During that moment Penny had been seen--and recognized--albeit squintingly. The girl in the blue denim shirt and burlap mini-skirt with the long black hair over her face started for Penny at once. One of her sneakered feet got in the way of the other and she virtually hurtled across the floor, landing in a tangle of arms and legs and tresses at Penny’s feet. “Hello, Penny.” Her greeting was breathless.
“Uh, hello.” Penny looked at her blankly.
She reached up with both hands and parted the hair concealing her face. “It’s me. Sonia,” she told Penny. “Well, why do you look so funny? Aren’t you glad to see me?”
“Sure. Sure.” Penny reached down and helped her to her feet. “Uh, you’ve got fried rice in your hair,” Penny noticed.
“Damn!” The girl combed her long, straight hair out with her fingers impatiently. “What are you doing here anyway? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming downtown tonight?”
“Uh, there’s a piece of egg roll behind your left ear.” Penny extricated it deliberately, using the maneuver as an excuse to dodge the question.
“Come on, let’s find a table,” Sonia suggested.
“All right.” Penny followed her. “Uh, you’re stepping on that girl’s stomach.”
“I tripped over the guitar. Why the hell do they have to sit on the floor anyway? And why is it so dark here?”
“It’s not that dark!” Penny pointed out, catching her elbow just in time to keep her from sprawling across a couple necking in a corner. “I don’t think we should go this way-—” Penny started to add.
Too late!
“Right up here, kids!” A hand reached out and pulled Sonia up on a makeshift stage. Penny, holding her other arm was propelled along with her. “And now for our next psychodrama! Completely spontaneous and unrehearsed. Is it life, or is it improvisation? Or are they the same thing? All right, kids, you’re on!”
A spotlight blinded Penny. The couple was alone up on the stage now, all eyes focused on them. “What’ll we do?” Penny hissed.
“Psychodrama,” Sonia hissed back. “Come on. Forget your inhibitions. Let’s go! Release your aggressions!” She hauled off and slammed Penny across the face. “Now What have you got to say to that?” she projected loudly.
“I’m against violence!” Penny’s eyes were tearing.
Sonia slapped Penny again.
“But in your case, I’ll make an exception!” Penny slugged her back.
The psychodrama ‘began . . .
CHAPTER NINE
Psychodrarna . . .
“You struck me!” Sonia protested, whimpering.
“You hit me first,” Penny reminded her.
“That’s no excuse. I’m old enough to be your mother.” Sonia’s voice was a croak now. She’d decided upon a characterization, and she seemed to transform herself physically to conform to it. Her features crumpled and her jaw sagged. She bent her hack so that her breasts seemed to lose their shape. She wet her finger and wiped the eyeliner from her lids and then used it to etch in lines in her face. She twisted her long hair into a shapeless knot at the hack. Then she hobbled across the stage and sank into a rocking chair standing there. “I’m old enough to be your mother,” she repeated in a voice that was even more quavery now.
Penny fell in with the plot. As Sonia conveyed the illusion of age, Penny seemed almost to become younger, to take on an adolescent slouch and shuffle, a teen-age insolence, the classic cool of a high-school dropout. “‘Mother hell! You’re old enough to be my grandmother!” Penny told Sonia.
“I shouldn’t be here like this with you.” Sonia pushed action along. “I never should have agreed to drive you home.”
“That’s a pretty jazzy Aston-Martin you’re pushing. What’s an old bag like you doing with a hot-rod like that?”
“It was a graduation present,” Sonia croaked. “My granddaughter gave it to me at the Senior Citizens’ commencement exercises.” She sighed. “It’s a symbol. It stands for the way youth corrupts age. Youth always corrupts age.”
“That’s ’cause you wise-ass fogeys refuse to conform to the society around you.”
“My last birthday my granddaughter gave me a gift certificate to Forest Lawn,” Sonia whined.
“How old were you?”
“Ninety—seven.”
“Well, that was pretty thoughtful of her. It might come in handy. You could show some appreciation. That’s the trouble with you oldsters, you think everything’s coming to you.” Penny eyed her. “Ninety-seven, hey? That’s a good age. That kind of age really turns me on. Yessir, old biddies really do turn me on.”
“Why did you bring me here?”
“I’m lonely. Did you know I was a junkie?”
“I don’t want to talk about that,” Sonia wheezed. “It’s none of my business.” She creaked to her feet.
“Sit down. What do you drink?”
“I’m leaving now.”
“You can’t. I’m afraid to be alone. My pusher won’t be home for hours. Sit down. You can’t leave me alone.”
“I really shouldn’t—” Sonia sat down.
“That’s better. Now, what do you drink?”
“Gin and Geritol.”
“Right.” Penny mixed two imaginary drinks and pantomimed handing Sonia one and sipping the other. “Do you dig me?” Penny asked.
“What are you leading up to?” Sonia trembled with age.
“What do you think?” Penny slid a hand up her varicosed leg.
“You are trying to seduce me!”
“Don’t be silly.” Penny pulled down her old-fashioned bloomers.
“Aren’t you?” Sonia’s voice trembled with age and doubt.
“The thought hadn’t occurred to me.” Penny’s hand tangled in her gray pubic hairs.
“Aren’t you?” Sonia was more doubtful.
“Of course not.” Penny kissed her hysterectomy scar. “I’m sorry.” Sonia sounded senile and contrite. “I never should have said that. That was a terrible thing to say. I apologize. What are you doing now?”
“Just trying to see if they left anything after the operation.”
“It was so long ago, I don’t remember.” Sonia sucked the last of her drink through parchment lips. “I shouldn’t be here like this with you,” she said. “What if somebody found out? It would look awful. Just awful.”
“Would you mind unzipping my fly?”
“Would I mind what?”
“Unzip my fly, please.”
“I have to go now.” Sonia tottered to her feet.
“You still think I’m trying to seduce you.” Penny sighed. “Now that’s no way to be, Mother Tucker. You have to have faith in me.”
“ ‘Mother Tucker,’ ” Sonia sighed. “Oh, my it’s been a long time since you called me that. It takes me back to the days when I wet-nursed you.”
“We can have those days again. Unzip my fly.”
“That’s what you think! Geriatrics hasn’t gone that far! Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why should I unzip your fly?” Sonia asked with the suspicion typical of her peer group.
“To open it,” Penny explained succinctly.
“I’d rather not.”
“Come on now, Mother Tucker. You’ve known me since I was in diapers. Open the zipper. I can’t reach it.”
“What do you mean you can’t reach it? It’s right there an the front of your pants.”
“I twisted my elbow. I can’t turn my hand that way.”
“Use your left hand.”
“It’s a right-handed zipper.”
“Oh?” Sonia thought that over. “Oh, all right.” She unzipped the zipper.
“What are you staring at, Mother Tucker? Haven’t you ever seen a boy in jockey shorts before?”
“You’ve changed since I used to wet-nurse you.” She started to get up again. “I shouldn’t be here with you like this. I should go.”
“Why? Don’t you find me appealing?” Penny dropped the jockey shorts.