Marjorie Morningstar Read Online Free Page A

thought you said you could do this, mister.”
    “Got to learn sometime,” panted Billy, brushing manure from his fat face and his jacket.
    “Not on a busy Sunday, mister, please.” Jeff flipped the saddle on to the horse’s
     back, and Billy shambled toward the bench, saying “Hi, Marge,” with a sad grin.
    Marjorie smiled at him, thinking what bad luck it was that Billy, of all the fraternity
     crowd, had attached himself to her. Billy’s one claim to distinction was that his
     father was Supreme Court Justice Ehrmann, whose name seemed to be on most of the letterheads
     of New York charities. Marjorie had been greatly impressed at first to learn who Billy
     was, upon meeting half a dozen of the fraternity boys one evening at Rosalind’s apartment;
     but she had soon found out that he was a good-natured dolt with no trace of his father’s
     merit. Still, he was a Columbia boy. He had taken her to the dance last night. So
     as he walked by, exuding a horse smell which caused her to gasp and fall back a step,
     she smiled.
    Jeff was eying her critically as he saddled Billy’s horse. “I got an idea, miss. Give
     you Prince Charming…. Hey Ernest! Let’s have Prince Charming.”
    Marjorie said, “Gentle?”
    “Gentlest son of a bitch alive.”
    A Negro boy in jeans lounged out of a far stall and into another stall. “Prince Charming
     coming up,” he called. After a moment or two he began to lead out a horse; began,
     that is, because the process took a while to complete. Not that the horse was unwilling.
     It came out readily enough, but it never seemed to stop coming. The Negro appeared
     to be unreeling the beast from a large spool inside the stall. It was by far the longest
     living thing Marjorie had ever seen. At last the rear end came into sight, with a
     limp straggling tail.
    The animal was not only very long, it was a most peculiar mottled red. The Negro boy
     threw a saddle on its back and led it toward Marjorie. Its long head hung down, nodding.
     Its face, like every other horse’s, seemed to Marjorie to express a weak-willed stupid
     animosity.
    “What do you call that color?” she said to the groom.
    “The color don’t make no difference,” said Jeff, spitting tobacco juice. “That horse
     is one goddamn gentle son of a bitch.”
    “I just wondered.”
    “Well, it’s roan.”
    Roan. The word conjured up wide Western plains and thundering hooves.
    “Let’s mount, folks,” shouted the groom. He held the stirrup for Marjorie, and she
     tried to get up on the horse, but couldn’t. The creature was half again as high as
     the old mare she had been riding in the armory. She looked around helplessly with
     one foot in the stirrup, and the seat of her breeches straining. Sandy Goldstone came
     to her grinning, seized her other leg, and threw her on to the saddle. “Thanks,” she
     gasped.
    “Them stirrups the right length?” Jeff said.
    “Oh yes, yes, absolutely perfect.” The groom went and mounted his horse. Marjorie
     realized at once that her stirrups were too long. Her toes barely touched them.
    “Okay folks, single file now going up the street, and no trotting in traffic.”
    They went out of the stable into warm blinding sunshine. Marjorie found it nightmarish
     to be riding along a city street on a horse. The hooves of the seven beasts made a
     terrible clatter on the asphalt. She kept reaching and clutching for the stirrups
     with her toes, thinking that a fall on the pavement would certainly fracture her skull.
     Prince Charming plodded calmly among the honking taxicabs and grinding busses. Every
     little toss of his head scared her. She clung to the saddle, though she knew it was
     bad form, though she could see the Cornell blonde grinning at her with contempt. She
     now cared about nothing except to get through this hour and off this animal undamaged.
    When they came to the soft black dirt of the bridle path in the park the horses began
     to trot. Prince Charming