The Easter Parade by Richard Yates

Author:Richard Yates
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781446433133
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2010-12-14T00:00:00+00:00

How do you do today?

Won’t you be my partner?

I will show you the way.’

‘Know what?’ Jack said, smiling at her from the breakfast table. ‘The way you carry on with that dog, anybody’d say you want a baby.’

She was startled. ‘A baby?’

‘Sure.’ He got up and came to stand beside her, and his fingers began to play with a lock of her hair. ‘Doesn’t every woman want a baby sometime?’

The advantage of being seated, while he stood over her, was that she didn’t have to meet his eyes. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Sure, I guess so; sometime.’

‘It might be pointed out,’ he said, ‘that you’re not getting any younger.’

‘What’s all this about, Jack?’

‘Let Cindy get down. Stand up. Come and give me a hug. Then I’ll tell you.’ He wrapped her close in his arms and she put her head against his chest, so that it still was not required to look at his eyes. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘When I got married I didn’t know what I was doing; did it for all the wrong reasons; and for years now, ever since the divorce, I’ve been saying I’d never do it again. But the point is you’ve changed all that, Emily. Listen. Not now – oh, not now, baby, but soon – as soon as the damn book’s done – do you think you might consider marrying me?’

He took both her hands and held her at arms’ length. His eyes were shining, and his mouth was curling into a shape of shyness and pride like that of a boy who’s just stolen his first kiss. There was a tiny trickle of egg yolk on his chin.

‘Well, I don’t know, Jack,’ she said. ‘It’s a thing I’d have to think about, I guess.’

‘Okay.’ He looked hurt. ‘Okay; I know I’m no prize package.’

‘It isn’t you; it’s me. I just don’t know if I’m ready for—’

‘Okay, I said.’ And after a while he went into the little room and shut the door.

They still took walks nearly every afternoon – the country was rich with autumn foliage – but now it was Emily who tended to walk with her head down, keeping her own counsel, looking at her shoes. Without saying anything about it, they avoided the route that led past the solitary oak tree.

In November she made up her mind to leave him. She would go back to New York but not to Food Field Observer; she would find a better job, and a better apartment too; she would embark on a new and better life, and she would be free.

All that remained was breaking the news. She formed the opening phrases in her mind and rehearsed them several times: ‘Things aren’t right, Jack. I think we both know that. I’ve decided the best thing to do, for both of us, is to…’ And she sat waiting for him outside the closed door of the little room.

When he came out he moved as if he’d been shot in the back.

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