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.
“Oh, I’m sick,” she said.
“Easy, easy.”
“That was Ed,” she said, “Ed Vance. He was a friend of-”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“You told me on the way home.”
“I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything. Bobbie, I don’t feel good.”
“Do you want to throw up some more?”
“No. I drank too much. Why did I drink so much?”
“Everybody drank too much.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s New Year’s.”
She drew on the cigarette. She couldn’t stand to close her eyes because every time she did the moment on the street came burning back into her brain, the expression on his face, the words he used. She blew out a cloud of smoke and sat up straight in bed. Bobbie put a pillow against the headboard behind her and she propped herself up against it. She looked down at herself and saw that she was naked. She put her hands on her body and touched herself and looked at Bobbie.
“I’m ugly,” she said.
“Don’t be silly.”
“I am ugly inside and out. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Bobbie, what’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing. You’re a little drunk, that’s all, and you’ll feel better in the morning.”
“In the morning?”
“Well, maybe not. You’ll have a hangover, I guess, but it shouldn’t be too bad. You didn’t keep anything down.”
“I’m ashamed of myself.”
“Don’t be. Oh, Rho-”
“Did you hear what he said? Right in the middle of the street, and the way he was yelling they could have
