Rabbit, Run by John Updike

looking from the back like father and daughter, past the counter where the waiter whispers with the American girl, and out the glass door, Margaret first. The whole thing seems so settled : like little wooden figures going in and out of a barometer.
    “God, he’s in sad shape.”
    “Who isn’t?” Ruth asks.
    “You don’t seem to be.”
    “I eat, is what you mean.”
    “No, listen, you have some kind of complex about being big. You’re not fat. You’re right in proportion.”
    She laughs, catches herself, looks at him, laughs again and squeezes his arm and says, “Rabbit, you’re a Christian gentleman.” Her using his own name enters his ears with unsettling warmth.
    “What she hit him for?” he asks, giggling in fear that her hands, resting on his forearm, will playfully poke his side. He feels in her grip the tension of this possibility.
    “She likes to hit people. She once hit me.”
    “Yeah, but you probably asked for it.”
    She replaces her hands on the table. “So did he. He likes being hit.”
    He asks, “You know him?”
    “I’ve heard her talk about him.”
    “Well, that’s not knowing him. That girl is dumb.”
    “Isn’t she. She’s dumber than you can know.”
    “Look, I know. I’m married to her twin.”
    “Ohhh. Married.”
    “Hey, what’s this about Ronnie Harrison? Do you know him?”
    “What’s this about you being married?”
    “Well, I was. Still am.” He regrets that they have started talking about it. A big bubble, the enormity of it, crowds his heart. It’s like when he was a kid and suddenly thought, coming back from somewhere at the end of a Saturday afternoon, that this—these trees, this pavement—was life, the real and only thing.
    “Where is she?”
    This makes it worse, picturing Janice, where would she go? “Probably with her parents. I just left her last night.”
    “Oh. Then this is just a holiday. You haven’t left her.”
    “I think I have.”
    The waiter brings them a plate of sesame cakes. Rabbit takes one tentatively, thinking they will be hard, and is delighted to have it become in his mouth mild elastic jelly, through the shell of bland seeds. The waiter asks, “Gone for good, your friends?”
    “It’s O.K., I’ll pay,” Rabbit says.
    The Chinaman nods and retreats.
    “You’re rich?” Ruth asks.
    “No, poor.”
    “Are you really going to a hotel?” They both take several sesame cakes. There are perhaps twenty on the plate.
    “I guess I’ll tell you about Janice. I never thought of leaving her until the minute I did; all of a sudden it seemed obvious. She’s about five-six, sort of dark-complected—”
    “I don’t want to hear about it.” Her voice is positive; her many-colored hair, as she tilts back her head and squints at a ceiling light, settles into one grave shade. The light was more flattering to her hair than it is to her face; on this side of her nose there are some spots in her skin, blemishes that make bumps through her powder.
    “You don’t,” he says. The bubble rolls off his chest. If it doesn’t worry anybody else why should it worry him? “O.K. What shall we talk about? What’s your weight?”
    “One-fifty.”
    “Ruth, you’re tiny. You’re just a welterweight. No kidding. Nobody wants you to be all bones. Every pound you have on is priceless.”
    He’s talking just for happiness, but something he says makes her tense up. “You’re pretty wise, aren’t you?” she asks, tilting her empty glass toward her eyes. The glass is a shallow cup on a short stem, like an ice-cream dish at a fancy birthday party. It sends pale arcs of reflection swimming across her face.
    “You don’t want to talk about your weight, either. Huh.” He pops another sesame cake into his mouth, and waits until the first pang, the first taste of jelly, subsides. “Let’s try this. What you need, Mrs. America, is the MagiPeel Kitchen Peeler. Preserve those vitamins. Shave off fatty excess. A simple adjustment of the plastic turn