When Tignor returned to Rebecca, carrying a draft ale, his face was damply flushed and he walked with the mincing precision of a man on a tilting deck. His eyes snatched at hers, in that curious admixture of anxiety and resentment. “Sorry, baby. Got involved over there.” Tignor did not sound very apologetic but he leaned over to kiss Rebecca’s cheek. He touched her hair, stroked her hair. His hand lingered on her shoulder. He said, “Know what, I’m gonna get you some earrings, R’becca. Gold hoop earrings. That Gypsy-look, that’s so sexy.”
Rebecca touched her earlobes. Katy had pierced Rebecca’s ears with a hat pin “sanitized” by holding it in a candle flame, so that she would wear pierced earrings, but the tiny slit-wounds had not healed well.
Rebecca said, unexpectedly, “I don’t need earrings, Tignor. But thank you.”
“A girl who ”don’t need‘ earrings, Jesus…“ Tignor sat across from Rebecca, heavily. In a gesture of drunken well-being he ran his hands robustly through his hair, and rubbed at his reddened eyelids. He said, genially, as if he had only now thought of it, ”Somebody was telling me, R’becca, you’re a, what?-“ward of the state.”“
Rebecca frowned, not liking this. God damn, people talking of her, to Niles Tignor!
“I am a ward of Chautauqua County. Because my parents are dead, and I’m under eighteen.”
Never had Rebecca uttered those words before.
My parents are dead.
For she had not been thinking of Jacob and Anna Schwart as dead, exactly. They awaited her in the old stone cottage in the cemetery.
Tignor, drinking, was waiting for Rebecca to say more, so she told him, with schoolgirl brightness, “A woman, a former schoolteacher, was appointed my guardian by the county court. I lived with her for a while. But now I’m out of school, and working, I don’t need a guardian. I am ”self-supporting.“ And when I’m eighteen, I won’t be a ward any longer.”
“When’s that?”
“In May.”
Tignor smiled, but he was troubled, uneasy. Seventeen: so young!
Tignor was twice that age, at least.
“This guardian, who’s she?”
“A woman. A Christian woman. She was”-Rebecca hesitated, not wanting to say Rose Lutter’s name-“very nice to me.”
Rebecca felt a stab of guilt. She’d behaved badly to Miss Lutter, she was so ashamed. Not just leaving Miss Lutter without saying goodbye but three times Miss Lutter had tried to contact Rebecca at the General Washington Hotel, and Rebecca had ripped up her messages.
Tignor persisted, “Why’d the court appoint her?”
“Because she was my grade school teacher. Because there was no one else.”
Rebecca spoke with an air of impatience, she wished Tignor would drop the subject!
“Hell, I could be your guardian, girl. You don’t need no stranger.”
Rebecca smiled, uncertain. She’d become warm, discomfited, being interrogated by Tignor. What he meant by this remark she wasn’t sure. Probably just teasing.
Tignor said, “You don’t like talking about this ”ward‘ stuff, I guess?“
Rebecca shook her head. No, no! Why the hell didn’t he leave her alone.
She liked Tignor to tease her, yes. In that impersonal way of his that allowed her to laugh, and to feel sexy. But this, it was like him jamming his fist up inside her, making her squirm and squeal, for fun.
Rebecca hid her face, that thought was so ugly.
Where had such a thought come from, so ugly!
“Baby, what the hell? Are you crying?”
Tignor pulled Rebecca’s hands away from her face. She was not crying, but would not meet his eye.
“Wish you liked me better tonight, baby. There’s something gone wrong between us, I guess.”
Tignor spoke mock-wistfully. He was stymied by her, balked by her will in opposition to his own. He was not accustomed to women in opposition to him for very long.
Rebecca said, “I like you, Tignor. You know that.”
“Except you won’t come back with me. To the hotel.”
“Because I’m not your whore, Tignor. I am not a whore.”
