The Collected Stories of Richard Yates Read Online Free PDF Page B

Grace? From Atlantic City?”
    â€œSo long, Grace.”
    â€œG’night, Grace, and listen: the best of everything.”
    Finally she was free of them all, out of the elevator, out of the building, hurrying through the crowds to the subway.
    When she got home Martha was standing in the door of the kitchenette, looking very svelte in a crisp new dress.
    â€œHi, Grace. I bet they ate you alive today, didn’t they?”
    â€œOh no,” Grace said. “Everybody was—real nice.” She sat down, exhausted, and dropped the flowers and the wrapped candy dish on a table. Then she noticed that the whole apartment was swept and dusted, and the dinner was cooking in the kitchenette. “Gee, everything looks wonderful,” she said. “What’d you do all this for?”
    â€œOh, well, I got home early anyway,” Martha said. Then she smiled, and it was one of the few times Grace had ever seen her look shy. “I just thought it might be nice to have the place looking decent for a change, when Ralph comes over.”
    â€œWell,” Grace said, “it certainly was nice of you.”
    The way Martha looked now was even more surprising: she looked awkward. She was turning a greasy spatula in her fingers, holding it delicately away from her dress and examining it, as if she had something difficult to say. “Look, Grace,” she began. “You do understand why I can’t come to the wedding, don’t you?”
    â€œOh, sure,” Grace said, although in fact she didn’t, exactly. It was something about having to go up to Harvard to see her brother before he went into the Army, but it had sounded like a lie from the beginning.
    â€œIt’s just that I’d hate you to think I—well, anyway, I’m glad if you do understand. And the other thing I wanted to say is more important.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWell, just that I’m sorry for all the awful things I used to say about Ralph. I never had a right to talk to you that way. He’s a very sweet boy and I—well, I’m sorry, that’s all.”
    It wasn’t easy for Grace to hide a rush of gratitude and relief when she said, “Why, that’s all right, Martha, I—”
    â€œThe chops are on fire!” Martha bolted for the kitchenette. “It’s all right,” she called back. “They’re edible.” And when she came out to serve dinner all her old composure was restored. “I’ll have to eat and run,” she said as they sat down. “My train leaves in forty minutes.”
    â€œI thought it was tomorrow you were going.”
    â€œWell, it was, actually,” Martha said, “but I decided to go tonight. Because you see, Grace, another thing—if you can stand one more apology—another thing I’m sorry for is that I’ve hardly ever given you and Ralph a chance to be alone here. So tonight I’m going to clear out.” She hesitated. “It’ll be a sort of wedding gift from me, okay?” And then she smiled, not shyly this time but in a way that was more in character—the eyes subtly averted after a flicker of special meaning. It was a smile that Grace—through stages of suspicion, bewilderment, awe, and practiced imitation—had long ago come to associate with the word “sophisticated.”
    â€œWell, that’s very sweet of you,” Grace said, but she didn’t really get the point just then. It wasn’t until long after the meal was over and the dishes washed, until Martha had left for her train in a whirl of cosmetics and luggage and quick goodbyes, that she began to understand.
    She took a deep, voluptuous bath and spent a long time drying herself, posing in the mirror, filled with a strange, slow excitement. In her bedroom, from the rustling tissues of an expensive white box, she drew the prizes of her trousseau—a sheer nightgown of white nylon and a matching