Marry Me Read Online Free Page B

choked hurry of dressing and the ominous clogging of the Saab’s starter, urged her down the swerving allées of the Merritt Parkway and the metal-strewn boulevards of Queens, and sustained her nerve during the wait at LaGuardia while United found her a seat on a Washington flight. Then Sally flew; she became a bird, a heroine. She took the sky on her back, levelled out on the cloudless prairie above the clouds – boiling, radiant, motionless – and held her breath for twenty pages of Camus while the air-conditioner nozzle whispered into her hair. The plane canted above a continent of loamy farms where dot-like horses galloped. Acres of pastel houses in curved rows swung into view, and then a city composed of diagonal avenues and miniature monuments. Washington’s shaft was momentarily aligned down a breadth of Mall with the Capitol dome. The plane skimmed water, thumped, reversed itsengines, shuddered, and with a stately swaying waddled to a stop. A departed shower had left the runway damp in patches. The afternoon sun struck from the cement a humid warmth more tropical than the warmth she had left on the beach. It was three o’clock. Within the terminal, people were rapidly threading their way through the interwoven aromas of floor wax and hot dogs. She found the empty phone booth. Her hand fumbled inserting its dime. The quick of her index fingernail hurt as she dialled the necessary numerals.
    Jerry was a designer and animator of television commercials, and the State Department had hired his company to create a series of thirty-second spots plugging freedom in underdeveloped countries, and he was the intermediary for the project. From their first trip Sally remembered the section of the State Department that could find him. ‘He’s not a regular employee,’ she explained. ‘He’s just in town for two days.’
    ‘We’ve found him, Miss. Who shall I say is calling, please?’
    ‘Sally Mathias.’
    ‘Miss Sally Mathias, Mr Conant.’
    Some electric noises shuffled. His voice laughed harshly. ‘Hi there, you crazy Miss Mathias.’
    ‘Am I crazy? I think I am. Sometimes I look at myself and think, very calmly, You nut.’
    ‘Where are you, at home?’
    ‘Sweetie, can’t you tell? I’m here. I’m at the airport.’
    ‘My God, you really did come, didn’t you? This is wild.’
    ‘You’re mad at me.’
    He laughed, postponing reassuring her. And when he spoke, it was all in questions. ‘How can I be mad at you when I love you? What are your plans?’
    ‘Should I have come? I’ll do whatever you want me to. Do you want me to go back?’
    She felt him calculating. She saw a Puerto Rican child Peter’s age standing apparently abandoned on the waxed floor outside the phone booth. The child’s dark eyes rolled, his little pointed chin buckled, he began to cry. ‘Can you kill some time?’ Jerry asked at last. ‘I’ll call the hotel and say my wife has decided to come down with me. Take a taxi in, go to the Smithsonian or something for a couple of hours, and I’ll meet you along Fourteenth Street, at New York Avenue, around five-thirty.’ The door of the booth beside Sally’s opened, and a brown man in a flowered shirt angrily led the child away.
    ‘Suppose we miss each other?’
    ‘Listen. I’d know you in Hell.’ It frightened her that when Jerry said ‘Hell’ he meant a real place. ‘If you feel lost, go into Lafayette Square – you know, the park behind the White House. Stand under the horse’s front hoofs.’
    ‘Hey? Jerry? Don’t hate me.’
    ‘Oh, God. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could? Just tell me what you’re wearing.’
    ‘A black linen suit.’
    ‘The one you wore at the Collinses’ party? Great. There are some terrific old trains on the ground floor. Don’t miss Lindbergh’s plane. See you five-thirtyish.’
    ‘Jerry? I love you.’
    ‘Love you.’
    He thinks it would be nice to hate me, she thought, and went out and caught a taxi. The driver asked her which Smithsonian