Dark Plums (16 page)

He ground out his cigarette butt beneath his heel, lit another one, and took a sip of rum from the bottle. He'd been drinking more lately, and by early afternoon he was never quite sober. Lately, he'd scorned ashtrays and took pleasure in grinding out the butts beneath his feet. He had also begun staying out all night, which wore her nerves to the edge. He had not come home until eight o'clock this morning.

“Where were you last night?” she asked.

“None of your business.”

“You treat me like shit.”

He laughed. “Baby, you've got to give me some slack.”

Tears sprang to her eyes.

Ivory legs were forming on the canvas. He brushed on more shadings of ivory. In spite of her anger, she admired his long, slender fingers and the graceful way he moved. He was handsome, even in his worn, paint-splattered jeans and ragged sweater. With deft strokes, he added a torso and arms. Then there appeared an elongated face framed by red hair.

Outside it had begun to snow. Tiny flakes swirled, barely discernible in the white sky. She wished he would put down the brush and hold her. She wanted him to tell her he loved her, to reassure her about his absence last night.

“I hate it when you spend the night out. Where were you?”

“I went to the moon.”

“Tell me really, where were you?”

Just then the phone rang in the kitchen. Alfredo went to answer it.

“Sure, baby,” Alfredo said. He laughed, then lowered his voice. She couldn't make out the words, but she could hear his seductive tone.

Her heart pounding, she stood up and took a few steps. There was a brown hairpin on the floor. She stooped to pick it up. It wasn't hers. Had the woman on the phone been here last night? Had she inspired the new painting?

Alfredo came back into the room.

“Who were you talking to?”

“None of your business.”

“Does this belong to her?” She showed him the hairpin.

“Ah, Miss Sherlock Holmes.”

“Stop it!”

“
Déjame tranquilo
! When you're fucking the whole world out there, am I supposed to live like a monk?”

She lunged and bit his shoulder. He grabbed her hair and slapped her Then she collapsed on the floor, sobbing as she rocked back and forth, hugging her knees to her chest. He put down his brush
and began cleaning up. “I can't work when you act like this.”

“I'm sorry.”

She could not keep back her sobs. They tore out of her as if they were something alien.

He left the room for a few moments, and when he returned he had on a suit and his new cashmere overcoat. He looked somber as he reached down and pulled her to her feet. “Come on, baby. Sit down here with me. Take a deep breath.” He pulled her over to the couch and sat her on his lap, then lit a cigarette for both of them and finished off the rum.

“I worry about your drinking,” she said.

“I'll worry about that. Don't fuck me up with your hysterics.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Who's your master?” he suddenly asked in an altered tone that frightened her.

“You are.”

“You're learning,” he said. His voice softened, and his arms tightened around her. “You mean a lot to me,
preciosa
. That's why I'm hard on you sometimes.”

“Do you love
her
?”

“Now, I don't want you getting jealous. You're my woman, but I've got to have some slack. Sweetheart, I want you to meet her. Then you'll feel easier.”

“I hate hustling.”

“Soon we'll split this scene.” He pushed her gently off his lap, went over to a window, and looked out onto the street. When he turned around, his face was filled with sadness. “As soon as we get the cash together, we'll split.”

“Where is the cash all going? I give you everything I make.”

“Look at all the things we've bought, sweetheart. You've got a silver fox coat, the wardrobe of a princess. We've got a Cadillac. A hi-fi.”

“But where's the rest of the money? Is any of it in the bank?”

“I've gotta be careful or the IRS will track us down. I'm taking care of things.”

“How much have you lost at Belmont?”

“Trust me, baby,” he said. “If you don't trust me, then you can
walk out the door right now!” She knew he was lying, but she needed him too much to question him further. He had walked up very close to her, and his intensity overpowered her so that she could barely think.

He lit another cigarette. “I'm making plans for us. We'll go to Havana and stay with my father's family. We'll get married and have those babies you want.”

Lies! All Lies! She began crying again, in spite of her attempts to hold back the tears.

