and the Europeans think they're Semitic, Hamitic, crossbred with North Africans, Turks and God knows what all. But for McClintic, for anybody else round here I am a Negro girl named Ruby -' he snorted - 'and don't tell them, him, please man.'
'I'll never tell, Paola.' Then McClintic was back. 'You two wait till I find a friend.'
'Rach,' beamed McClintic. 'Good show.' Paola looked upset.
'I think us four, out in the country -' his words were for Paola, he was drunk, he was messing it up - 'we could make it, it would be a fresh thing, clean, a beginning.'
'Maybe I should drive,' McClintic said. It would give him something to concentrate on till things got easier, out of the city. And Roony looked drunk. More than that, maybe.
'You drive,' Winsome agreed, weary. God, let her be there. All the way down to 112th (and McClintic gunned it) he wondered what he'd do if she wasn't there.
She wasn't there. The door was open, noteless. She usually left some word. She usually locked doors. Winsome went inside. Two or three lights were on. Nobody was there.
Only her slip tossed awry on the bed. He picked it up, black and slippery. Slippery slip, he thought and kissed it by the left breast. The phone rang. He let it ring. Finally:
'Where is Esther?' She sounded out of breath.
'You wear nice lingerie,' Winsome said.
'Thank you. She hasn't come in?'
'Beware of girls with black underwear.'
'Roony, not now. She has really gone and got her ass in a sling. Could you look and see if there's a note.'
'Come with me to Lenox, Massachusetts.'
Patient sigh.
'There's no note. No nothing.'
'Would you look anyway. I'm in the subway.'
'Come with me to Lenox [Roony sang],
It's August in Nueva York Ciudad;
You've told so many good men nix;
Please don't put me down with a dark, 'see you Dad' . . .
Refrain [beguine tempo]:
Come out where the wind is cool and the streets are colonial lanes.
Though the ghosts of a million Puritans pace in our phony old brains,
I still get an erection when I hear the reed section of the Boston Pops,
Come and leave this Bohemia, life's really dreamy away from the JDs and cops.
Lenox is grand, are you digging me, Rachel,
Broadening a's by the width of an h'll
Be something we've never tried . . .
Up in the country of Alden and Walden,
Country to glow sentimental and bald in
With you by my side,
How can it go wrong?
Hey, Rachel [snap, snap-on one and three]: you coming along . . .'
She'd hung up halfway through. Winsome sat by the phone, holding the slip. Just sat.
II
Esther had indeed got her ass in a sling. Her emotional ass, anyway. Rachel had found her earlier that afternoon crying down in the laundry room.
'Wha,' Rachel said. Esther only bawled louder.
'Girl,' gently. 'Tell Rach.'
'Get off my back.' So they chased each other around the washers and centrifuges and in and out of the flapping sheets, rag rugs and brassieres of the drying room.
'Look, I want to help you, is all.' Esther had got tangled in a sheet. Rachel stood helpless in the dark laundry room, yelling at her. Washing machine in the next room ran all at once amok; a cascade of soapy water came funneling through the doorway, bearing down on them. Rachel with a foul expression kicked off her Capezios, hiked her skirt up and headed for a mop.
She hadn't been swabbing five minutes when Pig Bodine stuck his head around the door. 'You are doing that wrong. Where did you ever learn to handle a swab.'
'Here,' she said. 'You want a swab? I got your swab.' She ran at him, spinning the mop. Pig retreated.
