Inhale. Hold. Count four.
Exhale. Hold. Count three.
It must be done slowly and with proper care. The counting was of great importance. Four and three make seven. Everything had to make seven.
Inhale. Hold. Count four.
By the time she had finished refueling, she had completely forgotten about lover. The last thing she remembered was Florian Vicente, who had called her wicked names because she had discovered his secret, that he was a pimp for niggers. What a shock it would be to his wife when she found out. But the poor woman must be enlightened, the truth must be told at all costs, the word must be spread.
Shaking her head in sympathy for poor Mrs. Vicente, Evelyn walked on down the alley and into the back door of the hotel bar. She had been here before.
She ordered a martini, which had seven letters.
A young man sitting on the next stool swung round and looked at her. “It’s still raining, eh?”
“Yes,” she said politely. “It doesn’t matter though.”
“It matters to me. I’ve got to...”
“Not to me. I’m waterproof.”
The young man began to laugh. Something about the sound of his laughter and the sight of his very white, undersized teeth reminded her of Douglas.
“I’m not joking,” she said. “I am waterproof.”
“Good for you.” He winked at the bartender. “I wish I was waterproof, then I could get home. Tell us how you did it, lady.”
“You don’t do anything. It happens.”
“Is that a fact.”
“It just happens.”
“Is that a fact.”
He was still laughing. She turned away. She couldn’t be bothered with such an ignorant fool who had teeth like Douglas. If he persisted, of course, if he became really rude like Mr. Vicente, she would have to get his name and teach him a lesson. Meanwhile, there was work to be done.
She paid for the martini, and without even tasting it she approached the phone booth at the rear of the room and opened the folding door.
She didn’t have to look up any numbers. She forgot other things sometimes, she had spells when the city seemed foreign as the moon to her and people she knew were strangers and strangers were lovers, but she always remembered the telephone numbers. They formed the only continuous path through the tormented jungle of her mind.
She began to dial, shaking with excitement like a wild evangelist. The word must be spread. Lessons must be taught. Truth must be told.
“The Monica Hotel.”
“I’d like to speak to Miss Helen Clarvoe, please.”
“I’m sorry. Miss Clarvoe has had a private telephone installed in her suite.”
“Could you tell me the number?”
“The number’s unlisted. I don’t know it myself.”
“You filthy liar,” Evelyn said and hung up. She couldn’t stand liars. They were a bad lot.
She called Bertha Moore, but as soon as Bertha recognized her voice, she slammed down the receiver.
She called Verna Clarvoe again. The line was busy.
She called Jack Terola’s studio, letting the phone ring for a full minute in case he was busy in the back room, but there was no answer.
She called the police and told them a man had been stabbed with scissors in the lobby of the Monica Hotel and was bleeding to death.
It was better than nothing. But it wasn’t good enough. The power and excitement were rotting away inside her like burned flesh, and her mouth was lined with gray fur like the tomcat’s in the alley.
The cat. It was the cat that had ruined everything. It had contaminated her because it saw her refueling. She liked animals and was very kind to them, but she had to pay the cat back and teach it a lesson, not with a phone but with scissors. Like the man in the lobby.
The man was no longer part of her imagination but part of her experience. She saw him clearly, lying in the lobby, white face, red blood. He looked a little like Douglas, a little like Terola. He was Douglas-Terola. He was the symbol of their marriage. He was dead.
She returned to the bar. One of the bartenders and the young man who had laughed at her were talking, their heads close together. When she approached they pulled apart and the bartender walked away to the other end of the bar. The young man gave her a hurried, uneasy glance and then got up, and he, too, walked away towards the back exit.
Everyone was deserting her. People did not answer their phones, people walked away from her. Everyone walked away. She hated them all, but her special hate was reserved for the three Clarvoes and, of the three, Helen in particular. Helen had turned her back on an old friend, she had walked away, first and farthest, and for this she must suffer. She couldn’t hide forever behind an unlisted telephone number. There were other ways and means.
“I’ll get her yet,” Evelyn whispered to the walls. “I’ll get her yet.”
The fur in her mouth grew long and thick with hate.
Chapter 7
Dawn came, a misty, meager lightening of the sky. The storm had intensified during the night. A banshee wind fled screaming up and down the streets, pursued by the rush of rain.
But it was not the wind or the rain that awakened Miss Clarvoe. It was the sudden stab of memory.
“Evie,” she said, the name which had meant nothing to her for a long time was as familiar as her own.
Her heart began to pound and tears welled up in her eyes, not because she remembered the girl again, but because she had ever forgotten. There was no reason to forget, no reason at all. Right from the beginning they had been the closest of friends. They exchanged clothes and secrets and food from home, giggled together after the lights were out, met between classes, invented a language of their own to baffle the interceptors of notes, and shared the same crush on the science master who was married and had four children and large romantic brown eyes. Other crushes, too, they shared, but they were all Evie’s to begin with. Helen just followed along, content to have Evie take the lead and make the decisions.
We were friends, always. Nothing ever happened that I should forget her. There’s no reason, no reason.
They had attended their first dance together one Halloween, dressed alike, at Evie’s suggestion, in gypsy costumes. Evie carried a goldfish bowl as a substitute for a crystal ball.
The dance, to which all the upper school girls had been invited, was held in the gymnasium of a private boys’ school in the valley. Mr. Clarvoe drove Helen and Evelyn to the school and left them at the gym door. They were nervous and excited and full of the wildest hopes and the most abysmal fears.
“I can’t go in, Evie.”
“Don’t be silly. They’re only boys.”
“I’m scared. I want to go home.”
“We can’t walk ten miles dressed like this. Come on in; be a sport.”
“Promise you won’t leave me?”
“I promise.”
“Cross your heart.”
“Listen to the music, Helen. They’ve got a real orchestra!”
They went inside and almost immediately they were separated.
The rest of the evening was a nightmare for Helen. She stood in a corner of the room, rigid, tongue-tied, watching Evie surrounded by boys, laughing, humming snatches of music, floating gracefully from one partner to another. She would have given her soul to be Evie, but no one offered her the chance.
She went into the lavatory and cried, her forehead pressed against the wall.
When the dance was over, her father was waiting in the car outside the gym.
He said, “Where’s Evie?”
“A boy asked to take her home. She’s going with him.”
“She’s altogether too young for that sort of thing. If she were my daughter I wouldn’t allow it.” He pulled away from the curb. “Did you have a good time?”