splintered the wood. The walls were unpapered, constructed of rough one-by-twelves running vertically from floor to roof with battens nailed over the cracks on the outside. One of the battens had been torn off, and as the sun moved down in the west a lengthening shaft of golden light came through the exposed crack and across the room. In the two hours she had been watching it she had seen it crawl across the old ironbound trunk against the wall and then onto the bed, and now it stretched across her thigh like a thin gold band. Her imitation-leather Gladstone bag lay open atop the trunk, and as she turned her head wearily in the heat she could see the shaft of light probing into the piled and disordered jumble of sleazy underthings and shoddy dresses with powder spilled over them, the bottle of cheap perfume, and her last pair of unsnagged nylons, and she wanted to scream.
She could feel the scream welling up from somewhere deep inside her like some bloating, nauseous pressure that had to escape somehow, and she put a hand across her mouth to hold it in. Oh, Christ, why can’t I die and get it over with? Do I have to lie here in this goddamned heat and look at what I’ve got left to show for twenty-eight years? A paper suitcase full of cheap clothes a whore wouldn’t be found dead in, and a cheap marriage to a cheap gangster, and before that a cheaper one to a cheap tout selling tip sheets to a bunch of cheap suckers at racetracks, and before that . . . But, Jesus Christ, what’s the use in going any further back than that—to all the cheap, greasy hash houses and all the cheap bastards. Cheap! Cheap! Cheap! She put her hands up alongside her face to keep it from flying apart with the pounding repetition of the word through her brain.
Imagine trying to kid myself I’m only twenty-five and I that I look just the same as ever. That’s a laugh. That’s a hot one, all right! That’s good. Jesus, but that’s rich! With the lousy cold-blooded ape laughing right in my face in a stinking county jail like I was some slut asking him for a dollar. Twenty-eight years old and stranded without a nickel in a God-forsaken hole like this with everything I own in a paper suitcase, and beginning to droop like a share-cropper’s wife who’s had eleven brats and I’m trying to kid myself I’ve still got it and can go on from here. I couldn’t get a job in a Congress Avenue burlesque show taking off my clothes for a bunch of bald- headed stew bums. Lying about my first husband connected with racing and the dances at the Roosevelt Hotel when the nearest ever got to the Roosevelt was tending bar in a broken-down beer joint while my precious husband bet the rent money on his own stupid tips out at the Fairgrounds. The glamorous Joyce Gavin Broussard Neely! I’m a cheap, lousy bitch who never had anything but looks, and now they’re gone and I’ve got a paper suitcase full of trashy clothes to show for it. For all twenty-eight years of it. Oh, God, if that ain’t a scream!
She began to cry. Why do I go on trying to kid myself, looking in a mirror? I look like an old bag, and I know it. No woman ever knew whether she was beautiful or not by looking in a mirror. They don’t tell you anything. Men tell you, not mirrors. And when they laugh in your face . . . Oh, Jesus, I wish I could die.
Her shoulders shook with the crying and she turned wretchedly on her side and gave way to the storm of self-pity. In a moment, however, she became aware there, was someone else in the room and looked up through the tears to see Jessie standing inside the door and watching her with anxiety.
“Joy, what is it?” Jessie asked. “Are you all right?”
Joy choked down the sobs and drew a hand across her eyes. She nodded dumbly. Jessie went over to the suitcase and found a handkerchief and took it to her, feeling shy and self-conscious because of her nakedness and looking only at her face. Joy reached for it and dabbed forlornly at her eyes.
“What is it, Joy?” Jessie asked again. “Can I help?” She stood very straight beside the bed, like a grave-eyed and worried child being introduced for the first time to the sickbed and the ills of adults.
“I—I got to thinking about Sewell,” Joy said. Well, in a way I
“Poor Joy,” Jessie said, her own eyes beginning to grow misty. “I’m sorry, Joy.”
