She found Bobbie again and kissed her again. Her head was swimming and she was so much in love she thought her heart would break. It would work out between them, she thought. It had been a hell of a day but it was going to be all right now, everything was going to be all right. They were in love and that was all that mattered, Fights were just part of the way they were, and they could get over the fights and rise above them and learn to control them and just go on loving each other.
Fifteen minutes later she found Bobbie in a corner with a married woman, holding her wrist and whispering into her ear. She let out a yell and went for Bobbie, ready to strangle her. It took three boys to pull the two of them apart.
She was sitting on the edge of the bathtub and Peg Brandt was sitting beside her, stroking her forehead. She had just been very sick and her head was still rocky.
She said, “I hate her. She doesn’t love me. I hate her.”
“Easy, Rhoda.”
“Did you see what that bitch was doing? Did you see her?”
“She didn’t mean anything.”
“Didn’t mean-”
“She was a little drunk, that’s all. She’s very sorry now, Rhoda. Really she is. I know Bobbie, I’ve known her for years and she’s crazy about you. You know that.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Maybe she was just trying to make you jealous. My God, Rhoda, look at the merry-go-round Lu keeps me on. It’s the same kind of thing. Except she doesn’t just flirt, she has affairs. But she loves me inside, and I love her and we stay together.”
“Peg-”
“Bobbie loves you. And you love her, don’t you?”
“Oh, of course I do! But-”
“Just take it easy now. Bobbie wants to see you, she wants to apologize. Will you see her now?”
“Give me a minute. Oh, I must look like hell.”
“You look all right.”
“I’m a mess. And I feel rotten, I really do. I hate to get sick like this. I made one hellish scene out there, didn’t I?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“They had to pull me away from her. Peg, did I hurt her?”
“No.”
“But I must have scratched her.”
“Bobbie’s all right. She just wants to make up with you.”
“Peg, why do we do things like this to each other? Why?”
“God knows.”
She waited in the bathroom. Peg left, closed the door. She fixed her makeup, freshened her face, washed her mouth out. Her head was throbbing. She found a bottle of aspirin and took two tablets. She went to the door, opened it.
Bobbie was there. She said, “Rho, I’m sorry. I was drunk I didn’t know what I was doing. Forgive me.”
They kissed. In the living room, the fat man was playing his guitar again and the hi-fi was competing with him. They went into the kitchen to get fresh drinks.
After they left the Barrow Street apartment they stopped at the Pam Pam on Seventh Avenue for food and coffee. Roz and her girl had wandered off to another party and Grace and Allie had gone home early. The six of them sat at a table in back. They were all pretty drunk. They had ham and eggs and drank a lot of black coffee. Megan knew a party uptown that she wanted go to, a crowd she knew from her work. Jan said she was sick of gay boys and wanted to go to an all-girl party. “The boys get on my nerves,” she complained.
Lucia Perry knew where there was a party. The six of them piled into a Checker cab and rode across town to a tenement on Saint Mark’s Place. It was the right address but the party had ended. The hostess, who’d changed her name from Claudia to Claude, was there with another girl. They had one round of drinks and left. Claude told them something was doing at a loft on First Avenue and they went there.
On the way, she said, “Every time I had to say her name I thought I was talking to our cat.”
“Claude the cat. I was thinking the same thing.”
There was a party. Rhoda knew some of the girls there, had run across them at other parties, and at Leonetti’s. She did a lot of drinking and didn’t remember very much of what was happening. She looked at her watch once and noticed that it was a quarter after two. The next time she looked it was twenty minutes to four and they were leaving the party.
Stretches of blackness And clarity: They were walking down a narrow street. A taxi sped past them, took a corner on two wheels. Down the block, couples were spilling out of a bar that was closing. Bobbie had an arm around her waist and she felt herself spilling over with love.
“I’m drunk,” she said.
“Rho-”
She thought she was going to be sick again, but managed to get control of herself and the feeling passed. She whirled around and kissed Bobbie on the mouth. She started to sway and Bobbie caught hold of her and drew her in and kissed her again, and Bobbie’s tongue was in her mouth and she held the girl tight against her and let the world go away and kissed her hard and gasped for breath. They were necking on the street like shameless tramps but she didn’t care, didn’t care, and it was too much trouble to stagger off into a doorway because she didn’t care who saw them, didn’t care, but she just wanted to be held and kissed, just wanted everything to be soft and rosy and good and sweet and “I’ll be damned!”
She broke away, swayed, stared. A man in front of her, his arm around the waist of a giggling blonde, was glaring and pointing at her. Bobbie had drawn away. She looked at the man and watched his face swim in and out of focus. The face was familiar but she couldn’t place it.
“Sweet little Rhoda,” he said. “Little Miss Hard-to-Get. Jesus, I should have guessed it, I should have figured it out. Jesus, the little frigid one turns out to be a dyke.”
And then she saw his face again, and this time she recognized him . Ed Vance. She drew back as if slapped and he came after her, not to reach for her but to jeer at her.
“You little dyke. You had me going, you know that? I figured you for a hunk of ice that old Tom never knew how to warm up right. Figured it wouldn’t be too hard to straighten things out. A few dinners, a few nights on the town to get you primed. And then I’d show you what it’s like to be a woman. Jesus, I don’t know how I missed it. Living with another girl-sure, sleeping with another girl is more like it.”
Get away, she thought. Go away, leave me alone. Go away from me.
“Tom know about you?”
She shook her head.
“He’ll get a kick out of this, he said. He threw back his head and laughed hysterically. The blonde detached herself from Ed and was looking oddly from one to the other. He turned to her, “Get this,” he said. “I was trying to make time with this dyke. I never even guessed. You imagine?”
The blonde didn’t say anything. Ed laughed again. Rhoda’s knees felt shaky and she couldn’t stand. Then Bobbie was taking her arm, hurrying past the man and the girl and on down the street.
She heard him calling after her. “Hey girls,” he yelled. “I mean fellas. Hey, fellas!” He laughed again, and she could hear the blonde laughing with him. “Hey fellas,” he called again. “Don’t do anything dirty.”
She didn’t remember the walk home. She had a hazy memory of his laughter, harsh and strident, following her down the street. Then there was a large blank space, and then she was in their apartment with Bobbie. She was being sick again, her stomach turning itself painfully inside out, and Bobbie was holding her and telling her that everything would be all right.
Bobbie made her take off all her clothes and get under the shower. The water pounded down upon her flesh and she stood under the spray like a statue in a rainstorm, barely feeling the water, aware of next to nothing. She was in the shower for a long time. Then she got out and Bobbie dried her with a yellow towel and led her into the bedroom. When she lay down her stomach started to bother her again and her head reeled crazily and she sat up. Bobbie lit a cigarette and gave it to her. She took a drag and closed her eyes and dropped the cigarette onto the bed. Bobbie picked it up quickly and gave it back to her.