“Hi, Peter,” she said.
“Hi, Alice.”
“Have a good day?”
‘Terrific,” I said. “Where’s your costume?”
“What? Oh. This is my day off.”
“Did you ski?”
“Yep.”
“Have a good day?”
“Terrific,” she said, and grinned.
“Want a drink?”
“I wouldn’t mind,” she said, and climbed up onto the stool beside me. To the bartender, she said, “A whiskey sour, straight up, please.”
“Right, Alice,” he said, and winked at me.
“What was that for?” Alice whispered.
“What was what for?” I asked.
“The wink. You didn’t say anything to him, did you?”
“What about?”
“Last night.”
“What would I say?”
“I don’t know,” Alice said, and shrugged.
“All we did was dance.”
“That’s right.”
“So what would I say?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay.”
“Then why did he wink at you?”
“Maybe he saw us dancing.”
“He wasn’t on last night.”
“Maybe somebody else saw us dancing and told him about it.”
“There’s nothing wrong with dancing,” Alice said.
“Who said there was?”
“Even close dancing.”
“Of course not.”
“So why did he wink?”
“I honestly don’t know. Why don’t you ask him?”
“Him? I wouldn’t ask him the right time.”
The bartender came over with the whiskey sour, put it on the bartop, smiled, and said, “Here you go, Alice.”
“Thank you, Robert,” she said. She waited until he had returned to the other end of the bar, and then she whispered, “If I was stranded on the Sahara without a watch, I wouldn’t ask him for the right time.”
“I gather you don’t like him.”
“You gather right,” she said, and lifted her glass. “Cheers.”
“Cheers,” I said.
“He almost raped me once,” Alice said conversationally.
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah,” she said, and drank. “That animal.”
“Must have been terrifying.”
“Terrifying? It was disgusting.”
“I’ll bet it was.”
“No goddamn self-control,” she said, and shook her head. “It’s not that I’m a virgin, you know...”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
“Well, I’m not. But there is a limit, you know. I mean, you expect a person to have at least a little self-control.”
“Certainly.”
“That’s what I like about you.”
“My self-control,” I said, nodding.
“Yes,” she said, and drank again. “Robert has no self-control at all.”
“Well, he probably finds you very attractive.”
“Oh, sure,” Alice said. “Who wouldn’t?”
“Nobody.”
“But he practically tore off my clothes. I mean, what the hell is that?”
“Terrible,” I said.
“Right,” she said. “Could I have another one of these?”
“Sure,” I said, “Robert, another round, please.”
“In his grubby little room over the slaves’ quarters,” Alice said. “I don’t even know why I went up there.”
“Why did you go up there?”
“He said he wanted me to hear a new record he had.”
“Pretty shabby trick.”
“Shabby? You said it. Started getting crazy the minute he closed the door. He’s got a hundred hands, he’s not a bartender for nothing.”
“Tch,” I said.
“I was just so embarrassed, I didn’t know what to say.”
“What did you say?”
“What could I say? I put on my panties and left.”
“I don’t blame you one little bit.”
“So now he winks,” Alice said.
“Whiskey sour, and a scotch on the rocks,” Robert said, and put down the drinks.
“Thank you,” I said.
Robert nodded, glanced at Alice, and then reluctantly went back to the other end of the bar.
“Cheers,” Alice said.
“Cheers,” I said, and we both drank.
“Mmm, good,” Alice said.
“Did you find it cold out there today?” I asked.
“Cold? No. Cold?”
“In that outfit, I mean.”
“This outfit?”
“Yes. Didn’t you get cold?”
“No.”
“I thought you might have got a bit chilly.”
“No,” she said. She sipped a little more of her drink, and then said, “Oh, you mean because I’m not wearing a bra.”
“Yes.”
“I never wear a bra when I’m skiing.”
“Neither do I.”
“I like to feel free and easy when I’m skiing.”
“So do I.”
“A bra is a pain in the ass,” Alice said.
“I’ll bet it is.”
“You’re a nice person, Peter,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“I felt very free and easy with you.”
“Maybe that’s because you’re not wearing a bra,” I said.
“What?” she said, and then smiled and said, “Fresh.”
“Listen,” I said.
“Um?”
“Would you like to come to my room and hear a new record I have?”
Alice peered at me over the rim of her glass. Then she put the glass down on the bartop, and smiled slowly, and said, “You won’t try to rape me, will you, Peter?”
It was like a movie.
We came into the room, and I locked the door.
“Why are you locking the door?” she asked.
“I don’t want anyone to interrupt us,” I said.
“All we’re going to do is listen to a new record.”
“I don’t have a new record. I don’t even have a record player.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“Why don’t we sit and talk a while?”
“We were sitting and talking in the bar, why’d we have to come up here to do the exact same thing?”
“It’s more private here.”
“You are going to rape me, aren’t you, Peter?”
“Don’t be silly.”
“I can tell.”
I offered her a drink, and she refused the first time, and then I offered her a drink again when the silence seemed to lengthen interminably, she sitting in the wing-back chair near the frost-rimed windows, I perched cross-legged on the bed, and this time she accepted. I went to the dresser and carried the bottle of scotch into the bathroom and I said there was no ice, and she said she didn’t care for any ice, it was very hot in the room. I put a little tap water in both scotches and then I carried them back into the room and handed her one of them, and she sipped at it, and kept watching me over the rim of the glass and she said again, “It’s very hot in here, Peter.”
“Well,” I said, “they always keep the rooms very hot at ski lodges.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed that.”
“I guess it’s because you can see all that snow and ice outside and it makes people feel better if the room is hot.”
“All it does is make me feel uncomfortable, that’s all.”
“Well,” I said, “why don’t you take off that shirt?”