In her room she retrieved the cardboard box of pressed shirts. A small mercy they had no monogram. Five minutes later she was standing in the clothes shop holding the box.
"How'd the dress go?" said the owner, pushing his glasses from his forehead to his nose.
"Very successful. I might even wear it again tonight."
He pointed at the box. "What do you have there?"
"Shirts."
"Men's shirts?" He yanked open the stapled flap. "These are very good." He fingered the labels. "Pressed, too. Your rich uncle gave them to you?"
"How'd you know?"
"A lot of people have rich uncles who give them beautiful clothes." He looked at her with a forgiving smile. "Especially rich uncles young enough to have tailored shirts with tapered waists."
She shrugged away any further explanation. "I'd say these are sixty dollars new, anyway."
"I'm going to sell them for eighteen apiece, which means I will give you nine for them."
"Ten."
" Nine."
"Ten or no deal," she said.
He fondled the shirts. "Okay."
"You pay now?" she asked.
"On consignment."
"You're going to consign me to starvation."
He lifted his chin and looked through his glasses. "Get a job, honey. Live like the other half."
"I did just get a job. I don't start yet. Why don't you just be nice and give me five dollars now for each one."
He pulled out his wallet and handed her a crisp fifty. "You're an expensive date."
"You don't even know."
"I have an idea."
THAT EVENING she flopped on the bed with The Village Voice, starting with the back page of messages: HIV+ and DEPRESSED?
HARDBODIES STRIPS Great Prices
Treatment for depersonalization. Do you frequently feel unreal or detached from yourself?
GAY COUPLES WANTED
Does cocaine cause you problems? Do you also have problems with attention or restlessness?
Hondas sold for $100. SEIZED AND SOLD LOCALLY.
RESEARCH VOLUNTEERS WANTED: Earn btwn $800 amp; 1200! Healthy men or women age 21–45 needed to participate in residential studies evaluating drug amp; medication effects. Live in research unit of a psychiatric institute.
PENIS TALK — Men all bckgrnds wanted to discuss their penis for cable docu. Nudity not required.
Herpes Singles Mixer Secret amp; Confidential Send Self Addressed Stamped Envelope
American Strippers Fantasy shows and More
Jeeps for $100 Impounds, IRS amp; FBI seizures
Learn American Sign Language
MASTURBATION Do you have a funny/interesting story about your 1st experience? Cable doc.
Fellow at Angelika Theater on Monday afternoon in blue tank top and green shorts: You asked me if I was Ken, I said Ken is late. Can we chat?
A wonderful world. She folded the pages back to the personals and dropped her eyes over the ads for escort services and Women Seeking Men and Men Seeking Women and Women Seeking Women and Men Seeking Men and Alternative Men and Alternative Women and Adult Help Wanted. Monkeys in clothes, she thought, smelling rear ends in the jungle. She could probably get a job doing something nasty or disreputable, if she wanted, but hey, she wasn't that kind of girl. She was some kind of girl, but not that kind. But she knew the type. They didn't like themselves. Wanted to, but couldn't. Kept looking for the bottom that would bounce them back up, kept not breaking until they shattered. Talked tough but spent a lot of time on their backs providing service. She'd once had a beautiful Russian roommate who performed in the fantasy booths in Times Square, back when Times Square still had such places, stripping in front of the little windows with mechanical blinds that went up when the male occupant dropped in a quarter. Whatever she did involved creams and chains and an enormous purple dildo, and when she came home each night after work, she wept for hours. She cried in Russian, Christina remembered: I guess you can actually do that. Men came around all the time for her, talking softly but secretly crazy for her broken edges. Knew they could catch a hot ride on her unhappiness. Like stealing from a bank, sure you'll get away. I'm not that kind of girl, Christina told herself again, I steal something back.
Another ad caught her eye: I am a mature executive seeking a woman of child-bearing age who would like to have and care for her own child. I am willing to pay all costs of prenatal care, and delivery, and reasonable medical, living, and educational expenses until the child is twenty-one years old. This offer has nothing to do with sexual contact between the two parties. Pregnancy would be achieved through artificial insemination. I would relinquish my custody claim to the child; you would relinquish all legal claims to my estate, income, etc., and maintain confidentiality of the arrangement. Remuneration will be delivered monthly from a trust administered independently by a legal trustee. The successful candidate will be a woman who is healthy, drug-free, caring-
And probably insane, she thought, flipping the paper aside. I need action, she thought, I need to get out of here. Mazy had been right. Of course she'd go back to men. Four years without action was too long. She might as well have died. The interlude with Pretty Boy didn't count. He was too young, couldn't figure out what she needed. But there were plenty of guys who could; there had to be one, for God's sake, and she was going to make an attempt to find him. Tonight. Someone who could talk, at least. Someone her father could have inspected, then winked, Good choice. Not that he ever did; quite the opposite. After she'd dropped out of Columbia, he'd been worried by the fact that she had no visible means of income yet was living very well indeed; worried, too, that he had never met "this Rick fellow" she occasionally mentioned. A year before he died, her father had taken her out in the old Mustang for ice cream to tell her that he'd never made much money for his family and saw no way he ever would. He and her mother would be moving to Florida soon, perhaps to open a small gift shop, but he didn't have any illusions about it. He'd spent too much of his income on things that had come to nothing-booze, gambling, cigarettes, his fishing boat, the car they were sitting in. He took her hand in his thick fingers. I'm telling you this now so that you won't make the same bad decisions I did, Tina. I'm not going to have anything to help you with. Nothing to get you started. I don't even know how we're going to make it in Florida, as a matter of fact. But there's one thing I've given you-he touched his head-I never did anything with mine, I just fixed about a million subway cars, that's all. But I know I had it and I know you have it. That's how you got that scholarship. You're going to have to use your head, Tina, it's your advantage. You're up there in New York and living your life. Stick with the good guys. The good guys are sometimes boring, but they're better in the long run. If the guy is flashy, then let him go. That's my-
Advice, she repeated to herself as she showered and shaved her underarms and her legs, then tidied up her pubic hair a bit before leaning close to the mirror to inspect her face for wrinkles or anything else. Pimples or moles or blotches or warts. I used to have a perfect nose, she thought. Eyes, laugh lines, neck. Certainly one of the great advantages of prison was that you didn't go to the beach too often. No long afternoons on the tennis court in Bridgehampton. Closest you got to a sunburn was pushing a lawn mower in the summer. She made a fist and inspected her biceps. Not bad. Not like when she was swimming two miles a day in high school, but not bad. Good enough to push a guy away or pull him toward her.