Joy began to cry again and Jessie sat down on the side of the bed with her back toward the foot because she was still embarrassed about the other’s almost nude body. She shyly placed a hand on her head and Joy moved convulsively toward her and threw an arm across her lap while she shook with sobs and pressed her face into the bed.
“Oh, Jessie, I’m so alone,” she wailed. “I haven’t got anybody and I’m not pretty any more and I’m such a mess.”
Nine
Jessie stroked her head soothingly. “Joy! That’s no way to talk. You know it’s not so. You’ve got us. And I don’t know anybody as pretty as you are.”
“You don’t have to say that, honey,” Joy said miserably. “It’s sweet of you to try to cheer me up, but you don’t have to say things like that.”
“But I mean it, Joy.”
Maybe she does, at that, Joy thought. She’s a funny kid. She wouldn’t lie to a bear that was going to eat her.
“You’ve got to quit worrying so much about Sewell,” Jessie went on. “I know how it tears you up, but it can’t help things to worry about it. Now, you just wait here a minute.”
Maybe fixing herself up would take her mind off things, she thought. She went out in the kitchen and returned in a moment with a basin of water and a washcloth. “Now, Joy, you sponge your face off and I’ll get your purse for you. And while you’re fixing up I’m going to iron a dress for you. Not pretty! The idea!”
Joy sat up and began washing away the tear streaks. Jessie set the basin down carefully beside her on the bed and went over to the suitcase again for her purse.
“Which dress would you like pressed?” she asked.
“They’re all a mess,” Joy said dully. “They’re terrible.”
“They’re not, either. You have the prettiest things. How about this print one you haven’t worn?”
Joy nodded listlessly. “All right.”
She went on sponging her face. The water was cool and it made her face feel better, and without too much interest at first she bathed her eyes to take away the redness and puffiness of crying. Jessie came back in a minute with a towel and she rubbed her face dry and began combing her hair. This improved her spirits, as it always did, for she loved the feel of running the comb through it and shaking it back until the ends just touched her shoulders. But it was the honest admiration in Jessie’s eyes that did the most for her.
Jessie came in carrying the dress she had ironed. She smiled and held it out at arm’s length, admiring it. “Are you ready for it, Joy? Can I get you a slip?”
”It’s too hot to wear a slip, honey,” Joy said. She wiggled up through the dress, mussing her hair a little. It was a short-sleeved dress with big bows on the shoulders. “Do you want to tie the bows?”
“Do you think I could do it right?” Jessie asked eagerly.
“Of course you can, baby. It’s just a bowknot.” She sat still on the bed while Jessie tied them, making the bows large and fluffy. Then she started combing her hair again.
“Would you be an angel, honey, and bring me the mirror? The one on the back porch.”
Jessie brought the mirror and held it for her while she finished with her hair and made up her face. She studied her reflection appraisingly. Her hair looked nice, coming down in a long golden sweep across the tops of the blue bows riding so jauntily on her shoulders, and her eyes showed very little aftereffect of the crying.
“You look so wonderful,”-Jessie said. It made her feel good to be doing something for Joy and it helped to take her mind off the awful thing Sewell had done.
“Do you really think so, honey?” Joy asked. She tilted her head back a little and narrowed her eyes. What am I afraid of? she thought. I can see I haven’t changed any. But the minute I put the mirror away I start getting scared again. Look at the moon-eyed way the kid watches me. She thinks I look wonderful and says so, but somehow it’s not the same as a man saying it. Why does it always have to be a man? But they’d still turn and look at me. I know they would. I get scared too easy, that’s all, just because I’m broke and down on my luck. And just because that stupid, cold-blooded gorilla laughed at me, and that dumb, stuck-up Mitch pretends he don’t even see me. You’d think there wasn’t any other men. What about Harve? And that photographer? Oh, I could show that Mitch, all right. But, for God’s sake, why do I care? What do I want him following me around for? I wouldn’t have
