The Collected Stories of Richard Yates Read Online Free Page B

were out of sight. Then he turned and retraced his steps all the way back to school, around through the playground and back to the alley, where the wall was still dark in spots from the circular scrubbing of his wet rag.
    Choosing a dry place, he got out his chalk and began to draw a head with great care, in profile, making the hair long and rich and taking his time over the face, erasing it with moist fingers and reworking it until it was the most beautiful face he had ever drawn: a delicate nose, slightly parted lips, an eye with lashes that curved as gracefully as a bird’s wing. He paused to admire it with a lover’s solemnity; then from the lips he drew a line that connected with a big speech balloon, and in the balloon he wrote, so angrily that the chalk kept breaking in his fingers, every one of the words he had written that noon. Returning to the head, he gave it a slender neck and gently sloping shoulders, and then, with bold strikes, he gave it the body of a naked woman: great breasts with hard little nipples, a trim waist, a dot for a navel, wide hips and thighs that flared around a triangle of fiercely scribbled pubic hair. Beneath the picture he printed its title: “Miss Price.”
    He stood there looking at it for a little while, breathing hard, and then he went home.

The Best of Everything
    NOBODY EXPECTED GRACE to do any work the Friday before her wedding. In fact, nobody would let her, whether she wanted to or not.
    A gardenia corsage lay in a cellophane box beside her typewriter—from Mr. Atwood, her boss—and tucked inside the envelope that came with it was a ten-dollar gift certificate from Bloomingdale’s. Mr. Atwood had treated her with a special courtliness ever since the time she necked with him at the office Christmas party, and now when she went in to thank him he was all hunched over, rattling desk drawers, blushing and barely meeting her eyes.
    â€œAw, now, don’t mention it, Grace,” he said. “Pleasure’s all mine. Here, you need a pin to put that gadget on with?”
    â€œThere’s a pin that came with it,” she said, holding up the corsage. “See? A nice white one.”
    Beaming, he watched her pin the flowers high on the lapel of her suit. Then he cleared his throat importantly and pulled out the writing panel of his desk, ready to give the morning’s dictation. But it turned out there were only two short letters, and it wasn’t until an hour later, when she caught him handing over a pile of Dictaphone cylinders to Central Typing, that she realized he had done her a favor.
    â€œThat’s very sweet of you, Mr. Atwood,” she said, “but I do think you ought to give me all your work today, just like any oth—”
    â€œAw, now, Grace,” he said. “You only get married once.”
    The girls all made a fuss over her too, crowding around her desk and giggling, asking again and again to see Ralph’s photograph (“Oh, he’s cute !”), while the office manager looked on, nervously, reluctant to be a spoilsport but anxious to point out that it was, after all, a working day.
    Then at lunch there was the traditional little party at Schrafft’s—nine women and girls, giddy on their unfamiliar cocktails, letting their chicken a la king grow cold while they pummeled her with old times and good wishes. There were more flowers and another gift—a silver candy dish for which all the girls had whisperingly chipped in.
    Grace said “Thank you” and “I certainly do appreciate it” and “I don’t know what to say” until her head rang with the words and the corners of her mouth ached from smiling, and she thought the afternoon would never end.
    Ralph called up about four o’clock, exuberant. “How ya doin’, honey?” he asked, and before she could answer he said, “Listen. Guess what I got?”
    â€œI don’t know. A present or something?