A small voice inside her whispered that she, Adrianne, had sinned and that only if she stayed on with Alfredo would she work out her salvation. It was as though she were inside a dark tunnel and only he could lead her out. The price was believing in him.

“I don't want to hurt you, baby,” Alfredo was saying as he stroked her hair.

She dried her eyes.

“That's better, sweetheart.”

He slapped her lightly on the buttocks. “Now get dressed. Tonight I want you to meet Michelle, but first you've got work to do. It's already four-thirty, and it's time for you to hit the street.”

The lights shone brightly in this all-night Horn ‘n Hardart's, lighting up things that should remain hidden. It brought secret thoughts and vices out into the open as it illumined lines, shadows, and subtle emotions in people's faces. Above the stainless steel and formica, the fluorescence, and the din of voices, little could remain hidden.

Alfredo and Michelle sat across the table from Adrianne, his arm around the pale girl whose long red hair was loosely gathered in a chignon. Michelle wore a camel coat that was open to reveal a low-necked black velvet dress. She had thin brows and green eyes.

Adrianne wanted to scream at Alfredo to get his hands off Michelle. She was outraged. Her thoughts swirled; her blood pounded; and she was eating a hamburger, fries, salad, and cheesecake. To hell with struggling to stay thin.

The root of all anguish is that each person needs so much to be loved, she thought. This realization made her think of Max. Long ago, she had dined with him at a Horn ‘n Hardart's like this. Lucille, Max, Alfredo, and even this girl Michelle, were all seeking a kind of love that could reach into the center of their beings. Even her tricks were trying to buy love.

She rubbed her fingers, which were still cold from being outside, and put them around her coffee cup to warm them.

“… when I got to the audition, they gave me a script that was so faint I could hardly make out the words, and then they told me I wasn't putting enough emotion into the lines,” Michelle was saying.

Alfredo nodded.

“And when I left, the director's assistant told me that all along they'd wanted someone fifteen years older.”

“Tough,” said Alfredo.

“Where did you two meet?” Adrianne asked.

“The Cedar Street Bar,” Alfredo said. “Michelle was acting in an off-Broadway play. Afterwards, she would come in for a drink.”

“What play?” asked Adrianne.

“Experimental,” said Michelle. She glanced away.

“I work on the street. That's a different kind of acting,” said Adrianne, clutching her cup.

“I do a little hustling, too, when I run out of money. Usually I work the Plaza Hotel area.”

“I tried that once, but I almost got arrested,” said Adrianne, remembering how two plainclothesmen escorted her out of an elegant hotel lobby near the Plaza one afternoon, shortly after Dominic's place was busted. After that, she'd decided to go back to her old Eighth Avenue territory.

“Someday I'll go with you. I'll show you how I work it,” said Michelle.

So Alfredo was going to be Michelle's pimp, too. Adrianne knew it from the proprietary way his hand caressed Michelle's shoulder.

A chill ran through her.

She took another sip of the hot coffee and then another bite of the hamburger. But she could scarcely swallow it. She wished they were in a place where she could get something alcoholic.

Michelle's eyes seemed glazed.

“Alfredo, this coffee gets me on edge. I need something to slow down,” said Adrianne.

“Let's go home where I can relax with you fine women,” he said expansively, spreading his arms around the back of his chair and Michelle's.

Michelle went to the restroom, and while she was gone, Alfredo turned to Adrianne. “Now, baby, there's no reason to get upset. She's nothing to me. Michelle is going to be our ticket out of here.”

“You're using us both.”

“Baby, you're my woman,” he whispered. He kissed her.

Just then Michelle came back. “Come on, let's go, sugar,” said Alfredo.

Adrianne's body felt heavy, glued to her chair. She made an enormous effort to stand up.

They drove back to the loft through thick snowflakes which covered the city in softness. Thelonius Monk was playing on the car radio. All three were wedged in the front seat, Michelle between
Adrianne and Alfredo. Although the heater was turned up, Adrianne shivered with cold.

