Bobby said, “Megan, you’re a lucky girl. A lucky lucky girl.” She sighed again. “I amn’t. Aren’t? I aren’t? No, I am not. That’s the right way. I am not lucky.”
Bobby Kardaman was drunk. Not reeling, not staggering, but tight enough to be slightly glassy-eyed, tight enough to slur the corners of her words. She was a striking girl, Rhoda saw. Chestnut hair, high cheekbones, a full mouth, deep blue eyes, a full-blown body. She patted at her hair with one hand now and looked around for the waitress. “Where is that bitch?” she said. “I need a drink in the worst way. Jesus, what a night. Meg, honey, I’m coming unglued. I really am.”
“Bad?”
“Oh, the worst. Really. You know how you see who you want to? How when you’re gay the whole world looks gay? Oh, Jesus, listen to this. I saw a girl on Macdougal, a corn-fed thing fresh from the farm, you know, and some idiot bell rang and I thought, well, this one has to be gay. Can you imagine? She didn’t look it, she didn’t act it, nothing, but old Kardaman got an idea in her fat head and that was that. If I wanted her to be gay, then she was gay.”
“What happened?”
“Well, I was a little bit stoned.”
“Like now?”
“Not quite, because that was a whole two bars ago. A little less stoned. But I went right up to that Iowa cornball and propped her. Right there on the street. Come with me, I cooed, and I’ll make love to you and we’ll have a ball. Oh, very bad, the worst. The kid cracked, she was scared out of at least three uneventful years of her life. I thought she was going to scream for the law. I left hurriedly. Meg, I have to find somebody. Meg, this is bad.”
“Easy, girl.”
“Oh, sure.” She forced a half-hearted grin. “I must be making a lovely impression on you, Rhoda. Can I call you Rho? Like the Greek letter? Listen, Megan’s friends aren’t all horrid like me. I’m not even this bad all the time. Look, Rho, why don’t you ditch Meg? We’ll get married. I’ll put on a suit and a tie and we’ll run off to Maryland to get married. We’ll make babies, even. Good enough, Rho?”
Bobby blew hot and cold. She would swim in self-pity, then turn bright and begin to joke, telling most of the jokes on herself. The banter she aimed at Rhoda was double-edged, as though she meant it but had no intention of pressing her point. They didn’t stay with her long. When they finished their drinks they stood up and walked out into the night. Bobby stayed behind. “I’ll find something,” she said. “Something for the night, something I’ll hate in the morning. The perfect accompaniment for a hangover. Night, ladies.”
Outside, they walked the length of the block in warm silence. Megan took her arm.
“She likes you,” she said.
“Bobby?”
“Uh-huh. She’d like to take you away from me.”
“No chance of that.”
“I almost got mad at her. But you can’t take her seriously. And she’s having a tough time.”
“I felt sorry for her.”
“Is that all?”
She looked at Megan. “You’re not jealous, are you?”
“Slightly.”
“Don’t be. What does she do?”
“Bobby? Nothing. She’s a remittance man. Or remittance woman. A rich family in a Detroit suburb that doesn’t want a lesbian daughter around to embarrass them. She lived in Cuernavaca for awhile on money from home, then came back to the city. She gets a check every month, just enough to live on. A lot of families are like that. You’re our daughter and we’ll take care of you, but stay away from our door, you dyke. True parental love.”
“You sound bitter.”
“I am.” Megan’s arm around her waist. “I’m going to need you tonight, kitten. Very badly. Be good to me.”
CHAPTER SIX
Saturday noon, cold and rainy, Eighth Street clogged with wet and hurrying tourists. “Runch time,” Mr. Yamatari said pleasantly, if inaccurately, and she slipped into her trenchcoat and belted it snugly around her and ducked out into the street. She stood there for a moment, then turned quickly and headed for a lunch counter halfway down the block toward Sixth Avenue.
Someone was calling her name. She looked around uncertainly but couldn’t see anyone.
“Rhoda Haskell-”
And then he had reached her. He stood in front of her and held her arm in one hand. “My God, Rhoda,” he said. “How long has it been? Months. I didn’t even know you were still in town.”
He was Ed Vance and he was a bright young man in some public relations office, she didn’t know which. A friend of Tom’s, a person she had known fairly well during the two years of marriage. A bachelor, bright and good-looking in an Ivy League way. A ladies’ man according to popular report.
“Are you living here now? In the city?”
“Yes.”
“When was the divorce? About half a year ago, wasn’t it?”
“Just about. It was an annulment.”
“Well. Jesus, it’s pouring, isn’t it? C’mon, we’ll get a bite to eat. Across the street all right?”
There was a steakhouse across the street. She had never been there. She said, “I don’t have much time.”
“You’ve got to eat. And the service is fast. Come on, Rhoda.”
“Well, I was supposed to meet somebody-”
“Let ’em wait. Auld lang syne and all that. I’ll buy you a good lunch and you can tell old Ed all your troubles.”
They dodged cars, ducked across Eighth Street and hurried into the restaurant. The headwaiter led them to a small table off to the side.
Vance ordered a dry martini and asked her what she was drinking. She hadn’t planned on drinking anything but she wound up ordering a scotch sour.
“Rhoda Haskell,” he said.
“Rhoda Moore now. Again.”
“Uh-huh. What have you been doing? Taking it easy?”
“Working,” she said.
“Not around here?”
She told him where she was working and where she lived.
“Alone?”
“With a friend. A girl.”
“Dating anyone special?”
“No.”
“I guess you and Tom had a rough time of it, didn’t you?” He shook his head. “Well, it happens. I think the major reason I haven’t married is the spectacular examples all my friends set for me. Ray and Judy got divorced, you know. Or maybe you didn’t know. She took a jet to Reno and came back single. I was out drinking with Ray just a week ago. The poor son of a gun needed a shoulder to cry on. Still loves her, he told me. And she hooked him good. Alimony plus child support, with the whole thing leaving him about sixty a week to live on. If he makes more money the alimony goes up along with his income. He can’t come out ahead. And they were one couple I thought would last.”
And, over coffee: “Have you been dating much, Rhoda?”
“No.”
“Nothing serious? No big romance?”
A very big romance, she thought. But she told him that she wasn’t going with anyone.”
“Are you busy tonight?”
A long wind-up, then a fast-breaking curve. “Yes,” she said. “I’m afraid I am, Ed.”
“Tomorrow night?”
“I’m afraid I’m tied up.”
He looked at her, his eyes locking with hers. She reached for a cigarette. He gave her a light and she dragged nervously on the cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke.
“I’d like to see more of you,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because you’re a very attractive woman, Rhoda. And because I enjoy your company.”
She didn’t say anything.
“You don’t want to see me, do you?” He sighed. “You and Tom had a rough time. That happens. And you’re taking it hard. Well, that happens too. But you can’t let yourself go, Rhoda. You can’t crawl in a hole and pull the hole in after you. You’re a young woman. How old are you, anyway?”
“Twenty-four.”
“Pretty young to retire from the human race.”
“I’m not-”
“Have you been seeing any men at all?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. Do you know what you’re doing to your life? Do you know how lonely you’re going be?”
Her face was burning. If she stayed at the table another minute something very bad was going to happen, she could feel it. She would either blurt out the truth to him or she would throw a big scene and tell him what he could do with his penetrating comments. Her head was spinning. She pushed her chair back and headed for the ladies’ room.