“Uh-huh.”
“You’re going to be okay, Linda.”
“I am?” She looked at him thoughtfully. “You’re right,” she said. “I was wondering about that before you came up. If I was going to be all right. And I think I am.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to stay here in New Hope.” She tilted her head back and gazed up at the ceiling. “Do you know, I didn’t know that until just this minute. I thought about going home or going back to New York, and I hardly considered staying here, but I’m going to. I came here last fall because Marc wanted to come here, but from the first day I liked it more than he did. Just because he’s left is no reason I should leave, is it?”
“No. I think you’re right to stay.”
“I think this is an easier place to be alone in.”
“Well, New York is supposed to be impossible.”
“Oh, it is. And I’ve had practice being alone here. The past few months.”
“I didn’t know it was bad.”
“Nobody ever knows. When I was married. Well, forget that.”
“Sure.”
“Why read something that’s gonna depress you?”
“Huh?”
“Nothing. Something someone said to me this afternoon, and she was absolutely right. I’m sorry, Peter, I’m talking to myself.”
“Say, I don’t suppose—no, of course not.”
“Now you’re talking to yourself.”
“No, the reason I was looking for Marc. He was going to sell me some dope, but he must have taken it with him.”
“He took his clothes. And all the records and the player. He’d leave those before he’d abandon the grass.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“Let me look, though.” She went into the bathroom. “It must be still here. He kept it in the towel bar and he wouldn’t have taken the trouble to put the bar back afterward. He would have left it on the floor. There’s a screwdriver in that drawer on the left. Thanks.”
She removed the bracket and took out the hollow chrome towel bar, tilted it and shook out a plastic vial three-fourths full. “Here,” she said.
“Oh, this is all cleaned. This must be the equivalent of an ounce and a half, maybe two ounces.”
“Take it.”
“I just wanted enough for a couple of jays. In fact, I was going to smoke now, but I don’t want to be behind grass when I’m lighting the show. Later on when I’m used to it I could dig it, but not when I’m under pressure like tonight. I could take a pinch of it now to save for later.”
“No, take the whole thing.”
“You don’t want it?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t been smoking much. Sometimes I would keep Marc company if he insisted. But I haven’t enjoyed it lately. My head keeps going to places I’d rather stay away from.”
“Well, if you’re sure. This is, I don’t know. Say thirty dollars? It’s probably worth a little more than that, but does thirty seem all right.”
“Oh, just take it, Peter.”
“No, I can’t do that.”
“I mean I’m not in the business.”
“No, but it’s the same as money. If you’re giving it to me you’re giving me thirty dollars. I’ll pay you later. Or you can hold it until I bring the money.”
“No, take it with you. I don’t really want it around, as a matter of fact. You know, I think I will take the money, come to think of it. There’s no rush, but whenever you get the chance. I’m not rich enough to be that charitable.”
“Is thirty all right? Because there might be fifty dollars’ worth here.”
“No, thirty is fine. Thirty is a week’s wages. I like the idea of thirty dollars.”
“Well, fine, then. I’ll have it for you later tonight, or tomorrow at the latest.”
“There’s no rush.”
“If you say so. Well, I’d better get over there. Time for the goofy little kid to play games with the lights.”
“You’re not goofy. You’re not even a little kid, are you? I am going to be all right, Peter.”
“I know you are.”
“And thanks for telling me. I didn’t realize it until you said so, and it’s a good thing to know.”
“Thanks for the coffee.”
“Sure.”
“And for this.”
“Sure.”
After he left she went into the bathroom and reassembled the towel bar.
She was going to be all right, and she had not quite known that before. She was going to stay in New Hope, too, and that was another thing she had not previously known. She liked it here, liked it here better now, with Marc gone, than she had with him present.
She would have to make certain changes, of course. She would need a job that paid more money and an apartment that cost less. But it was not urgent that she find either of these things immediately. It was more important that she make no sudden moves, that she permit things to proceed at their own pace.
She straightened the apartment. It was always easier for her to keep a place neat when she lived alone in it. Clutter tended to irritate her when she was living alone. Then she undressed and stood under the shower. She washed her hair, and a melody ran through her mind, just the tune at first, and it took her a few moments to fit words to it. “I’m gonna wash that man right out of my hair… .” Funny how tunes did that, popping up involuntarily at the proper time.
She soaped and rinsed, soaped and rinsed, letting the stream of warm water play over her breasts and loins. She felt a quiver of erotic response and smiled. Ah, good, she thought. The machinery still worked. It was nice know that the machinery still worked.
She dried off, turned the sofa into a bed. The sheets held his smell. She noted this but found it neither pleasing nor disturbing.
She lay on her back in the darkness. With one hand she held a pillow against her breasts, hugging it close, and with the other hand she stroked herself. You’re regressing, she thought, but she had actually never done this in adolescence, had not known that it was possible for a girl to excite herself. It was not until she was halfway through her marriage to Alan that she discovered masturbation.
Now she played with herself very slowly and lazily. Her mind was virtually blank. There was no fantasy, no memory, only the pure tactile pleasure of her fingers upon her loins. At one point she heard Peter’s voice telling her that she was going to be all right.
