— Oh God, Stephanie gasps, her hand going to her mouth, — I’d forgotten all about her and that Myles guy. But I’m not a racist, how can I be? I work with members of the different species we share this planet with. If I can do that, how can I logically be opposed to different races within the same human species?
Stacie’s brow furrows in response.
— Ignore her, Kendra tuts. For some reason she always feels uncomfortable at signs of weakness in Stephanie that somebody other than herself has managed to induce. — All that Chicago Uni bullshit. She’s fucking some black professor and she can’t even be pleased that she’s getting some big tenured dick inside her. She still has to make herself out to be a victim. All this trust-fund guilt, identifying with minorities, it’s such a bore.
Stacie realizes then that Kendra will never fuck a chef of any ethnicity unless he has his own show on television. She signals to the waitress. — I wanna chocolate Martini.
— Gross, Kendra winces. — Gimme a Stoli and tonic.
— Me too, Stephanie choruses, considering that a serious and intimidating waft comes from Cressida. You can never be totally relaxed in her company. Then she looks gravely at them and leans in. — And you’ll never guess what I’ve heard?
They regard her, thin, plucked brows twisting in concentration. Kendra’s hand runs over her head to make sure that her ponytail is still tight on the crown.
Stephanie bends in still closer to them, allowing them to catch a scent of her Allure. — Trent is apparently seeing, or fucking — you decide — Andrea Pallister.
— My God, Stacie says. — Didn’t she flunk psychology at DePaul and have to change to, like, art or something?
Kendra seethes quietly, aware that their eyes are on her. — She’s got cats, she squeaks in a petulant misery she can’t quite manage to repress. — I thought Trent liked dogs!
Cressida returns, an air of serenity about her now, sitting down as the waitress comes over with the drinks. She orders a Stoli. Kendra stands up. — I’d better go to the restroom and moisturize. This is my second alcoholic drink.
As they watch Kendra depart Stacie tells Cressida, — We’re talking Trent.
— Oh, she says, then exchanges malicious grins with the others.
As Kendra applies her tinted moisturizer she thinks about Andrea Pallister. How she would have thrown herself at Trent. How she didn’t realize that, yes, some men did appreciate neediness, but generally only in short fucks. Then in her mind’s eye she sees Trent’s face slightly reconfigured from its iron-jawed, luxuriantly quiffed perfection; the nose more bulbous than she’d admitted, the complexion carrying a little extra flush. Perhaps a certain lassitude about the eyes and the mouth. On the wrong drugs. And so she readies herself to face her friends.
On her reappearance the conversation seems to strike up as if her presence has sent a signal, like an orchestera conductor waving a baton. — Never trust a guy who fucks a catwoman, Stephanie nods. — I mean, three cats! Her apartment smells so fucking gross. Who would tolerate that? Nobody but a closet slob.
— There is something just a little too gauche about him, Cressida agrees.
— That’s an interesting hypothesis, Kendra says icily, her composure restored. — You know what he once said about Toto? He said, ‘You could roll over and crush that little bastard and not even know it. I like dogs, but I prefer them big and robust. I wouldn’t want to live with something I could kill by mistake.’
Stephanie contemplates her friends with that look of knowing evaluation they’ve witnessed her deploy since their first psychology seminar at DePaul. — Reading between the lines that means he’s a slob. Covered in cat furs. Yuk! I’ll bet his idea of a good day out is the bleachers at Wrigley Fields.
— We’ve all done that one, baby, Stacie yelps in a guilty delight. The afternoon shift! And she notes two young men who are sitting at the next table. Hot, but obvious fags.
Stephanie is nodding in the negative. — In emergencies only, and just to check out a new look on the salivating frat boys. We never went there to seriously pick up, not like some demented, desperate sluts. Tricia Hales, anybody?
— A total SERB, Kendra scoffs.
Stacie looks blank again, as Cressida shrugs and Stephanie nods in approval. — Self-Esteem Rock Bottom, she gleefully enlightens them.
— She’s having a baby with that loser. In a condo, Kendra tersely observes.
Stephanie’s eyes widen in horror. — They aren’t even getting a house? God, I bet her parents are proud of her.
— You would really say that Trent’s a slob? Stacie asks.
A beaming Stephanie turns to Kendra and Cressida in complicity. — Let’s face it, none of us are exactly novices when it comes to analyzing human nature.
The young men at the next table are preparing to leave. As they go, one says too loudly to the other, — Oh my God, the DOGS are out tonight. The Desperate, Obsessive Girl Snobs of Lincoln Park!
The girls are stunned and then outraged as they register this. Kendra reacts first, shouting, — Don’t acronym us, you faggots, nobody acronyms us!
— Woof! Woof! the gay men bark back at the girls, who all, except for Stephanie, manage to smile.
At closing time they walk out into the city night air, and the aroma of baking tar and concrete. Passing car headlights strobe them. Muscled and waxed young men, standing on street corners or under roadside trees, pay their thin bodies scant regard.
— I guess we asked for that one, Kendra says, — but we have got to just own that title. DOGS. DOGS of Lincoln Park, she tries it out for size.
— No we do nat, Stephanie insists. — These guys are misogynists. The sort of fags who blame their mothers for all the shit life has thrown at them.
— Honey, Cressida responds, — everybody blames their mothers for all the shit life has thrown at them. That’s what mothers are for.
Bickering starts up, as Kendra is aware that tiredness has just run over her. She turns and leaves them in the street with a limp, backhand wave and heads home up Halstead.
When she gets to the stairs of her apartment block, Kendra realizes that the third Stoli was a mistake. Its charge makes her feel bare and lonely as she enters her home and the air con sucks the evening heat out of her. She presses the phone’s messaging system. The developer guy, Clint, hasn’t called. — Toto puppy, Kendra shouts. — Where’s my baby boy? Does he love his mommy? Yes he does! Yes he does!
Strangely there is no sign of the dog. He is usually all over her. — Where are you hiding! Are you sick, baby? Kendra murmurs as she picks the handset from the coffee table and clicks on the television set. A date show flashes into her front room. The losers on parade make her happier to have come home alone. But it’s too quiet. Where was that little monster! She goes into one room, then another, feeling herself being breached by a sense of imminence. The apartment is silent and she can hear her own heart thump as she checks the cupboards, under the beds, all his hiding places.
Nothing!
The dog has gone. There is no trace of him. Sensing something evaporating inside her, Kendra sits down. Gathers her breath. Then she gets up and ventures outside. Had he somehow darted out when she’d opened the door? Unlikely. She surely would have noticed. She wasn’t that drunk. Down in the railed garden courtyard, she repeats his name over and over. — Toto. Toh-toh-oh-oh-oh.