At the house, she found Celia asleep on the sofa with her headphones on. The quiet tapping of a typewriter came from beyond the closed door of Helen’s room. Alison stepped to the door and knocked. “Yo,” Helen said.
She opened it. Helen scooted her chair back, turned it around, and looked at Alison from under a transparent green visor.
“Anything exciting happen while I was gone?”
“Just Celia bitching about her aches and pains, though I don’t believe I would call that exciting.”
“Any calls?” she asked. Why do I care? she wondered. I don’t. But she felt a letdown when Helen shook her head.
“Nary a one. Your public must be otherwise occupied.”
“Just as well.”
“I thought you were finished with Evan.”
“I am. I was just curious, that’s all.”
“Celia got a call from Danny Gard, wanted to go out romping with her tonight. You should’ve heard her pissing and moaning.” Helen scrunched her face. “‘No, I can’t. No, I wasn’t just fine last night, I was in aaaagony. Maybe next week. Maybe next month. No, it’s not you, it’s meeee. I’m in pain. I can hardly moooove.’”
“Celia isn’t really going to stay home on a Saturday night,” Alison said.
“Nah. She’s just waiting for a better offer. I guess she didn’t have a great time with him last night.”
“He’s a gross character. Last time I saw him, he was at Wally’s engaged in a belching contest with Lisa Ball.”
“He’s a Sig,” Helen said, as if that explained it.
Alison nodded. “His idea of a high time is lighting farts.”
Grinning, Helen asked, “You know that from personal experience?”
“I’ve heard him pontificate on—” The sudden jangle of the telephone stopped her words. She felt herself go tight. “I’ll get it,” she muttered, and hurried into the living room.
Don’t let it be Evan, she thought.
Her hand trembled as she picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Celia?”
Thank God. “Just a moment, please,” she said. Celia, still on the sofa, had her eyes closed. The music from the headset had probably covered the blare of the ringing phone. Alison wondered if she was asleep.
Helen appeared in the doorway of her room. She raised her bushy eyebrows.
Alison covered the phone’s mouthpiece. “It’s for Celia.”
“A guy?”
“Yeah.”
“Find out who it is.”
“Who may I tell her is calling?” Alison asked.
“This is Jason Banning.”
“Thank you. Just a moment.” She covered the mouthpiece again. “Jason, the actor, that scuzzball’s roommate.”
“The freshman.”
Nodding, Alison set down the phone and hurried to the sofa. She nudged Celia’s shoulder. The girl frowned and mumbled and kept her eyes shut. Alison lifted one of the mufflike speakers off her ear. “Hey, snoozy, you got a wakeup call.”
“Huh?”
“You got an admirer on the phone.”
A single eyelid struggled upward. “Huh? Who is…?”
“Jason.”
She raised her other eyelid. Her gaze slid sideways to Alison. “Jason? Jason Banning?”
“That’s the one.”
“Be damn,” she mumbled.
“Want me to tell him you can’t come to the phone?”
“Eat my shorts.” She pulled the headset off and slowly sat up, groaning. “God, I’m death warmed over.”
Alison brought the phone closer. She placed it on the coffee table and handed the receiver to Celia.
“Hi, Jason,” Celia said. She sounded cheerful and friendly and in tip-top shape.
Alison looked at Helen. Helen shook her head and chuckled.
“Yeah, some bastard ran me off the road…No, not too bad. I’m not too pretty to look at, but…Well, that’s just ’cause you haven’t seen me…Oh? Well, I wouldn’t mind seeing you either…Tonight?…No, I don’t have any plans that I can’t get out of…”
Helen, still shaking her head, swiveled her eyes upward.
“That’d be great. What time?…Okay. Great…Terrific. See you then.” She held out the phone, and Alison hung it up for her.
“Are you sure you’re up to a date?”
“He’s taking me to the Lobster Shanty, I’m up to that.”
“Decent,” Alison said. The Lobster Shanty was the finest restaurant in Clinton.
“That should be a real thrill,” Helen said, “going out with a freshman.”
“A gorgeous freshman,” Celia amended.
“Robbing the cradle.”
“Floss your butt.” She lay down again on the sofa and crossed her ankles. “Besides, he’s twenty-one, same as us.”
“Sure.”
“He is.”
“What’d he do, flunk three times?”
“He worked after high school. Modeled, did commercials, that sort of stuff.”
“What about his girlfriend?” Alison asked. “I thought you said he was going with some gal.”
“Yeah, he was. Guess he saw the error of his ways.”
“Maybe he likes to date cripples,” Helen suggested.
“Wants to use her for a base,” Alison said.
“Wants to slide in,” Helen added.
“You two are a riot.”
“We’re just jealous,” Helen told her. “We just wish we could go to the Lobster Shanty with a freshman.”
“I’ll call him back,” Celia said. “Maybe he can set up one of you guys with Roland.”
“I’m not selfish, Alison can have him.”
Celia turned her head on the cushion and smiled at Alison. “We’ll make it a double date, just like junior high.”
“Pardon me while I heave.”
“I realize Roland probably isn’t as handsome and worldly as Evan, but hey, it’s Saturday night, you don’t want to sit around alone on Saturday night, do you?”
“Besides,” Helen added, “he’s obviously got a good case of the hots for you.”
“A case of the hards,” Celia said.
“Way he was eyeing you yesterday…”
“Stripping you with his eyes…”
The talk made Alison feel squirmy. “I’d really like to double with you, Celia, but I happen to know that Roland has other plans. He’s got this ménage à trois scheduled for tonight.”
Helen snorted.
“Chortle, chortle,” Celia said.
Alison eyed Helen. “She thinks I’m joking. Don’t you find it a trifle peculiar that Jason, who has never before asked Celia out—in spite of her beauty and wit—should invite her to dinner the very day after her chance encounter at the shopping mall with his roommate, Roland?”
Helen stroked her heavy lower lip, and nodded. “’Tis passing strange.”
Celia smirked. “Tell you what, Roland shows up for dinner, I’ll give him my house key and tell him I got two horny roommates just dying for a piece of him.” She winked at Helen. “And I’ll advise him to bring chips.”
“So what do you think?” Celia asked.
Alison, on the recliner, set her yellow highlighting pen into the gutter of the Chaucer text she had been studying for the past two hours, and looked up. “Not bad.”
The bandage was gone from Celia’s brow. Tied around her head was a blue silk scarf that concealed the abrasion. The scarf was knotted over her left ear, and its ends hung almost to her shoulder. She wore big, hoop earrings.
“You look like Long John Silver,” Alison said.
“Cute, huh?”
“Matter of fact, you look great.”
“You’d never know I was damaged goods, would you?”
“Just by your reputation,” Helen said, coming in from the kitchen with a stein of beer and a can of peanuts. She held the can toward Celia.