A Happy Marriage by Rafael Yglesias Read Free Book Online Page A

up the check, which paralyzed Bernard and seemed to astound Margaret.
    As he held the restaurant’s massive double-width wood front door—a remnant of its origin as a carriage house stable—for Bernard and Margaret, he winced at the cold December sunlight. He was warmed, however, by the thought that when they said good-bye he would have his chance to obtain Margaret’s phone number. He didn’t think he would have the nerve to attempt, nor did the ménage-à-annoyance of the evening seem to warrant, a kiss. But the five-minute journey from Eighth and MacDougal to Ninth east of University would give him time to make his intentions clear with a lingering gaze and a sweeter tone than he dared in the Weinstein presence.
    The fatigue of their all-nighter settled into their bones and lulled their walk into silence. The city was rising, although slowly on a Sunday. The streets were empty except for the odd dog walker, a deli owner cutting open bundled sections of the Sunday Times for rapid assembly by his son, and one old man in a black coat on his way to Saint Joseph’s.
    “I should get a Times, ” Bernard said.
    “I get it delivered,” Margaret said, adding, “By Alpert’s,” as if there was something magical about the service’s name. Although Bernard whistled sarcastically, the silent Enrique was genuinely impressed. It delineated for him what until then had been a vague feeling, that there was something solidly bourgeois about this young woman, something grown-up about her underneath the girlishness that scared and excited him.
    He didn’t have long to reflect on her social class. The time to jettison Bernard was finally at hand. Margaret certainly seemed ready to let him go. As they approached the five painted black steps up Bernard’s brownstone apartment, she pursed her lips to kiss him good-bye on the cheek. Enrique was too thrilled by the prospect of having her all to himself to bother to feel jealous when, instead of relishing the warmth of her lips on his frozen cheek, Bernard—that most lethargic of men—volunteered that he wasn’t tired and would walk Margaret home.
    Enrique couldn’t catch himself from blurting out, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll walk her home. I’m going that way.”
    “You’re going ten steps that way,” Bernard said and knocked Enrique as he brushed past. That he made contact at all was unprecedented and irritated Enrique almost to the point of physical violence in response. Margaret let go of a laugh, a burst of amused sound that she released and immediately reeled back in, as if hoping no one had noticed. Her staccato of delighted laughter was truncated, it seemed to Enrique, by a supervisor’s imposition of propriety and reserve, which seemed to contradict her bold stare, tomboyish body language, and teasing manner. It was as if a scolding voice offstage had cautioned her not to be loud and indiscreet. She said, “It’s very sweet but nobody has to walk me home. I’ve been walking home alone since first grade.”
    They both insisted, however. They weren’t concerned abouther safety but whom she was safe with. So this, Enrique’s first attempt to have Margaret to himself, ended in failure. And for his pains he didn’t even receive the cheek kiss Bernard had squandered. When they turned onto Ninth Street, a cold wind struck them. They were more exposed thanks to the unusual postwar apartment complex with a setback deep enough to allow something rarely seen in the city and especially rare in the Village—twenty feet of landscaping. All this elegance, only one block from the tawdry noise and cheap storefronts of Enrique’s Eighth Street, confirmed the impression of comfort and bourgeois ease surrounding a woman who had her Times delivered. In December, however, this elegance increased the wind’s bite. Margaret made a chattering sound and called out to them, “Thanks! Good night, boys. I mean, Good morning,” as she rushed into her building, shouting back,