This beginning is rather conveniently stated, don't you think? The pair of women happen to pause outside Marilyn's door at the appropriate moment when they will be discussing the anticipated marriage proposal. They speak in complete sentences. Marilyn hears them and, through the rather obvious objective correlative of her doodling, we come to understand that marriage is important to her.

I should think it would be more realistic if Marilyn, deep in the process of marking her interlineated comments on the contract at hand, would become aware of the conversation as a fragment. That still does not solve the convenience issue of the marriage discussion. Of course we could go in the opposite direction, start the piece on a note of contention rather than joy:

". . . divorce the bastard," a voice spoke from outside Marilyn's door. Who spoke, how long they had been speaking, she didn't know. She stopped marking her comments on a contract and looked up as if trying to see would help her know.

"You should cut off his thing," said a second.

"I'm working up to it. Too bad someone already did it. It'll hardly be news."

"It'll be news to him."

Rough laughter carried past the door and faded as the pair moved up the corridor. Marilyn stared for a long time. Her right hand doodled on a yellow legal pad. They had no idea of the expense of defending a penis slashing. She had written "marry" a dozen times. She tore off the page and crumpled it into the waste basket.