She took another thread. Damn the coat-linings; even if you worked like the very devil each one must take at least thirty minutes; she wished she had her watch so she could time herself. Or the alarm clock from the flat; that was stupid too, not to have brought anything that had belonged to Steve. Pride, ha! Pride was well above the subsistence level.
But something, Anne’s visit perhaps, or the natural progression of her own intelligence and will, had cleared her head a little. This was not only stupid, it was dangerous. If she didn’t look out, she reflected, she’d be having her baby in a charity ward or on the sidewalk, and she did not propose to do either. To hell with the coat-linings; she wasn’t such a boob, she’d find something. When the boy came at six o’clock she gave him the finished coats and told him not to bring any more.
The next morning, a warm June day, she put on the thin dark grey coat, which didn’t look bad at all with the buttons moved over, and started out. The man at the drugstore liked her, he might have something — what about making pills for instance, somebody had to make them. No, he was sorry, nothing. Mr. Pitkin, at the office where she had worked the summer before, was genial but had no suggestions to offer; he cracked a joke or two and tendered a ten-dollar bill which she took calmly with a smile of thanks. By noon she had about exhausted her list of possibilities, and she was dead tired; she had been unable to keep her breakfast. She stumbled into a bookshop and sank into a chair, but after a few minutes saw that that wouldn’t do; obviously she wasn’t welcome, and anyway she couldn’t hold her head up. So she got back to her room, somehow climbed the stairs, and tumbled onto the bed without taking off her coat. She was furious; I’m nothing but a damn weakling, she thought, it makes me sick, some girls work hard right up to the very day. That gave her a start — could she have counted wrong? She lay on her back with her eyes closed, touching her fingers one by one, naming the months aloud. No, she was right, it wouldn’t be for five weeks yet, maybe more.
It was the woman at the tea-room who told her the next day about Palichak. She had been told by Joe Curtis, who of course would know. It appeared a remote chance to Lora, but by that time she was desperate, so she trudged down to Macdougal Alley and rang the bell at Number Seven. Palichak himself, short and dark and massive, let her in; inside were a couple of girls drinking cocktails and a man with a beard at the piano.
“I came to see you because I’m pregnant,” said Lora. “Mrs. Crosby at the tea-room said you wanted a model.”
“I beg your pardon,” he said, his thick accent almost unintelligible.
“Enceinte, mon vieux,” called the man with the beard. “Beremenna.”
Palichak took her in with a swift inclusive glance. “Of course, how very nice,” he bowed. “You would like to work?”
“I don’t know,” Lora hesitated. “I came to see, I don’t know anything about this.”
“Ah. If you would be so kind — par ici — you take your clothes off—” He led her to the rear of the room, where an enormous metal screen enclosed a corner.
Behind it Lora removed her coat and hat and placed them on a chair. Then her dress, and her shoes and stockings. Then she stopped. What did he mean anyway? She called out:
“All my clothes?”
“Of course, Madame.”
A minute later she called:
“All right, I’m ready.”
He appeared at the edge of the screen, turning it back a little. “Good. Come where I can see you.”
She didn’t mind the men, but she wished the girls weren’t there. Oh, well, to the devil with them. She stepped out, away from the screen, into the window’s direct light. She looked boldly at the girls and saw only mild curiosity, then admiration in their eyes; the man with the beard had turned on the stool, with his elbow on the keyboard and his chin in his hand, his other hand dancing on the treble, his eyes carefully appraising her; Palichak stood away, gazing at her with a frown. Suddenly his teeth gleamed in a smile and he clapped his hands.
“Hair!” he exclaimed. “Hair too! What do you think, yes?”
“She’s perfect,” said one of the girls.
“Wonderful, marvelous,” said the other.
“Laissez tomber les cheveux,” demanded Palichak.
“Let your hair down,” the man with the beard translated.
She pulled out the pins and shook her head, and the red-brown curtain fell below her waist, covering her shoulders and back; a strand hung sinuous through the valley between her breasts. She stood natural and straight, creamy-white curves and columns glowing with life even in the shadows, unmindful of them, entirely at ease to their businesslike appraisal.
“She will do, eh?” Palichak beamed.
The man with the beard left the piano and strolled towards her.
“You know what this is,” he said. “Pally is doing some murals for the Institute Building at Detroit, and he wants a model for Fertility. He wouldn’t explain, he can’t talk you know. Thought you might fear it was for a barroom idyll.”
She returned to the screen and dressed herself, overhearing meanwhile their unanimous agreement on her perfections. When she came out again Palichak hurried over.
“You can begin tomorrow?”
“How much do I get?” she demanded.
“Three dollars is usual.”
“Three dollars a day!”
The man with the beard spoke up. “Three dollars an hour. Some days one hour, some two, some three if you can stand it. You may rest of course.”
Lora hesitated, looking from one to the other.
“I’ll have to have five,” she said.
Palichak glared at her, and let out a flood of Russian. The man with the beard shook his head at him and grinned.
“It’s extortion,” he said, “but of course you’ll get it.”
“I can’t help it, I need the money,” said Lora.
That evening she ate at Mrs. Crosby’s tea-room, a dollar and a quarter. I can’t do this every day, she thought, but I can afford to celebrate.
It was upstairs at Number Seven that Palichak worked. Lora stood on a velvet mat on a little wooden platform, her right arm upraised with the hand back of her head, her hair flowing loosely over her left shoulder, and a filmy strip of silk gauze draped from her right shoulder to her left thigh and thence to the platform. Behind her, from ceiling to floor, were the rich folds of a purple curtain. Palichak never talked. He frowned sometimes and swore often, always in Russian, and did not address her except to announce a rest period. He was considerate about resting, except occasionally he would forget, and then when Lora could stand it no longer she would drop her arm, he would frown and then grin at her, and she would step down. They were nearly always alone, but now and then someone would drop in for a moment. The most frequent visitor was the man with the beard, who would enter without knocking, look critically at the picture, glance at Lora with a nod, settle himself in the big leather chair near the window, and remain there an hour or more without speaking.