Tignor winced as if she’d slapped him. This kind of talk, from a woman, was deeply shocking to him. He began to stammer:
“Why’d you think-that? Nobody ever said-that! Jesus, Rebecca-what kind of talk is that? I’m not a man who goes to-whores. God damn I am not.”
It was the man’s pride she’d insulted. As if she’d leaned over the table and slapped him hard in the face for all in Sandusky’s to see.
Rebecca had spoken hotly, impulsively. Now she’d begun she could not stop. She had not tasted Tignor’s ale that evening yet she felt the reckless exhilaration of drunkenness. “You gave me money, Tignor. You gave me eighty-four dollars. I picked up those bills from the floor, the ones I could find. You didn’t help me. You watched me. You said the money was from my brother Herschel in Montreal, but I don’t believe you.”
Until this moment Rebecca hadn’t known what she believed. She hadn’t wanted to be suspicious of Tignor, she hadn’t wanted to think about it. Eighty-four dollars! And this money, too, off the books. Now it seemed probable, Tignor had played a trick on her. She was so stupidly naive. He had paid Rebecca Schwart for being a whore and he’d done it so deftly, in his way of shuffling and dealing cards, you could argue that Rebecca Schwart had not been a whore.
Tignor was protesting, “What the hell are you saying, you? I made it up? He-what’s-his-name-”Herschel‘-did give me that money, for you. Your own brother, that loves you, for Christ’s sake you should be grateful.“
Rebecca pressed her hands over her ears. Now it seemed so clear to her, and everyone must have known.
“Look, you took the money, didn’t you? I didn’t see you leaving it behind on the floor, baby.”
Baby Tignor uttered in a voice heavy with sarcasm.
“Yes, I took it. I did.”
She had not wanted to question the money, at the time. Within a few days she’d spent it. She’d bought food for lavish meals, for her roommates and herself. She’d bought nice things for the living room. She had never been able to contribute as much to the apartment as Katy and LaVerne, always she’d felt guilty.
Now she saw, the others must have guessed who the money was really from. She had told them Herschel but surely they were thinking Tignor. Katy had told her, taking money for sex was only just something that happened, sometimes.
Tignor’s eyes glistened meanly. “And you took the ring, R’becca. You’re wearing the ring, aren’t you?”
“I’ll give it back! I don’t want it.”
Rebecca tried to remove the ring from her finger but Tignor was too quick for her. He clamped his hand over her hand, hard against the tabletop. He was furious, that she should draw attention to them, he was exposed, humiliated. Rebecca whimpered with pain, she worried he would crush the bones of her hand, that were so much smaller than his own. She saw by the flushed glistening look in the man’s face that he would have liked to murder her.
“We’re leaving. Take your coat. Fuck, you won’t take it, I will.” Tignor grabbed Rebecca’s coat, and his jacket, without releasing her hand. He dragged her from the booth. She stumbled, she nearly fell. People were watching them, but no one would intervene. In Sandusky’s, no one would wish to challenge Niles Tignor.
Yet in the Studebaker, in the tavern parking lot, the struggle continued. As soon as Tignor released Rebecca’s hand, a flame of madness came over her, she tugged at the ring. She would not wear it a moment longer! And so Tignor slapped her, with the back of his hand, and threatened to do worse. “I hate you. I don’t love you. I never did. I think you are an animal, disgusting.” Rebecca spoke quietly, almost calmly. She cringed against the passenger’s door, her eyes glaring out of the darkness reflecting neon lights like the eyes of a feral cat. Clumsily she was kicking at him. She drew back both her knees to her chest, and kicked him. Tignor was so taken by surprise, he could not protect himself. He cursed her, and punched her. His aim was off, the steering wheel was in his way. Rebecca clawed at his face and would have raked his cheeks if she had been able to reach him. She was so reckless, fighting a man with the strength to break her face in a single blow, Tignor marveled at her. Almost, he had to laugh at her-“Jesus, girl!” She caught him with a flailing blow, bloodying his lip. Tignor wiped his mouth discovering blood. Now he did laugh, the girl was so brazen not seeming to know what he might do to her, in her need to hurt him.