After half an hour or so she got out of bed, made toast, fried a couple eggs. She had not reached orgasm. It would have been easy for her to do so, it always was, but she did not want to.
TWO
Peter walked easily down the stairs, then felt his shoulders sag as he reached the door to his own apartment. For a moment he was tempted to go straight to the theater. It was safe enough to walk around New Hope with drugs on one’s person; if they busted everyone in town who was holding at any given moment they would cut the local population in half. Besides, he was known, he was local. The mobs of itinerant freaks who massed around the base of the cannon were subject to periodic frisks, but New Hope residents could do everything short of shooting up in public without drawing official attention.
So it would be safe enough to go directly to the theater, and thus avoid Gretchen—
But he couldn’t do it. First there was his rule: He did not carry anything illegal if there was any way to avoid it. He had several rules, all of them painfully evolved over the past few years, and he felt it necessary to stay within them insofar as possible. It was a part of staying together, and Peter was very much aware how easy it was to cease to be together, and thus to fall apart.
Gretchen was in the process of falling apart. This was a reason why he increasingly wanted to avoid seeing her, and it was also a reason why he had to see her.
Because of the kid.
Robin hopped off the couch as he opened the door, toddled across the room to him. The child’s face glowed with total joy, and Peter had
never failed to respond to such radiance. “Peter, Peter, Peter,” she chirped.
He bent over, gripped her by her hips, hoisted her high into the air. “How is Robin Redbreast?” he singsonged. “How is Peter’s baby bird?”
She squealed with delight. “Oh, I can almost touch the ceiling!”
“See how big you’re getting?”
“Hold me higher, Peter, I can almost touch the ceiling.”
He boosted her a few inches higher and the little fingers brushed a piece of loose paint. “I did it,” she said.
The chip of paint fell. “Oh, my goodness,” he said, “Here comes the ceiling.”
“Is it falling, Peter?”
“Oh, Chicken-Licken, the sky is falling. The sky is falling, Robin-Lobin.”
“The sky is falling, Peter-Leter.”
He swung her to and fro, then set her on her feet. “Where’s Mommy?”
“Mommy-Lommy,” Robin said.
“Catch on fast, don’t you?”
“Gretchen-Letchen’s in the bathroom, Peter-Leter.”
He smiled. Gretchen-Letchen indeed. Mouth of babes, he thought. And was Gretchen lechin’ after all? One never quite knew.
“In the bathroom,” Robin said again. “She’s been in the bathroom almost forever.”
He went to the door, knocked. No answer. He spoke her name, knocked again, called out her name again and tried the knob. The door was locked.
His mind filled in a rush with images. Gretchen in the bathtub, her face swollen beneath the water. Gretchen sprawled on the floor with her wrists slashed and the tiles red with her blood. Gretchen slumped on the toilet like Lenny Bruce with a spike of bad smack still in her arm. But she wasn’t shooting anything these days, was she? But how could you tell, how could you ever tell from one day to the next?
“Gretchen.”
“Gretchen-Letchen, Mommy-Lommy—”
He forced his face to soften, then turned to Robin. He said, “Honey, could you go watch television for a few minutes?”
“The picture’s all funny.”
“Well, play with the knobs and see if you can fix it.”
“Oh, dynamite,” Robin said.
The hip talk had originally amused him. There was something undeniably funny in hearing hip phrases delivered with just the right inflection by a three-year-old. Lately he had become less amused. Of course the kid talked that way—it was the only kind of English she ever had a chance to learn. With Getchen for a mother it was a miracle that Robin could talk at all.
“Gretchen, answer me if you can hear me. Because otherwise I’ll assume you’re unconscious and I’ll kick the door down, and then we’ll just have to get it fixed again.”
“Leave me alone.”
“Are you all right?”
“No.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. Go away.”
“Open the door, Gretchen.”
“You fucking little snot, can’t you leave me alone?”
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m all strung out and I’m shaking.”
“Open the door.”
He waited, and just as he was about to give up and turn from the door he heard the bolt. She held the door open a crack and peered out at him.
“Well?”
“I want to see you.”
She opened the door further and supported herself by leaning against the jamb. “Anybody who wants to see me,” she said, “has got to be crazy.” She tried on a smile but it wouldn’t play. “Oh, Jesus,” she said. “Oh, I’m so fucked up. How did I get so fucked up?”
He looked at her face and felt tears welling up behind his eyes. She was such a beautiful woman and none of the beauty showed now. Her face was ravaged, haunted. The circles under her eyes looked unreal, like make-up amateurishly applied. Her dirty blond hair was uncombed and lifeless. There were tiny sores in the corners of her mouth. The yellow cotton housedress she wore had been tight on her body when she bought it. Now it hung like a tent.
“Peter, I’m dying,” she said. “Oh, poor Peter, poor poor Peter.”
She lurched forward and he caught her, let her head drop to his shoulder. He stroked her hair and the back of her neck, making automatic calming sounds. He couldn’t get over how thin she had grown. She was eating herself up, melting the flesh from her bones.
