Marjorie Morningstar Read Free

you know that people don’t usually listen
     to other people’s phone conversations?”
    “I’m not people. I’m your mother. You don’t have anything to hide from me, do you?”
    “There’s a thing called privacy, that’s all.”
    “I hope the great love isn’t beginning to cool off.”
    “It certainly is not!”
    “I haven’t seen him in such a long time. Does he still have that red nose?”
    “He does not have a red nose.”
    “Bronx Park East is a long way from Central Park West,” said Mrs. Morgenstern with
     a majestic sigh. Marjorie made for the door. “Listen, Marjorie, don’t be foolish.
     The first time in the park anything can happen. Don’t wear the new outfit.”
    Marjorie’s hand was on the doorknob. “Clothes don’t do anybody any good hanging in
     the closet.” She opened the door. “Goodbye, Mom. I won’t be home for lunch.”
    “Where will you eat?”
    “Tavern on the Green.”
    “Listen,” said Mrs. Morgenstern, “Billy’s friend, this fellow who’s such a good rider,
     will like you just as well in the other outfit.”
    Marjorie’s heart sank. “I can’t imagine what you’re talking about, Mom. Goodbye.”
    Her exit, which she made with a fine airy wave of the hand, was spoiled as soon as
     she closed the door. She had no money. The stable was at Sixty-sixth Street, and she
     was late. She had to go back in and ask her mother for taxi fare. “Well, I’m glad
     I’m still good for something in your life,” said Mrs. Morgenstern, “even if it’s only
     money. What’s happened to your allowance this week?”
    “Mom, you know my allowance only runs from Saturday to Saturday.”
    The mother was fumbling in a large black patent-leather purse. “It’s a good thing
     your father’s business doesn’t run from Saturday to Saturday.”
    “Might as well give me the rest of my allowance, Mom. Then I won’t have to trouble
     you again.”
    “No trouble, I assure you.” Mrs. Morgenstern drew another dollar and a half from the
     purse. She always managed, thought Marjorie, to make the payment of the allowance
     a triumph. Marjorie often felt that she would go hungry and barefoot rather than ask
     for her allowance again. A hundred times she had planned to gain independence by writing
     short stories, or tutoring, or getting a weekend job as a salesgirl. These plans usually
     sprouted just before she had to ask for her allowance, and tended to wither right
     after she got it.
    “Thank you, Mother,” she said, remotely cool and formal as she accepted the money.
    At this moment her father came into the hallway, carrying the Sunday
Times
in a disordered sheaf under his arm. He wore a red silk smoking jacket in which he
     looked uncomfortable. Marjorie kissed him. “Morning, Dad. Sorry I’ve got to run.”
    The father said, “Horseback… Can’t you find something less dangerous than horseback,
     Margie? People get killed riding horseback.”
    “Don’t worry. Marjorie will come back in one piece. ’Bye.”
    Marjorie’s father had come to the United States at the age of fifteen, an orphan,
     a fleck of foam on the great wave of immigration from Eastern Europe. In his first
     bewildered week in a wretched cellar on the lower East Side of New York, he had become
     friendly with a boy who worked for an importer of feathers. He too had gone to work
     sorting and classifying feathers: filthy work that paid two dollars a week. Now, thirty-three
     years later, the importer was dead, the boy who had brought him into the feather business
     was Mr. Morgenstern’s partner, and the Arnold Importing Company was a well-known dealer
     in feathers, straws, and other materials for ladies’ hats, a tributary of New York’s
     millinery trade. From two dollars a week, Marjorie’s father had painfully worked up
     to about fifteen thousand a year. Every year since his marriage he had spent every
     dollar he earned on the comfort of his family and the improvement of their station
     in