“It’s funny.” She closed her eyes again and smiled. “You know, we lasted a little less than a month. And when we started I thought we would go on forever. It’s crazy. Nobody ever lasts, and I knew that, but I couldn’t help—”
“I felt the same way.”
“Did you? But you must have known. I knew too but I faked myself out. It was perfect for awhile, wasn’t it?” There was something desperate in her question, as though she had to have the right answer or nothing would be left her.
“It was good,” Laura said. “It was very good.”
“Was.” She opened her eyes and there were little tears forming at the corners, but she was fighting not to cry, struggling with herself. “That sums it up, doesn’t it? Was. It’s all over.”
Silence. She wanted Peggy to cry, knowing how desperately the girl needed to cry. At the same time she hoped selfishly that Peggy would get control of herself because she too would cry and she hated to cry, hated herself for the weakness of it.
I’m weaker than she is, she thought, and the thought was disturbing.
“Laura?”
“Yes?”
“I’m going to ask you something.”
“Go ahead.”
“It’s selfish.”
“That’s all right:”
“I... I still love you, Laura.”
No, she thought. And she said, “It will be over soon, darling. It hurts like hell but it ends, and that’s the compensation for the shortness of the love. The pain doesn’t last so long.”
“I know.”
“I mean it. It can be over in a day, Peggy. You have to learn that. You have to grab on to that and never let go because you’ll hurt and be hurt over and over and it never stops.”
“I know. But I’m still going to be selfish.”
“Go ahead.”
“There’s only one thing I want from you and it’s the one thing I have no right to ask. But if I have it I’ll be able to leave tomorrow morning without crying, and it’s very important to me not to cry. I’ll cry later, but I don’t want you to see me crying. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
She paused, choking back tears and breathing hard, and finally she said, “I want to make love to you.”
“Oh!”
“If you don’t want to—”
“Oh, Peggy!”
She felt like crying but she didn’t want to cry or to let Peggy cry. She knew how Peggy loved her and she remembered how she had loved her and now she wanted so little, so very little.
Twice she opened her mouth to speak and twice she closed it because she was afraid to speak, afraid she would cry instead. She didn’t have to say anything.
She moved toward Peggy until their bodies were touching, put her arms around her and held her close. She I pressed her lips against Peggy’s and kissed her.
And Peggy’s mouth opened under hers, and Peggy’s hands began to move over her body, gently and then more insistently.
And Peggy moaned.
For the first time in his life he felt like a male whore. He stood up from the bed and turned away from her, not wanting to look at her, not wanting to see her or think of her. As he pulled on his clothes his skin felt sweaty and grimy.
“Mike?”
He began tying his shoes, fumbling with the laces. It was over now. He had given her just what she paid for and no more, and now he could leave and never come back and not see her again, not ever.
“I’m a bitch.”
For some reason he found it impossible to walk out without looking at her. He turned and saw her lying face down on the bed, stretched out full length, and foolishly naked.
“I’m a bitch and I’m sorry. But it doesn’t make any difference, does it?”
“No.”
“Of course not. I guess we’ve had it. I suppose you’re leaving?”
“Yes.”
“Of course,” she said. “I guess I didn’t have to ask.”
Her voice sounded very tired, flat and exhausted. “I’ll miss you,” she went on. “It sounds silly but I think I really will. Can you believe me?”
“Yes,” he said, not really meaning it, not really caring one way or the other.
“And I’m going back home,” she said. “I think I should.”
“Home?”
“To the Bronx. I guess that’s my home. It’s not that horrible a place, Mike. It’s like any other place. I suppose people always hate the place they come from.
“But it will be good to get back to Parkchester. I don’t really belong here, and my folks are good people. Oh, they’re middle-class and all that, but I’m middle-class too. This is just a game, this Village scene. I guess it’s time to give it up.”
She broke off suddenly and turned on the bed, raising herself on one elbow to stare at him. “I sound like Marjorie Morningstar,” she said. “And I don’t want to. But I can’t help it.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I won’t miss this place,” she said. “I never really lived here. The girl who lives here isn’t really me, Mike. I wish you had had a chance to get to know the real Sandra Cohen. You might have liked her. She’s dull but she’s fairly nice.”
She sat up suddenly. “Don’t go yet,” she said. “Sleep awhile first. Wait until morning.”
“It’s morning already.”
“Sleep anyway. You’re tired, aren’t you? You might as well sleep here.”
He didn’t want to. He wanted to leave, and he took a breath and started for the door.
“Mike—”
He stopped and she said, “Please stay with me. You don’t have to touch me and I’ll sleep on the floor if you want but I don’t want you to leave yet. This is the last night I’ll be staying here, Mike. I don’t want to stay all by myself.”
It wasn’t that much. It was very little to give her, very little indeed, and besides he was tired and there was no place else to go.
“All right, Sandy.”
She smiled, and he saw that her eye-shadow was smeared from crying. He hadn’t heard her cry.
“Good,” she said. “But first let’s clean up the apartment a little. Okay?”
“Sure.”
He was fully dressed and she was stark naked as the sun began to stream through the windows and they bent over to pick up bottles and beer cans and discarded clothing, working to clean up an apartment that would never be clean.
It was over.
She didn’t feel anything but emptiness. They had made love and nothing had happened for her, and now it was surely over and nothing remained of it. For a week the bed had been their only real meeting-place; now it too was gone and nothing remained.
Musical Beds.
And some joker had stopped the music.
She lay on the bed, not wanting to touch Peggy any more and yet not wanting to withdraw from her, not yet, not until they both got up and Peggy packed up her things and disappeared. Then for a few hours she could be alone until she heard the music start and took another partner.
She couldn’t sleep. Even with the shade drawn the daylight filtered into the room; besides, she was too tense and mixed-up inside to relax.
Her eyes closed. She thought of Jan and tried to erase the thought, feeling guilty for it, feeling that it was wrong now and unfair to Peggy to think of another girl. There would be time enough later.
In a minute there is time.
There would always be time. Time was cheap. Everything happened in very little time, quickly, abruptly, and the edges were always jagged when the break came.
Decisions and revisions that a minute can reverse. Back and forth, up and down, in and out, over and over. There was always time and there was never time enough, and the decisions were always both right and wrong and never in-between. And never permanent.
Do I dare to eat a peach?