purse, took a last look at herself in the mirror, and opened the door.
There was another girl waiting. Judith kept her head down and slipped past her, walking fast. She approached the next door, with its blue cutout symbol of a man. What if the poster was in there too? If it was in the ladies’ room, why wouldn’t they put another one in the men’s room? Judith was alone in the corridor, but her solitude might last only a few more seconds. She quickly opened the men’s-room door, glanced in to verify that it was empty, went inside, and locked the door.
There was the poster. She tore it off the wall, folded it, and put it in the side compartment of her purse with the other one. She went to the door, opened it an inch, and saw that the corridor was still empty. She slipped out and began to walk, then heard the door of the ladies’ room open behind her. She should already be gone from this corridor, and the woman behind her knew it. Had the woman seen her coming out of the men’s room?
She was filled with terrors, imagining possible disasters that demanded her attention right now. She was going to have to walk past the bar. Who had put the poster in the bathrooms? The bartender, or a waitress, or that creepy man at the end of the bar who was at least forty, too old to be anything but the owner. She couldn’t let them see her face, but she couldn’t look in the direction of the girl who had followed her up the corridor either. At least the girl had not seen the poster. No, that was too easy. Who was to say this was her first trip to the ladies’ room? If she had been in there before she would have seen it, and now she would know it had been ripped down.
Judith came to the end of the corridor. She hurried past the bar and headed toward the table where Greg waited for her, looking pleased to see her. His happiness was an unwelcome reminder that she had been happy too, five minutes ago. Now his presence was jarring, something she had forgotten about but had to tolerate. As she approached she planned her words. It had to be better than “Let’s go.” She didn’t want to open a discussion, and couldn’t afford one. She would say something that had a finality. “I need to go home right now.” Something like that should do it.
She saw that while she was gone he had ordered new drinks. He was sipping a scotch and water, and there was a fresh martini sitting next to the one she had not finished. It was irritating. How could he be so insensitive? A woman her size shouldn’t try to drink that much at any time, and tonight it was dangerous.
She said, “I need to go now.”
“What?” He put his drink down and moved his chair aside to make room for her to sit.
“I want to leave right now.” She picked up her coat from the empty chair, then the umbrella.
“Are you sick? Did something happen?”
He looked so pained, so stupid and slow, that she felt herself lose her feeling for him. He might be clever about business, but he had no instinct, no intuition. If he kept that concerned expression, he was going to be noticed. He looked like a big, foolish hoofed animal, ready to join a stampede, so she started one. She took a step toward the door.
“Wait. I’ve got to pay first.” He picked up the check, took out his wallet, selected a credit card, and tried to get the waitress’s attention.
Judith snatched the check from his fingers, already reaching into the side pocket of her purse. She pulled out three twenties, set the bill and the money on the table, and kept going. At the door she slowed for a second and his long arm came over her shoulder to push the door open ahead of her. She was out.
“What is it, Judy?”
“I had to get out of there. I’ve had enough of that place.” She was calmer now that she was out in the night. The beautiful darkness made her feel anonymous again.
“Did something scare you?”
“Of course not.” She waited until he wasn’t staring at her anymore, then glanced up at him.
He was gazing straight ahead up the sidewalk, his jaw muscles tightening and relaxing rhythmically. “Then what was the hurry?”
“I just had a bad feeling in there.” She watched him. “I wanted to go there in the first place because it was where I met you and it was a really happy memory for me. But after we were there, it wasn’t the way I remembered it at all.”
His face turned down toward her, and she detected that his expression was false. Was it condescension, trying to pretend to take her seriously when he thought she was stupid? Maybe what he was feigning was any interest at all in what she said. Some men would patiently listen to all of the drivel a woman could say, biding their time until the woman seemed to wear herself out, free herself of nervous energy, and be receptive to sex. Was he hiding something worse?
Her heart stopped, then started again. How could she have forgotten? He had been in the men’s room. He had gone in there right after they had arrived from the Mine. He had ordered their drinks, then gone into the men’s room. He had come back quickly, before the drinks arrived. The waitress had accepted a tip, but begun to run a tab for the cost of the drinks. Judith tried to sort out the details, hoping to bring back a clear image of Greg’s face when he had returned. Had he been concerned? Shocked? She tried to think clearly, but the two martinis were making her brain slow and unresponsive. Even the count was wrong, she thought. She had forgotten that at dinner she and Greg had both ordered wine. Damn.
She forced herself to concentrate. He had gone into the men’s room. There was no absolute proof that he had seen the pictures near the mirror and read the things that Catherine Hobbes had written about her. It was possible that Greg had glanced at the reams of garish nonsense plastered over the walls and seen none of it. Men stood to pee, so he wasn’t even facing the poster most of the time; he was looking at the other wall, or maybe down at what he was doing. But how could he not have seen the poster right next to the mirror? Maybe his pitted complexion made him behave differently. Maybe he was obsessed with staring at his own reflection and didn’t see things like the poster, or maybe he hated the sight of his face so much that he avoided looking at mirrors.
She held him in the corner of her eye as she walked. “I should have known not to go back to a place like that. It was a nice memory, and I shouldn’t have tampered with it.”
“What was the problem?”
“It was just an impression. That creepy older guy at the bar kept staring at me. Then I went to the ladies’ room, and there were these skanky girls ahead of me, waiting. And then I thought maybe I was kidding myself. The last time I had been in there, I was the one who picked up a guy. Then I had sex with him on the first date. I wanted to remember the place as romantic, but tonight the whole mess was—I don’t know—depressing.”
“Then I guess it was a good time not to be there.” They reached his car, and he opened the door for her.
“Do you mind leaving?”
“Not at all,” he said. “Where do you want to go next—home?”
She reacted quickly, instinctively, and said, “Your place. I want to go with you,” and only then asked herself why. She realized it was because she had to stay with him, to watch him for signs. If he went off alone, she would lose control over him. She didn’t know if he had seen the poster, but if he had, then leaving him alone to think about it would be a bad idea. She could imagine him spending some time trying to decide, then making the call: “I think the person you’re looking for might be my girlfriend.”
They got into the car and Greg pulled out onto the street. “My place? That’s great. Of course, if I’d known you were coming, I would have cleaned up a little. You’ll have to be tolerant.”
“I’m reasonably tolerant. But if I find a girl in the bed eating potato chips and waiting for you to get home, we might have something to talk about.”
“Nope. No potato chips.”
“Then we’re fine.” She had been watching him, and she was almost certain that they really were fine. He wasn’t a good enough actor to lie to her about anything this important, and she didn’t think he had the audacity to try. He seemed perfectly normal now that she had told him why she had wanted to leave Underground. He had not seen the poster in the men’s room; if he had, he had simply let his eyes pass over it without having anything register in his mind. If he had actually recognized her and read the text, what he would have done was lead her outside the bar, and say something stupid very slowly. He would say it staring straight into her eyes, holding her shoulders so she couldn’t look away, talking with that maddening ponderous slowness that dumb men used when they were being serious. He would make some promise to stand by her.
What he wouldn’t know, because people like him never seemed to know it until it was too late, was that his standing by her now was worth nothing. It was holding her hand while a tidal wave approached, its frothy top rising
