by John Updike
“Ed! Ed Marston.” Her voice had changed; the suburban little-man throatiness had become warmer, as if she, too, lived in the city now and was learning to deal in its heated, semi-European style. “Come here,” she commanded, seeing his tendency to keep moving through the arch.
He went to her and she lifted herself on tiptoe to kiss him. The chiselled edges of her face had been blurred; her features had undergone that subtle bloating one sees on the faces of addicts, even when cured. Underneath the scarf her hair was the same rich chestnut, no longer a sleek helmet but unbecomingly permed into curliness. He tried to kiss her cheek but she aimed for the center of his mouth; having pressed her lips hard to one corner of his, she hung on, resting her face on his shoulder a long moment. His brain felt numbed. He asked, “How’ve you been?”
“Good.” The word was italicized; it must have been a lie, but it was offered with a fervor that would have made it true. She watched his face, waiting for another question, but since none came, asked him, “And you?”
“Terrible,” he told her, which was also something of a lie. “I’m going right now to see my periodontist—they do these terrible things to your poor gums.” Clowning in his embarrassment, he grimaced so that his gums showed.
Pat’s eyes were solemn, shining. She nodded. Her own gums, of course, would still be perfect. With great relief Ed realized that no accusations or interrogation would be forthcoming; the bubble to that extent was still intact. A bit more small talk, a mock-desperate pointing at his wristwatch, and he had made his grateful escape. He never had had much to say to Pat. A backward glance as he pushed the elevator button showed the red of her uncharacteristic scarf (she had always gone bareheaded, even in the worst of winter, jogging along beside Jason) being sliced and battered on the far side of the revolving door.
Her kiss, so unexpectedly passionate, felt like a visible encumbrance on his mouth. What had it meant? That she had crazily forgotten who he was, and how he had betrayed her? Or that she forgave him? Or that she saw him now as just a piece of the past and had hung on to him a moment as we all wish to hang on to what is gone? Or that—and this fit best, as Ed heard his name called and stood to go in to his punishment—she was in her embrace acknowledging their closeness that night when, in an exultant, trembling moment, he had held her, too, in his hands?
to JOHN, JASON, and TED
trusting and trustworthy
Books by John Updike
POEMS
The Carpentered Hen (1958) • Telephone Poles (1963) • Midpoint (1969) • Tossing and Turning (1977) • Facing Nature (1985) • Collected Poems 1953–1993 (1993) • Americana (2001) • Endpoint (2009)
NOVELS
The Poorhouse Fair (1959) • Rabbit, Run (1960) • The Centaur (1963) • Of the Farm (1965) • Couples (1968) • Rabbit Redux (1971) • A Month of Sundays (1975) • Marry Me (1976) • The Coup (1978) • Rabbit Is Rich (1981) • The Witches of Eastwick (1984) • Roger’s Version (1986) • S. (1988) • Rabbit at Rest (1990) • Memories of the Ford Administration (1992) • Brazil (1994) • In the Beauty of the Lilies (1996) • Toward the End of Time (1997) • Gertrude and Claudius (2000) • Seek My Face (2002) • Villages (2004) • Terrorist (2006) • The Widows of Eastwick (2008)
SHORT STORIES
The Same Door (1959) • Pigeon Feathers (1962) • Olinger Stories (a selection, 1964) • The Music School (1966) • Bech: A Book (1970) • Museums and Women (1972) • Problems (1979) • Too Far to Go (a selection, 1979) • Bech Is Back (1982) • Trust Me (1987) • The Afterlife (1994) • Bech at Bay (1998) • Licks of Love (2000) • The Complete Henry Bech (2001) • The Early Stories: 1953–1975 (2003) • My Father’s Tears (2009) • The Maples Stories (2009)
ESSAYS AND CRITICISM
Assorted Prose (1965) • Picked-Up Pieces (1975) • Hugging the Shore (1983) • Just Looking (1989) • Odd Jobs (1991) • Golf Dreams (1996) • More Matter (1999) • Still Looking (2005) • Due Considerations (2007) • Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu (2010) • Higher Gossip (2011) • Always Looking (2012)
PLAY MEMOIRS
Buchanan Dying (1974) Self-Consciousness (1989)
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
The Magic Flute (1962) • The Ring (1964) • A Child’s Calendar (1965) • Bottom’s Dream (1969) • A Helpful Alphabet of Friendly Objects (1996)
JOHN UPDIKE was born in Shillington, Pennsylvania, in 1932. He graduated from Harvard College in 1954 and spent a year in Oxford, England, at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. From 1955 to 1957 he was a member of the staff of The New Yorker. His novels have won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Rosenthal Foundation Award, and the William Dean Howells Medal. In 2007 he received the Gold Medal for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. John Updike died in January 2009.