diamond necklace and a pair of diamond studs in her ears. She stopped and stood under the small spotlight by the closet, reached up and pulled the pin from her hair to let it fall to her shoulders, then shook her head to make it spill down her back. Then she walked comfortably to the bed, pulled the covers off Prescott to the floor, and lay down beside him.
Prescott had not exactly planned what he would do, or guessed how she would be with him when this time came, but he had not kept himself from imagining it. Now he found that his imagination had been pessimistic and impoverished. Prescott’s mind was divided, reveling in the touch, sight, sound, taste, and smell of her, and concentrating on making her happy, then happier, trying to keep himself from giving in, to make it last. Finally, she put her hand on his cheek. “Now, Bobby, now would be a good time.” He ended it, letting the glad, delicious feeling of release take him. They lay together in a long, quiet embrace.
Slowly, he became aware of the sounds of cars outside the hotel, then the quiet padding of feet moving along the hallway. She pulled away and lay a foot from him, stretching like a cat. “Now, that was really something,” she said softly, as though to herself. Then she turned to him. “You were right to make me spend all day thinking about it first.”
“I’m glad you think so,” he said. “I was kind of thinking I was stupid to take the chance of missing it. You could have changed your mind. I could have gotten run over by a truck.”
She sat up. “Good. That means you won’t turn me down next time I ask.” She stepped off toward the bathroom. “Let’s take a shower. It’s a respectable hour to go down and have a drink before dinner.”
“Respectable?”
“Well, sure. Respectable people don’t rush down to the bar at four o’clock in the afternoon. They stay upstairs in bed until seven, and then go down.”
“I guess that’s true.”
“Of course it is.” She began to run the shower.
Later, when they were in the bar, she sipped her drink thoughtfully. “This is perfect.”
He tried his, and nodded. “I suspected the reason that lady was standing behind the bar was that she knew how to make a drink.”
“Not that,” she said. “The whole thing. The package.”
“Thank you,” he answered. “I’m happy with it myself.”
“I want to be your girl,” she said.
“What?”
“You heard me,” she insisted. “I know that you think of me as a victim. Some men get a charge out of that, and if you do, go ahead. It doesn’t hurt anybody. Some women like it too, I guess. It helps them be less inhibited, because they didn’t do what they did: somebody did it to them. And it kind of makes the man seem extra forceful and aggressive—she couldn’t say no—and I can understand that, too. They want a man who’s male. You’re male enough.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“I’m not a victim. I saw you, thought you looked nice, and tried to attract you—which isn’t that tough to do if somebody’s there to watch you take your clothes off anyway. You turned out to be a lot nicer than I thought. I’m smart enough to know you’re not going to be in St. Louis long. And I’m not interested in falling in love and getting married. I know exactly what I’m doing for the next five years, and could make a guess about the next twenty. I’m not in a position for a long commitment.”
“I thought you wanted to be my girlfriend.”
“I do, for now. You and I both are here on our way somewhere else. A couple of days ago, we each, for our own reasons, decided to take a step off the path because it looked appealing. It’s been better than either of us thought it would be or was ready for. And now I’m heading off trouble.”
“Trouble?”
“You’re starting to feel upset because you think you took this dumb little stripper and led her on and gave her false hopes, just to get into her pants.” She laughed. “You feel guilty because you’ve been too nice to me. Do you realize how stupid that is? Do you think it’s possible that any woman somehow manages not to know what’s on your mind?”
“I guess it’s not a good idea to answer rhetorical questions,” said Prescott.
“No, it isn’t,” she said. She placed his hand in hers.
“This is really nice. In a week or a month or whenever, one of us is going to have to move on to something else, maybe even someplace else. I want to be able to enjoy it without watching you feel guilty about it. Letting you do that would make me feel guilty.”
“Are you telling the truth?” he asked.
“Sure.” She patted his arm. “We’re each committed to what we’re doing—school for me, and for you, whatever—and a temptation came up to have some fun. I took the chance, and it worked out great. Now that it’s gone this far, I’ve gotten some worries behind me that only women feel. Trust is one. You’re not rough or weird or scary. You don’t act nice until you come, and then throw me out of bed or something. But now I have a new worry, which is that you’ll decide it’s mean to lead me on, and turn cold. So I’m making you a proposition. Your part of it is that while you’re around St. Louis, you’re mine. You take me to places like this, be sweet to me every day, whether we’re together or not. I won’t see you walking out of Nolan’s with one of the other girls.”
“And what’s your part?”
“I don’t pay attention to other men. Except for when I’m at work or in class, I’m available to you. . . . Completely,” she added with emphasis. “Now that I know what I needed to about you, I’ll do anything you want.” She smiled. “Maybe even some things you don’t know you want.”
His eyebrows went up.
“People who are interested in hurting you show it before this. And they don’t feel guilty about using people. I know you’re using me, and I’m using you too, in a nice way, to be happy. When it’s over, we’re both going to regret that it’s over, not that it happened. We’ll smile when we go. So?”
“That’s quite a proposition,” he said. “You’re my girl.” They ate in the restaurant and walked under the stars. The night was hot and the air was lazy, and the sounds of their footsteps seemed to be the only ones to reach their ears. They came back into the air-conditioning of the hotel lobby, had a drink in the bar, and went back up to bed.
For the next week, Prescott divided his time between Jeanie and Dick Hobart. When that week was over, another began and ended in a quiet, calm, and untroubled way. Hobart took each parcel of suspicious goods that Bob Greene brought him, sold it at the price he and Greene had agreed upon, and gave him the money in bills taken from the cash receipts at Nolan’s. Bob Greene was well liked, an increasingly familiar face in some of the most exclusive hotels and restaurants in St. Louis, and in one of the most obscure dives. There were times when Prescott almost forgot.
28
Varney felt as though he were underwater, swimming upward toward the light, holding his breath, trying to break the surface. The pressure in his lungs was unbearable, but the water level kept going up as he rose. When he awoke each morning, he would be relieved that it had not been real. Then he would remember what was real, and begin to feel hot panic. Each morning when he sat up, he knew that he owed Tracy and her sons one hundred for the apartment, three hundred for general services that amounted to no more than keeping his presence in Cincinnati a secret. He would look down at Mae’s head, her hair spread out on the pillow and her body an inert lump under the covers, and remember that she was part of it. Having her here was costing him not just the original five hundred a day, but now sometimes a fee to hire another girl to do whatever Tracy wanted done. Sometimes that was another five.
Varney had stopped adding up the money he had spent this way. He knew it was already so much that the number would have made him sick. He didn’t even count the money he had left from the visit to the safe-deposit box, because counting would have told him when he was going to run out again. He would not have been able to see the date on the morning newspaper without thinking about the final day, worrying about it, feeling its approach. None of this was his fault. Being here wasn’t self-indulgence, because that was a kind of weakness. This had been a
