Flesh

With a laugh, Alison pushed herself away from him. “Walk me to work?”

“Well, I don’t know. One good turn deserves another, and…” He shrugged.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Nobody’s going to come in here.”

“How do you know?”

Evan reached out and opened the top button of her blouse. He started for the next button. Alison took him by the wrists and pushed his hands away. “I said no. I meant it. This isn’t the time or the place.”

He pressed his lips into a tight line and breath hissed from his nostrils. “If you say so,” he muttered.

Alison looked into his eyes. His gaze, which before had seemed so deep and searching, now had a blankness to it as if something inside him had shut down and he no longer saw her at all.

He turned away. He opened his briefcase and took out a fat manila folder.

“Evan…”

“I guess I’ll stay here for a while. I’ve got some papers to grade. Besides, I want to see if anyone comes in during the next half hour or so. Call it curiosity.”

Alison stared at him a moment longer, not wanting to believe he was doing this to her. Then she walked to the door.

“Come on, Alison, what’s the big deal?”

She didn’t answer. She left.

In the corridor, then on the stairs, she expected Evan to hurry after her. He would apologize. I’m sorry, it was a stupid idea. I shouldn’t have brought it up.

By the time Alison pushed her way through the main door, she knew he wasn’t going to run after her. He’d meant it. He was staying. Still, she kept glancing back as she crossed the lawn.

How could he do something like this?

Evan had walked her to work almost every day during the past two weeks. A couple of times, he couldn’t do it because of meetings or something. But this—this was just spite.

A punishment.

Because she wouldn’t put out.

Put out. What an ugly term.

Put out or get out.

All day, she had been looking forward to seeing him. A hug and kiss in the classroom, holding hands as he walked her to the restaurant. Talking, joking, just being with him. And both of them knowing that he would meet her after work, that they would walk to the park or back to his apartment and then he would be inside her.

Not today, folks.

The sidewalk was blurry. She wiped her eyes, but they filled again.

If it was that important to him, maybe…it shouldn’t be that important. What’s the big deal? Well, it was obviously a very big deal to him.

I’m suddenly the bad guy ‘cause I won’t let him screw me on the classroom floor.

And you thought he loved you.

Well, think again.

He loved you all right—he loved putting it to you, that’s what he loved.

Goddamn him.

Alison rubbed her eyes again. She sniffed and wiped her nose, and stopped at the curb. Gabby’s was only a block away. She didn’t want to walk in there crying.

She didn’t want to walk in there at all.

Not today.

She wanted to shut herself inside her bedroom and stay there. And sleep, and forget.

But when the traffic signal changed, she stepped off the curb and continued toward the restaurant.

Maybe he’ll show up later on, meet me at closing time just as if nothing had happened.

What then?

She walked past Gabby’s, glancing in through the windows. Only a few of the booths were occupied. Still too early for the supper crowd. She hoped it would be a busy night, busy enough to keep her from having time to think.

The entrance was on the corner. She pulled open one of the glass doors. It seemed heavier than usual. Inside, she managed a smile for Jean who was heading her way with a tray of empty beer steins.

“Early today,” Jean said.

All she could do was nod.

“You all right?”

“I’ll be okay.”

Jean stepped up close to her. “You need to talk, you give me a holler. I raised three girls, and it weren’t always rosy, let me tell you. But you just name me a problem, you can just bet your tush I’ve run into it one time or another.”

“Thanks.”

“Get on along, now.” Jean moved her head a fraction to the left. Taking the cue, Alison looked over Jean’s left shoulder. “Careful Prince Charming don’t follow you into the john.”

Prince Charming sat alone at the last booth.

“Trying to cheer me up, are you?” Alison asked.

Jean winked and stepped around her.

Alison tried not to look at Prince Charming, but couldn’t help glancing his way as she hurried toward the rest room. He was hunched over the table, pulling and twisting a long greasy hank of black hair in front of his face. Pasty skin showed through a hole in the shoulder of his gray sweatshirt. The sweatshirt looked as if he’d been wearing it for months.

A bowl of vegetable soup was on the table under his face.

Lucky Jean, getting to serve him.

Was he trying to wring something out of his hair and into the soup?

Alison averted her eyes. She caught a whiff of him as she rushed by.

Thank God he didn’t look up at her.

She entered the rest room and locked the door.

Prince Charming, at least, had succeeded in taking her mind off Evan.

Evan.

The hurting started again.

If I want to feel bad, she thought, I should trade problems with Prince Charming out there.

She hoped he would be gone by the time she finished.

She put on her makeup slowly. Then she draped her skirt and blouse over the door of the toilet stall and opened her flight bag.

Most of the other waitresses wore their costumes to work. Alison didn’t like to wear hers on the streets, and especially not on campus. The yellow taffeta skirt was several inches too short and had a dainty, frilly-edged apron sewn to the front. The short-sleeved, matching blouse had her name stitched in red over the left breast. The fabric of both, thin enough to see through, had obviously been selected by someone who wanted to give the male customers an extra treat.

Alison put on a short slip, then the costume.

She folded her street clothes. Spreading open her flight bag to put them away, she saw her toothbrush and black negligee.

For later.

For Evan’s place.

She might as well have left them home.

Squeezing her lower lip between her teeth, she stuffed her clothing into the flight bag and zipped it shut.

She stepped out of the rest room.