said. “You’re going to go on and be somebody.”
    He blushed in pleasure; is this how she saw him, is this how they all saw him; as nothing now, but in time somebody? Had his hopes always been obvious? He dissembled, saying, “No, I’m not. But anyway, you’re great now. You’re so pretty, Mary.”
    â€œOh, Billy,” she said, “if you were me for just one day you’d hate it.”
    She said this rather blankly, watching his eyes; he wished her voice had shown more misery. In his world of closed surfaces a panel, carelessly pushed, had opened, and he hung in this openness paralyzed, unable to think what to say. Nothing he could think of quite fit the abruptly immense context. The radiator cleared its throat. Its heat made, in the intimate volume just this side of the doors on whose windows the snow beat limply, a provocative snugness. He supposed he should try to kiss her, and stepped forward, his hands lifting toward her shoulders. Mary sidestepped between him and the radiator and put the scarf back on. She lifted the cloth like a broad plaid halo above her head and then wrapped it around her chin and knotted it so she looked, in her red galoshes and bulky coat, like a peasant woman in a movie about Europe. With her hair swathed, her face seemed pale and chunky, and when she recradled the books in her arms her back bent humbly. “It’s too hot in here,” she said. “I’ve got to wait for somebody.” The disconnectedness of the two statements seemed natural in the fragmented atmosphere his stops and starts had produced. She bucked the brass bar with her shoulder and the door slammed open; he followed her into the weather.
    â€œFor the person who thinks your legs are too skinny?”
    â€œCould be, Mip.” As she looked up at him a snowflake caught on the lashes of one eye. She jerkily rubbed that cheek on the shoulder of her coat and stamped a foot, splashing slush. Cold water gathered on the back of his thin shirt. He put his hands in his pockets and pressed his arms against his sides to keep from shivering.
    â€œThuh-then you wo-won’t marry me?” His instinct told him the only way back was by going forward, ridiculously.
    â€œWe don’t know each other,” she said.
    â€œMy God,” he said. “Why not? I’ve known you since kindergarten.”
    â€œWhat do you know about
me
?”
    This awful seriousness of hers; he must dissolve it. “That you’re not a virgin.” But instead of making her laugh this made her face go dead and turned it away. Like beginning to kiss her, it was a mistake. In part, he felt grateful for his mistakes; they were like loyal friends who are nevertheless embarrassing. “What do you know about me?” he asked, setting himself up for a finishing insult but dreading it. He hated the stiff feel of his smile between his cheeks; he glimpsed, as if the snow were a mirror, how hateful he looked.
    â€œThat you’re basically very nice.”
    Her reply blinded him to his physical discomfort, set him burning with regret.