His easel was standing on the floor of the closet behind several of Stella’s coats. He took it out and shut the closet door again.
It was hard to carry all his paraphernalia at once but he managed. He loaded himself up and opened the apartment door. Then, not bothering to close the door, he walked to the staircase and began to mount the steps to the fourth floor.
Ralph didn’t shut the door to his apartment.
Now normally he did shut the door. On this occasion, however, he was too encumbered with painting equipment to do so without putting all his things down and then picking them up again. This seemed a lot of trouble to go through just to shut a door, especially since Stella was home and since there was nothing much worth stealing in the apartment anyway and since it was mid-afternoon and a rather ridiculous time for a burglary. Perhaps a psychiatrist might argue that Ralph left the door ajar unconsciously because he was hoping that someone would come in and kill Stella in her sleep.
But this we may leave for the psychiatrists to puzzle out among themselves. What is important is the fact that Ralph left the door open.
This made it possible for Maria Raines to walk into the apartment while Stella slept.
Maria was a mess. Her beautiful black hair was tangled and snarled; her clothes looked as though they had been slept in. In a manner of speaking, this was not far from the truth. What sleep Maria had had, she had in her clothes.
Larry and Sally had gone home together. They didn’t even tell Maria they were leaving and when she looked around for Larry he had already gone. She had to walk all the way home to their apartment by herself. When she arrived there Larry told her she couldn’t live with him anymore.
The rest of what had happened was a large blur in her mind. She wandered all over the Village, her head in a whirl and tears pouring periodically from her eyes and running down her cheeks. She was very tired but there was no one for her to go to, no place for her to sleep. She didn’t even have enough money for a room at a cheap hotel.
Finally she managed to find her way onto the subway and collapse into a seat. She couldn’t really sleep, but every once in a while her mind would wander and her eyes would close for five or ten or fifteen minutes. It wasn’t very satisfactory but it was better than no sleep at all.
After a time she tired of the subway. She got off in the Village and wandered some more. After a good bit of walking she ran into a man with whom she had spent the night once and talked him into buying her some breakfast.
The food stuck in her throat. She couldn’t eat at all at first, but she knew it was important for her to eat something and she managed to bolt the food down and keep it down.
When her feet led her to 69 Barrow Street she hesitated outside in the vestibule. She didn’t want to ring Stella’s bell. She waited instead until somebody else left the building and caught the door before it slammed shut. Then, once inside, she was relieved to find Stella’s door ajar.
She entered the apartment. The sight of it sent her head reeling as she remembered what a bad girl she had been the night before. She was always such a bad little girl, such a horrid child. That was why Larry had thrown her out, and that was why nobody ever loved her, not even her own mother. Why, she must have been bad all her life. Why else would her mother hate her so much?
She paused at the door of Stella’s bedroom. She knew how bad it was to walk into someone’s bedroom without knocking. Why, she could remember so very clearly the time she was a very little girl and she walked into her mother’s bedroom without knocking and her mother was with her father and they were…
Well, at the time she hadn’t the slightest idea what they were doing. But she was being very bad and her mother punished her for that. She could remember it all very clearly, every bit of it.
But what if she knocked and Stella was sleeping? Then Stella would be very angry with her, and she didn’t want that to happen.
She compromised with herself by knocking three times, very gently so as not to disturb Stella if she was asleep. There was no answer, so she turned the doorknob carefully and pushed the door open and walked in.
Stella was asleep.
Maria looked down at her, looked at her superb naked body and her full rich mouth. She remembered the first time, with all the men taking her and then with Stella holding her and petting her like a little puppy dog and telling her that everything would be all right.
She loved Stella.
And at the same time she hated Stella.
It was all very confusing.
Moments after Ralph knocked, the door opened and Susan motioned for him to come into the room. He followed her inside and glanced around her apartment, mentally contrasting the quiet nearness of it with the filth and disorder of the apartment he had just left. The furniture in Susan’s apartment was all freshly dusted and nothing was out of place.
As an artist, Ralph naturally was convinced that an apartment, like clothing and grooming, reflected a certain facet of a person’s personality. The impression he got walking into Susan’s living room tended to reinforce this opinion.
So did Susan.
She had obviously been up for only a short while. Her breakfast dishes were still on the table in the kitchenette and the coffee cup was only half empty. But she was already wide awake, neatly dressed and perfectly self-possessed. Her eyes were shining and her hair was combed.
“I’m glad to see you,” she said, helping him set up his easel and unload the rest of his equipment.
“For a while I thought you weren’t coming,” she continued. “You had me worried.”
“I was up late last night. Just got up.”
“Well, I’m glad you came. You know, I’ve been pretty excited since yesterday.”
“About what?”
“About getting my picture done.”
“Oh, it’s hardly anything to get excited about.”
She sat down at the dinner table and he took a seat across from her. “I think it might be,” she said. “You’ve got to remember that this is something completely new to me. I’ll probably do everything all wrong.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Will you let me know when I goof?”
“I’ll probably yell at you.”
“I wish you would,” she said, grinning. “I can take it, and I want to know what I’m doing wrong.”
She finished her coffee and carried her dishes to the sink. Automatically he joined her and picked up a dish towel, drying the dishes as she washed them.
“Let’s get started,” she said as soon as the dishes were all put away in the cabinet. “I’m ready whenever you are.”
“Fine.”
“How do you want me to pose?”
“First you better pick out some clothes that you like. This may take a lot of sittings and it’s easy to get tired of putting on the same clothing all the time.”
She thought for a minute. “Would you rather I posed nude?”
“Whatever you want.”
“Tell me,” she persisted.
“Well,” he said, “I’d rather do you nude. Otherwise the clothes sort of get in the way. The artist spends as much time getting the folds right in a skirt as he does on the person he’s painting. It’s a pain in the neck.
“Besides,” he added, “I’ve always been able to get more of the subject across with nudes. But it’s entirely up to you, Susan.”
“I’m not embarrassed,” she said. “And it might be fun, in a way.”
She disappeared into the bedroom. When she returned a few moments later he had to catch his breath. She was stark naked — and she was far and away the most attractive woman he had ever seen in his life.
It took him a moment to realize that he was staring at her, and as soon as he realized it he flushed. “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I didn’t mean to stare.”