After they got back to the loft, Alfredo lit up a joint and they smoked while they sipped cognac. Michelle lay back on the sofa against Alfredo, while Adrianne sat on a faded orange cushion on the floor. It pained her to see them physically close like that. She inhaled deeply on the reefer whenever Alfredo passed it to her, and slowly her perceptions began to change. She floated high above her body. After they smoked the second reefer—a Panama Red—she could look down and see they were each in an isolated desert.

Slowly Alfredo began to undress Michelle right there in the studio. Adrianne could see that Michelle had pear shaped breasts, a long torso, and slender thighs. “She's beautiful,” Alfredo said to Adrianne, turning Michelle around like a mannequin. “Great bones,” he added.

He began kissing one of Michelle's nipples, reaching for her white panties to slip them off.

Adrianne watched them grapple on the floor. Alfredo reached out and grabbed Adrianne's ankle. He pulled her down and kissed her lightly on the lips. “Baby, I want you, too.” He pulled off Adrianne's clothes, and then his own.

“Greedy!” The marijuana was lessening her pain.

They all made their way into the bedroom. As Adrianne floated higher on the marijuana, she began to feel a new kind of power inside herself. It soothed the hurt. It made her feel as smooth as glass. After she had wrapped herself in her silk robe, she looked down as though from a mountain top at the two of them on the mattress.

“How's my baby?” Alfredo said in a cajoling tone, taking time out from his exertions. “Looks like you got a buzz on.”

Adrianne merely smiled, determined not to give him the satisfaction of seeing her upset. She gazed at Michelle's pale legs wrapped around his dark thighs. Michelle's haunches were as firm as a child's.

Adrianne floated as she watched Alfredo hover over Michelle then come down on top of her and glue his mouth to hers. Fascinated, she could not take her eyes away as Alfredo moved his
face down, now kissing her navel, her curly reddish pubic hair, and burrowing between her thighs.

He raised himself. “Baby, why don't you join us. Michelle digs chicks, don't you?”

“Mhmm,” murmured Michelle. She giggled. Then Alfredo began laughing, too. They were all high.

Alfredo wedged her between them and slipped off the robe. Michelle began to caress her breasts and thighs. Although she felt no desire for Michelle, she responded, following the odd etiquette of their situation. Michelle's tongue wedged between Adrianne's lips. Adrianne began to relax and to note the differences between the qualities of their touch. Michelle was on top of her now, while Alfredo groped her genitals.

At first Adrianne felt numb, but gradually their touches were awakening a desire she thought she had lost, screwing so many men.

“
Preciosa
.” Alfredo's fingers caressed the nape of her neck, and his voice reached across an expanse of desert to seep into her bones. But he had rolled onto Michelle again and was humping her. Adrianne realized that tonight he wasn't bothering with a condom. His breathing grew faster, and then finally, mercifully, he came. Both Michelle and Alfredo sighed with satisfaction. Soon after that, the two of them dozed off.

Adrianne stared at the luminous clock. Half asleep, Alfredo reached out to cup one of her breasts. Perhaps Michelle was only transient while she, Adrianne, and Alfredo were forging a deeper connection by means of the other girl. Alfredo must love me, she thought with desperation. The marijuana was wearing off, and tears were welling up in her eyes, moistening the pillow.

Was it only an illusion that he loved her? To tear herself from this illusion would be to skin herself raw, to be wounded by exposure to the very air. Without the comforting cloak of illusion, events like this evening's caused unbearable pain. How comforting it was to let the illusion that he loved her—loved her far more than he was aware—creep over her with the warmth of cashmere.

After a while Adrianne could bear it no longer and put on her bathrobe. She walked through the studio, which reeked of paint and linseed oil and cigarette smoke. Why did she notice these odors so
strongly just now? In the kitchen she poured herself more cognac to calm her nerves.

When she turned on the radio, Frank Sinatra was singing.

His voice and the romantic words he sang made her sob again. She let the tears roll down her cheeks while she sat there at the kitchen table and sipped the burning liquor. Then she looked up, and while music played on, she gazed out the window at the tops of buildings and at the sliver of night sky until finally darkness began to melt into the grey light of dawn.