She said, “I look like hell, don’t I?”
“You could straighten out. Get off all this shit, put yourself back together again.”
“I can’t do it.”
“You can try. I’ll help.”
“You can’t even help. Nothing can help. I hate those fucking pills and I’m worse without them.”
“What are you on?”
“What do you think? Speed.”
“Just pills?”
“I was going to shoot but I didn’t.”
“Thank God.”
“I don’t know which is worse. Shooting might have been better. Now I’m all strung out. I can’t get off and I can’t get back on either. You know what it is, I’m overamping. My brain is burning too fast for my brain to keep up with it. You can’t understand me, can you? I don’t know if I can, either. Some of the time I can—”
She ran out of words and he held onto her. “I have some grass,” he said, “but I don’t know if that would be better or worse for you.”
“Worse. I’m on a bad trip and it would just make the colors brighter. Where did you get it?”
“From Marc. Well, from Linda. Marc’s halfway to Chicago by now.” He told her briefly about the note Linda had found and that he was going to light the show. It was hard to tell whether she was interested or not. She seemed to be listening but not reacting.
She said, “Maybe that’s a good idea.”
“What?”
“Chicago.”
“You want to go to Chicago?”
“You could go. To Chicago or Kansas City or Acapulco or Tel Aviv or, oh, some place.” Her eyes fixed on him suddenly. “Why don’t you leave me, Petey?”
“I like it here.”
“Oh, shit. Nobody likes it here. I don’t know how you stand it. I can’t live with myself, how can anybody else stand to live with me?”
“Sometimes it’s good.”
“It is, isn’t it? But not very often. I haven’t been any good for you in a long time.”
“You will be.”
She lowered her eyes. “I don’t know.”
“Sure you will.”
“I just don’t know. It’s a hard corner to turn this time. It isn’t a matter of getting straight. The pills, all of that shit. You know it’s not just that.”
“I know.”
“It’s wanting to be straight. If I could work. But lately all I can think is who on earth gives a shit if a pot has a lip or it doesn’t, or what fucking glaze I put on it, or whether I sell it or give it away or throw it in the canal. I mean it’s not an art. I mean go ahead and name twenty famous Italian Renaissance ceramicists. Shit, all it is is making pots by hand that they can make better than by machines, and idiots buy them because they think they’re supposed to. So they can surround themselves with craftmanship and escape from the Plastic Age. I mean who fucking cares, baby?”
He stood awkwardly for a moment, then put a quick kiss on her waxen forehead.
“I have to go. I’m sort of late.”
“Oh, the show. Yeah, you’d better do. Break a leg and everything, huh?”
“Sure.”
“You’ll be beautiful, baby, I know you will. I’m proud of you.”
“Because Marc ran off and left them hanging?”
“Just because. Because I want to be proud of you, so let me, huh?”
“Sure.” He started for the door, then turned. “Hey,” he said, “you had dinner yet?”
“Oh, sure. I spent the whole day eating and sleeping. Can’t you tell by looking at me?”
“I just—”
“I mean for Christ’s sake, Petey,
do I look like I had dinner? You know how I get, you know I couldn’t swallow anything and if I did it wouldn’t stay down, and—”
“I was thinking about Robin.”
“Oh.” Her face fell. “I forgot.”
“Christ.”
“I think I gave her a sandwich for lunch. Robin? Honey, did you have any lunch?”
“Fix her some dinner, Gretch.”
“I can’t.”
“Jesus, Gretchen—”
She stood hunched forward, her fingernails digging through the sheer housedress into the scant flesh of her thighs. Tears welled out of her eyes and coursed down her cheeks. She said, “I can’t, Jesus, I can’t, I just can’t, I’d vomit, I swear I would vomit, I can’t do it—”
He looked at Robin. The girl was wide-eyed, expressionless, taking it all in. God, what that kid had to take in. The whole trip, he thought. Everything but food.
“Okay,” he said. He bent over, scooped the child up in his arms, perched her on her shoulders. “Let’s go, Robin Bluejay Nightingale Vann. Let’s get moving, Moving Vann. We’re going to a tacky little restaurant where you can have a tacky big dinner, got it?”
“Moving Vann,” Robin said, and began to giggle.
He took Robin to Raparound, an outdoor coffeehouse around the corner from the playhouse. He put her in a chair and took one of the waitresses aside.
“A large orange juice and all the milk she’ll drink, and whatever else you can stuff into her. She usually likes French toast. Then you can take her back to the Shithouse or else keep her here until after the show.”
“I didn’t think you were in it.”
“I’m doing the lighting tonight. And I’m late, I really have to run.”
The waitress was a heavyset girl named Anne. She had olive skin and prominent white teeth. She said, “I don’t mind taking her home, Peter, but is it all right?”
“Huh?”
“Is it safe?”
“Gretchen’s not a monster.”
“I know, I only meant—”
“Gretch has never been bad to the kid. It’s just that sometimes she can’t cope.”
“I know. I was thinking she could sleep in the back room here. There’s a cot.”
He thought for a moment. “All right,” he said. “Maybe that’s best if Danny doesn’t mind.”