Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk

Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk

Author:Herman Wouk [Wouk, Herman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Coming of Age, Fiction / Jewish, Jewish, Fiction / Coming Of Age, Fiction, Literary, Classics, Fiction / Classics, Fiction / Literary
ISBN: 0316955132
Google: JMzKPtgCsm0C
Amazon: B009NL76FE
Publisher: Hachette Digital, Inc.
Published: 2013-01-15T07:00:00+00:00


Chapter 26. SAM ROTHMORE

The telephone woke her. She blinked at her clock; it was half-past nine. “Hello?” she said hoarsely.

“Are you dressed? We’re going for an airplane ride.”

“What, are you crazy, Noel? I’m fast asleep. What are you doing up so early? Airplane? I’ve never been in an airplane—”

“Well, you’re going in one. I have to run an errand for Sam up to Albany, and I’m going in a taxi plane. You too. We leave at eleven, so get ready.”

“Eleven? Noel, I can’t possibly make it. Aren’t you exhausted? I am—”

“Haven’t been to sleep. Wrote a song after you left. Best yet. Wait till you hear it. I feel absolutely marvelous.”

She dressed in a rush, and left without telling her mother where she was going. There was no time to argue, and she would have overridden her mother’s protests anyway. The gay timbre of his voice had set her tingling despite the weariness weighing down her limbs. She met him at the Paramount Building and they rode out to the airport in Sam Rothmore’s Cadillac. Noel wore a new loose gray tweed topcoat with the collar turned up, and carried a thick sealed brown envelope. “What’s it all about, Noel?”

“Oh, high intrigue. An assemblyman’s making a speech today about the movie admissions tax situation. Needs these papers by one o’clock. Sam gave me no details, just asked me if I was afraid to fly, and then handed me the envelope. Can’t use a regular messenger, it’s all hush-hush, for some reason. I feel like the Scarlet Pimpernel.” It was incredible, Marjorie was thinking, how this man changed with the days and the hours. Today he was the gaunt blond god of South Wind again, full of force and dash, his eyes sparkling. “I haven’t slept a wink, do you know? Wait till you hear Old Moon Face. It’s a real crack-through. I feel it in my bones. We’ll be rich. Came to me walking around in the rain last night after you left—”

“I’m dying to hear it.”

When the airplane soared up, narrowly clearing the telephone wires, she thought she would faint from choking joyous alarm. It was a four-seater, single-motor plane, piloted by a morose man in a worn leather windbreaker. The windows rattled and whistled, the wings flapped, and the sides and the seat shook as in a very old Ford. But she didn’t care. She was terribly afraid, but even more exhilarated, and it seemed like a good way to die if her time were at hand (which she didn’t believe). The plane thrashed its way up the Hudson River valley, and Marjorie and Noel held hands and looked down through empty space at towns, fields, hills, and the river, a brilliant storybook picture in glaring sunlight. A car was waiting at the Albany airport, with an emissary from the assemblyman. Ten minutes after they landed they were in the air again, flying south, straight into the white blaze of the sun. Marjorie was drunk with the speed, the scare, the sunlight, the unexpected giddy novelty of the trip.



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