Yet even Harry, even apple-cheeked, wormy-brained Harry knew where his day had gone. She had lost hers, dropped it somewhere like a handkerchief and picked it up again, soiled, from the dirty floor of a slut.
“Harry.”
“Yes, ma’am.” His tone was still sardonically polite.
“What day is this?”
“Thursday.”
Thursday. Douglas died this morning. Mr. Blackshear came to the hotel to tell me about it. I promised to go home and keep Mother company. Mr. Blackshear offered to drive me, but I refused. I didn’t want him to touch me again. I was afraid. I went and waited in front of the hotel for a cab. People kept passing, strangers, hundreds of strangers. I felt very nervous and upset. The people terrified me and I didn’t want to go home and face Mother and hear her carry on about poor dead Douglas the way she did about Father. I knew what a dreadful show she would put on, she always does, but none of it’s real.
Cabs kept passing, some of them empty, hut I couldn’t force myself to hail one. Then someone spoke my name and I turned and saw Evelyn Merrick. She was standing right beside me, smiling, very sure of herself. The strangers, the traffic, didn’t bother her, she’d always liked crowds and people, the more the merrier. I held my head up high, pretending I was just as poised and confident as she was. But it didn’t work. I could never fool Evelyn. She said, “Scared, aren’t you?” and she took my arm. I didn’t mind. I usually hate people to touch me, but somehow this was different. The contact made me feel more secure. “Come on, let’s have a drink some place,” she said.
Come on, let’s have a drink, let’s lose a day, let’s drop a handkerchief.
“You say something, ma’am?”
“No.”
“Like I told you, if you want to change your mind and go back...”
“Go back where?”
“Back where you came from.”
“I don’t know what you’re insinuating,” she said as calmly as possible. “I am going back where I came from. I live at the Monica Hotel. I have a permanent suite there and have had for almost a year. Is that clear to you?”
“Yes, ma’am.” His tone added: Clear as mud. Harry had been around, he knew a thing or two, sometimes even three, and he was pretty certain that the woman had been playing around with narcotics, probably yellow-jackets. She was obviously a lady and ladies didn’t go in so much for heroin. Nembutal was more genteel both to use and to procure. You didn’t have to hang around a street corner or the back booth of a café waiting for your contact. You could get yellow-jackets just sitting in a nice, upholstered chair in some fancy doctor’s office, telling how you were nervous and worn-out and couldn’t sleep.
Sleep wasn’t always what they got, though. Sometimes the stuff went into reverse, and they did crazy things like taking off all their clothes in the middle of Pershing Park or racing up Sunset Boulevard at eighty miles an hour and fighting with the police when they were arrested. Ladies could sometimes behave worse than women.
He glanced back at Miss Clarvoe. She was crouched in the right-hand corner of the cab, her arms pressed tautly across her chest, her lips moving slightly as if in prayer: She took my arm, I remember that, she took my arm like an old friend and said, “Godiona gavotch.” It was our secret password in school when we were in trouble and needed help. “Godiona gavotch,” I repeated, and suddenly it was as if the years had never passed, and we were friends back in school, giggling after the lights were out and plotting against the French Mistress and sharing the treats from home. “Come and have a drink,” she said. It was always like that — Evelyn was the one who initiated things, who formed the ideas and made the suggestions. I was the one who tagged along. I worshipped her. I wanted to be exactly like her, I would have followed her anywhere, like a sheep, the goat, the victim. I was marked, even then, and the marks have not faded with the years but have grown more distinct. Even Harry knows. He looks at me with contempt and his voice drips with it.
Apple-cheeked Harry, I see your worms.
“You want to go in the front or the back, ma’am?” Harry said.
“I am not in the habit of using a service entrance.”
“I just thought, being you were messed up a little...”
“It doesn’t matter.” It did matter; she wanted nothing more than to go in the back entrance and sneak up to her room unnoticed, but it was impossible. Her keys had been in the purse she’d lost. “About the fare, I’ll send a bellboy down with the money. How much is it?”
“Three dollars even.” He stopped the cab at the marquee of the hotel, but he made no move to get out and open the door for her. He didn’t expect a tip, he didn’t even expect the fare, and for once it didn’t matter much to him. She was a creepy dame; he wanted to see the end of her.
Miss Clarvoe opened the door for herself and stepped out on to the sidewalk and pulled her collar up high to hide the wound under her ear. The torn stockings, the rip in her coat, she couldn’t hide, she could only move as rapidly as possible through the lobby, trying to outrun the stares of the curious.
Mr. Horner, the elderly desk clerk, was busy registering some new guests, but when he saw Miss Clarvoe he dropped everything and came over to her, his eyes bulging and his mouth working with excitement.
“Why, Miss Clarvoe. Why, Miss Clarvoe, for goodness sake...”
“I lost my keys. May I have a duplicate set, please?”
“Everybody’s been looking for you, Miss Clarvoe. Just everybody. Why, they...”
“They need look no further.”
“But what happened to you?”
She answered without hesitation. “It was such a nice day, I decided to take a little trip into the country.” Had it been a nice day? She didn’t know. She couldn’t remember the weather of the day any more than she could its contents. “The country,” she added, “is very beautiful this time of year. The lupine is in bloom, you know. Very lovely.” The lies rolled glibly off her tongue. She couldn’t stop them. Any words were better than none, any memory, however false, was better than a blank. “Unfortunately, I tripped over a boulder and tore my coat and my stockings.” As she talked the scene came into sharper focus. Details appeared, the shape and color of the boulder she’d fallen over, the hills blue with lupine and dotted with the wild orange of poppies, and beyond the hills the gray-green dwarfs of mountains with their parched and stunted trees.
“You should,” Mr. Horner said with reproach, “have let someone know. Everyone’s been in a tizzy. The police were here, with a Mr. Blackshear.”
“Police.”
“I had to let them into your suite. They insisted. There was nothing I could do.” He leaned across the desk and added in a confidential whisper, “They thought you might have been kidnapped by a maniac.”
Color splashed across Miss Clarvoe’s face and disappeared, leaving her skin ashen. Kidnapped by a maniac? No, it wasn’t like that at all. I went with an old friend to have a drink. I was frightened and confused by all the strangers and the traffic, and she rescued me. She put her hand on my arm and I felt secure. By myself I was nothing, but with Evelyn there beside me I could see people looking at us with interest and curiosity, yes even admiration. “Come and have a drink,” she said.
I could have stood there forever, being looked at, being admired — it is a wonderful feeling. But Evelyn likes excitement, she wanted to be on the move. She kept saying, Come on, come on, come on, as if she had some very intriguing plan in mind and wanted me to share it. I said, “I promised to go home and stay with Mother because Douglas is dead.” She called each of them an ugly name, Mother and Douglas, and when I looked shocked she laughed at me for being a prude. I’d never wanted to be a prude, I’ve simply never known how to be anything else. “I’ve got a friend,” Evelyn said. “He’s a lot of fun, a real joker. Let’s go over and have some laughs.”