The Midas Plaque
AND SO THEY WERE MARRIED.
The bride and groom made a beautiful couple, she in
her twenty-yard frill of immaculate white, he in his formal
gray ruffled blouse and pleated pantaloons.
It was a small weddingthe best he could afford. For
guests, they had only the immediate family and a few
close friends. And when the minister had performed the
ceremony, Morey Fry kissed his bride and they drove off
to the reception. There were twenty-eight limousines in
all (though it is true that twenty of them contained only
the caterer's robots) and three flower cars.
"Bless you both," said old man Elon sentimentally.
"You've got a fine girl in our Cherry, Morey." He blew
his nose on a ragged square of cambric.
The old folks behaved very well, Morey thought. At
the reception, surrounded by the enormous stacks of
wedding gifts, they drank the champagne and ate a great
many of the tiny, delicious canapes. They listened politely
to the fifteen-piece orchestra, and Cherry's mother even
danced one dance with Morey for sentiment's sake, though
it was clear that dancing was far from the usual pattern
of her life. They tried as hard as they could to blend into
the gathering, but all the same, the two elderly figures
in severely simple and probably rented garments were
dismayingly conspicuous in the quarter-acre of tapestries
and tinkling fountains that was the main ballroom of
Morey's country home.
When it was time for the guests to go home and let
the newlyweds begin their life together Cherry's father
shook Morey by the hand and Cherry's mother kissed him.
But as they drove away in their tiny runabout their faces
were full of foreboding.
It was nothing against Morey as a person, of course.
But poor people should not marry wealth.
Morey and Cherry loved each other, certainly. That
helped. They told each other so, a dozen times an hour,
all of the long hours they were together, for all of the first
months of their marriage. Morey even took time off to go
shopping with his bride, which endeared him to her
enormously. They drove their shopping carts through the
immense vaulted corridors of the supermarket, Morey
checking off the items on the shopping list as Cherry
picked out the goods. It was fun.
For a while.
Their first fight started in the supermarket, between
Breakfast Foods and Floor Furnishings, just where the
new Precious Stones department was being opened.
Morey called off from the list, "Diamond lavaliere, cos-
