She was not in the bedroom. But the paint and blood were there, too, on the bed-covers and walls.
“Pat,” he said.
He felt alert and rational. He went into the kitchen.
In the corner of the kitchen, crouched against the cupboards, she stared up at him. She was covered with blood and paint; her clothes dripped shiny, sticky red, the warm mixture from the tubes and from her body. As he approached, she lifted her hand up at him. Her hand shook.
“What is it?” he said, kneeling down.
“I cut myself,” she whispered.
By her was a kitchen knife. She had cut almost through the flesh of her hand, to the bone itself. A handkerchief, soaked with blood, was tied around her wrist. At the cut the blood was thick and drying; the bleeding had slowed to an ooze. She gazed at him piteously, her lips apart; she wanted to say something.
“When did it happen?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does it hurt?” he said.
“Yes,” she said. Her face was stained with tears that had caked and dried. “It hurts a lot.”
“Did you do it on purpose?”
“I don’t know.”
On the drainboard of the sink were melted ice cubes, a lemon, the remains of the gin. He said, “I should have come back sooner.”
“What’ll I do?” she said.
“You’ll recover,” he said, stroking her hair back from her face. Blood and paint sparkled in her hair; red drops stuck to the hair. Paint streaked her face and neck, her arms; she had paint on her shirt and jeans, on her feet. And on her forehead was a dark bruise.
“I fell,” she said.
“Is that when you cut yourself?”
“Yes,” she said.
“You were carrying the knife?”
“I was taking it into the living room.”
“I’ll drive you over to some doctor’s,” he said.
“No,” she said, “please.”
“You want me to get him to come here?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Just stay here.”
“I’ll have to bandage it,” he said.
“Okay.”
From the medicine cabinet in the bathroom he got gauze and tape and Mercurochrome. The cut was clean; it had bled enough, certainly. As he washed her hand and put on the Mercurochrome, she did not seem to feel pain; she seemed numbed.
“You’re damn lucky,” he said.
Pat said, “It hurt a lot.”
“Be careful. Don’t carry knives around.”
“Are you back for good?”
“Yes,” he said. He helped her up, and with his arm around her led her into the living room. She clung to him.
“I thought I was going to die,” she said. “It kept on bleeding.”
“You couldn’t have died.”
“Really?”
“Not from that. Kids do that all the time. Kids fall out of trees and cut their hands and skin their knees.” When she was stretched out on the couch, he dipped a handkerchief in turpentine and started cleaning the paint from her hair.
“I thought I was going to bleed to death,” she said.
When he had finished with her hair, he found her a clean shirt and helped her put it on. “Here,” he said when she was finished. “Here’s a present.” He gave her the package with its wrappings and gladiola and leaves and curled ribbon.
“For me?” Pat said, unwrapping it. He had to help her. “Who from?”
“Rachael,” he said.
She lay with the cake turner on her lap, the wrappings in a wad beside the couch.
“It’s nice of her.”
“You sure got paint everywhere.”
“Will it come off?”
“Probably so,” he said.
“I guess you’re mad.”
“I’m just glad you’re alive,” he said, gathering up the wrappings from the package.
“I’ll never do it again.”
He put his arms around her and held her against him. She smelled of paint and turpentine; her hair was damp and her throat, close to his face, was mottled with blue and orange paint, a stain from her ear to her collarbone. He held her tightly, but she was solid and her body did not give. Fastening the top button of her blouse, he said, “The next time I’ll stay here.”
“Will you? You promise?”
“Yes,” he said. He sat on the couch, holding her, until the room became dim. The warmth of the room dissipated, but he remained where he was. At last the room was totally dark. Beyond the window the traffic sounds diminished. Streetlights came on. A neon sign flashed.
In his arms she was asleep.
20
Sunday was the final day of the optometrists’ convention at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, California. By ten o’clock that night many of the optometrists were beginning to say goodbye and trickle out of town by car, bus, train, however they had arrived at the start of the week. Their hall in the hotel was littered with paper and cigarette butts and along the wall were empty bottles. Here and there small groups of optometrists shook hands and exchanged addresses.
The inner circle that had gathered around Hugh Coilins met for their secret and expensive last fling of entertainment, at Ed Guffy’s hotel room in a less publicized and less strict hotel in the Negro slum business section near Fillmore and Eddy Streets. In all there were eleven men in the inner circle, and every one of them was damp with eagerness.
Hugh Collins cornered Tony Vacuhhi, who was already in Guffy’s hotel room when the group arrived.
“Where is she?”
Vacuhhi said, “She’s coming. Keep your pants on.”
All week he had been nosing near Thisbe, but this night, this concluding interlude, promised to be the one. Louise, to his relief and delight, had obligingly remained in Los Angeles. Everything was set. He could scarcely contain himself.
“All set?” Guffy said, smoking on his cigar.
“She’s supposed to be coming,” Collins said, rubbing his upper lip with the back of his hand. This beat anything, the gewgaws from Mexico that he had distributed among the boys, the art films he and Guffy had got from the amusement park people, his own scrapbooks of models and sunworshipping nudists.
“Is it going to be worth all the loot?” Guffy demanded.
“It sure is,” he said. “You bet your bottom dollar.” He began to pace restlessly, wishing she would show up; the optometrists were murmuring, exchanging wisecracks and jokes, punching one another. Some of them had their gewgaws with them and were putting the plastic figures through their paces. But the boys were tiring, seeking the genuine article. One of them cupped his hands and catcalled at Collins, “What say, fella? About ready?”
“About,” he said, perspiring.
Another yelled, “Where is this pig?”
“Hey, hey,” they chanted, “bring on the greased pig.”
“Keep it down,” Guffy warned.
The optometrists, squatted in a circle on the floor of the hotel room, chanted in unison: “Bring it on—bring it on.” One of them got up and began to shimmy in his nylon shirt and pinstripe trousers; his tie flopped foolishly as he placed his hands behind his head and wiggled his fleshy hips.
And then they were silent. The optometrists ceased their horseplay. The jokes stopped. Nobody moved.
Thisbe Holt, in her transparent plastic bubble, rolled into the room. An audible gasp went up from the optometrists. Vacuhhi, in the hall, had booted her in through the open door. He now shut the door and locked it. The bubble came to a stop in the middle of the room. Thisbe filled the bubble completely. Her knees were drawn up, hugged to her stomach; her arms were wrapped around them, clutching them tight. Her head was bent forward. Below her chin and above her knees, her bloated breasts jutted up and were flattened at the inner surface of the bubble.