Read Online The End of the Book by Porter Shreve - Free Book Online Page A

bouncer and the night-shift chiropodist, the lonely souls he remembered from home: Wing Biddlebaum, who never left his porch but had the most expressive hands; the dissipated Doctor Parcival, who had few patients and once told George that “Everyone in the world is Christ and they are all crucified.” He thought of Helen White, daughter of the richest man in Winesburg, but who never gave him the sense that she dwelled in some Pantheon; the sphere of influence in that town reached no farther than Banker White’s lawn.
    His eyes still closed, George felt a hand take him by the elbow, an arm entwine with his, and he imagined it was Helen, leading him blindly toward some new and astonishing place. The eyes of the elite no longer scrutinized him; he stepped into the darkness, heard footfalls call and respond across the floor, and he believed for the first time something he had always doubted: that his restlessness was curable, and he could achieve the greatest freedom, not alone, but in the company of another soul.
    He stopped when he heard the words, “Now you can open your eyes,” but instead of looking up at the two portraits Margaret had been wanting to show him, he reached into his pocket and brought out the ring. Without a pause or catch in his voice he said, “Will you marry me?”
    â€œGeorge!” she exclaimed, then glanced about, as if to be sure they were alone.
    Her self-consciousness only emboldened him. “Remember what you told me in your parents’ library, how you might be in love with me? Well—” He advanced the ring toward her, and heard himself say, “I have no doubt that I’m in love with you.”
    She looked away, and he followed her eyes to the wall where, presiding over the occasion, in frozen judgment, were the portraits of Alfred Lazar and his wife, Harriet.
    â€œSo that’s what you wanted to show me?” George asked.
    â€œI guess your surprise trumps mine,” she said.
    â€œWell, Margaret? Will you have me?” He knew he couldn’t keep this up much longer, this show of authority and confidence. He remembered how as a boy he used to test his balance by walking on the railroad tracks that ran alongside the New Willard House. This moment gave him the same feeling, as if he might lose his footing, or a train might barrel out of nowhere and lay him flat.
    Margaret fixed her gaze on the portraits of her parents—one blasé, the other imperious. With her gloved hand she brushed curls away from her forehead. “Have you talked to my father about this?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œHave you asked for my hand?”
    â€œWas that the expectation?” George was teetering. He knew little of the social codes of Margaret’s class.
    â€œSo you haven’t made an official request?”
    â€œNo,” he exhaled, figuring all was lost.
    â€œWhy don’t you talk to him now? He’s right here.” She pointed to the portrait. “Go on.”
    And so George did. He asked the oil painting of Alfred J. Lazar for his daughter’s hand in marriage. When he had finished speaking, Margaret said, “There, see, he approves, just as I suspected.” Then she smiled and pulled off her long white gloves. She put out her left hand, and as if by reflex George slipped the diamond ring onto her finger.

5
    Everyone wanted to work for Imego. At the main campus in Silicon Valley, where Dhara and I went on business three times a year, employees had all the perks they could imagine: cafeterias serving gourmet meals; snack rooms stocked with fresh fruit, candy, protein drinks, and cappuccino; gyms; a swimming spa; decompression capsules; on-site masseuses and physicians; day care; language classes; laundry; dry cleaner; a twenty-four-hour concierge. Workers dressed purposefully casual and the techiest engineers got loose in Chuck Taylors and Battlestar Galactica T-shirts, and, though the sun rarely kissed