She was standing on the curb. Manny’s voice pursued her. “Baby, you need help. Believe me. Helping people is my business. I know what I’m talking about. You don’t have to talk to me about it. I’ll give you the address of a woman doctor. I know a couple of good ones. If you can’t stand the tariff for office calls I’ll fix you up at the clinic. Dr. Rose Stillwell, she’s tops. You’d like her. Go tell her about whatever it is that’s tangling you up. Go tell her about this business of two Gerrys. Will you?”
“Good night, Dr. Fein.”
“Call me if you feel different about it. If you want to talk to somebody.”
She turned on her heel and moved, regal and remote, into the dark vestibule, hearing the soft purr of the car move off into the night behind her.
Manny even wrote her a note but it wasn’t the usual kind. He said, “... might get you into trouble, Gerry. You don’t have to see me again. Better not. But talk to Rose Stillwell. She’s a swell gal. You’d like her.”
Cold Gerry tore the note into small, small pieces and let them drift into the wastebasket. What a disgusting, self-assured animal lay under that handsome façade, she told herself, and felt equal disgust for the distant whimpering of Warm Gerry, locked into a closet of the mind.
Dancing with Joe McAllister was one of the strangest experiences which had ever happened to her. He couldn’t speak a sentence in correct English; he wore flashy suits and shirts and handpainted neckties — nudes. Yet the touch of his tough, calloused palm against hers, the hard sureness of his right hand against her waist, stirred her. Warm Gerry delighted in him. He was a wiry, hot-eyed man and had an odd way of looking over his shoulder as if expecting someone he knew to step out of a corner.
Back at their table he forgot to push her chair under her; Warm Gerry took pleasure in settling herself.
“You know something, sugar?” Joe said, jerking his head for the waiter to bring him another bour-bon-and-water. “We go together like fried catfish and hush puppies.”
Warm Gerry laughed, her throat slender and marble-like in the glow from the rose lampshade on their table. “Tell me some more things we’re like.”
He never seemed to smile, even when joking. “You’re like a million things, honey. All of ’em honey-sweet.”
“Tell me some.”
He drank the double bourbon in a gulp, swallowed a sip of water and reached across the table to grasp her hand. “Like something carved out of marble with a fire burning inside it.”
She squeezed the calloused hand, dark-tanned against the white table cloth. His eyes were black, and his head was as agile as a bird’s, turning to watch the other dancers, to watch the door of the dining room as if he were expecting to meet someone there, only he never saw anyone he knew.
“Go on, darling.”
“Why, sugar, you’re like summertime. After a hard winter. One of these northern winters, freeze you fit to die. You’re like moonlight down home and a whole lot of them little old swamp frogs, singing about the new year a-coming.”
She laughed again. “Now I’m like a swamp full of frogs. I’m learning a great deal about myself, going around with you, Mr. McAllister. You know, Joe — you’re the first strange man I ever spoke to in a bar. And I’m glad I did.”
He was standing and she was standing too. He had left a bill on the table and was taking her arm. The headwaiter watched them go, the girl tall, marble white and black-haired, the man flashy, quick, dark, and with that air about him which suggested a weapon held against the ribs of the world.
In the cab Joe started a long, rambling story. Warm Gerry was only half-listening, watching his face leap out of darkness as the cab passed the street lights, holding the slender, calloused hand tight between both of hers in her lap.
She was hardly aware of his paying the driver, and the story continued in the elevator, and then when her finger found the light switch and the chartreuse and green walls leaped out of darkness, she felt his hand, firm, warm, compelling, against her hip.
The story somehow came to an end and she didn’t notice. “I’m afraid I haven’t any bourbon, Joe. Will rye do?”
“It’s drinking whiskey, isn’t it, sugar?”
Gerry spun about with a start at a flash of light behind her. The bedroom, her own bedroom, temple of her devotion to a Way of Life she had chosen for herself, was violated by a rush of light.
Joe switched the light off again and when he saw her face he softened and nearly smiled. “Lookin’ for the little boys’ room, sugar.”
“Oh.” She went ahead of him, turning on the light.
When he came out she was seated in the chair with the high arms, sipping a Scotch and soda. Joe’s rye was on the coffee table and the table was between her and the sofa.
He picked up the drink and tossed it off, standing. Then he came over to her chair. Cold Gerry, self-contained, alert, in control, gazed up at him, a ghostly smile on the corners of the full-lipped, kissable mouth. Joe took her drink from her and placed it on the lucite table. Then he seized both her hands — the old, old routine — and hoisted her out of the chair to her feet. His hand twisted in her hair and bent her head down, holding it rigid. Then he kissed her.
The lips of Cold Gerry were sweet and remote, saying all that need be said to any man whose heart was making the big blood vessels at the side of his neck throb in the lamplight.
“Maybe you need a couple of quick straight ones, sugar,” he said, still keeping his hand in her hair.
She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have let you come up, Joe. It isn’t fair to you...”
He interrupted her. “I’m here, ain’t I?”
“But I’m afraid you misunderstand me. If you think...”
Frantically Warm Gerry was screaming in the closet of the mind, “Let me out. Let me out. Let me go to him. I’ll take off my clothes. I’ll let him bite my lips. I’ll have him — hurting me, hurting me — anything he wants.”
Cold Gerry drew in her breath. “Stop it, please, you’re hurting me.”
With a surge of alarm she found herself jolting down to a seat on the couch beside him. He had put a pillow at her back, swept her feet from the floor and was sitting beside her, his arms locked under her shoulders, his mouth near hers, his eyes black, burning, unwavering.
“Look here, sugar — we been together four nights running. And I haven’t bought you anything but liquor. I haven’t promised you presents or jewelry or anything. So it isn’t anything but me you want. You don’t have to act bashful any more. Just turn your mouth up and start kissing. Honey, we’re going to climb up that old Jadder to heaven and roost right on the stars.”
She struggled to sit up but he held her. Tight. Warm Gerry was sobbing, there at the back of the mind. Cold Gerry was never more herself and she was cold fury.
“Will you please let go of me, Mister McAllister?”
He shook his head a fraction of an inch. “Uh-uh.”
She strained against his hands and his fingers tightened on her shoulders, making her suck in her breath. “Joe, you’re hurting me.”
“Yep.”
Cold Gerry went limp and the smile curled the corners of her mouth. “Mr. Joe McAllister... I find you a most entertaining man. But you must realize something about me. There is no room in my life for sex. I decided long ago that I must go one way or the other. If I gave in I would end in the gutter...”
“Quit talking.”
She wrenched her mouth free of his. “Mr. McAllister... do I have to start screaming for the police?”
“You aren’t going to scream. You’re going to hush up and lay it on the line, baby. My name isn’t McAllister. No difference what my name is. I’m a man. Now you start being a woman.”