Girls In 3-B, The (11 page)

Pat said bravely, "I think we better call the police."

"No. It'll go on the record, or something." Barby's idea of what went on in police stations was culled from the movies, but the notion of publicity, newspaper reports, made her squirm. Stay out of sight, be anonymous, that's the only safety. She shook her head. "You can't do that.”

"Do you have any better ideas
?
"

"Let's wait a while. You know how those crazy parties are." Pat, who had gone to only one and left early, nodded agreement. "It could have gone on till morning. Then maybe she went out with a bunch of people for breakfast, or something. Or like I said, maybe she stayed over with some girl. There's no reason to think anything's wrong."

"That's true. We don't want to make a fuss about nothing."

"Then what shall we do?'

"Let's wait a while. Then make up our mind. Maybe she'll come home safe and sound. We'd feel silly if we did anything rash."

They stood looking uncertainly at each other, not sure what to do next. Pat began picking up ashtrays and emptying them into the already full wastebasket. Barby said, "I'm going to take a bath."

"Now?"

"Why not?"

"Seems like a funny time for it, is all." She searched for an answer. "There won't be any hot water later. People doing their washing and all."

"That's true." Pat rolled the electric sweeper out of its closet and plugged it in. A deafening roar arose to drown to the sound of the shower.

Barby thought bitterly
, This would be a fine time to conk out with migraine, complicate everything. No use to myself or anyone else. At the same time it would feel good to black out for a while. Something to make me sleep and stop thinking.
She realized, with a sense of shock, that she hadn't had an attack since the first time with Rocco, almost a month ago.

No need to count the times; this morning made five. Five times of being used, and spoiled. Of lying awake afterward, helpless and wretched. Every time she promised herself,
I
won't do it again, I'll kill myself first.
And then
, Oh hell, what's the use? It's too late anyhow.

She thought, lathering her arms vigorously as though soap and water could wash off the touch of him.
What difference does it make? I'm ruined anyway. Ruined at thirteen. Like an apple that looks nice and shiny, but is rotten at the core, black and moldy.
She forced her mind back to that nightmare of hurt and shock that had ended her little-girlhood. The dollhouse that still stood in a corner of her bedroom at home, when it happened. Of course a big girl of thirteen doesn't play with dollhouses, but she still liked to rearrange the minute furniture and admire its tiny details. Some day
--
but not yet
--
she would let it be packed away in the attic with the blackboard, the expensive dolls with their real hair and sleeping eyes, the educational toys. After Mr. Stewart did the strange frightening thing to her, she went silently up to her own room by the back stairs and huddled over the dollhouse, wanting to cry but not able to. There were voices downstairs, Daddy's sounding low and far-off, and then Mr. Stewart's loud and cheerful, the way it was when you met him on the sidewalk in front of the bank. She picked up the miniature davenport and held it tightly until she saw what it was; then she threw it from her and lay down on the floor, feeling the first throbbing and dizziness that were to become so familiar.

She didn't know why she was thinking about this now, when she had pushed it out of her consciousness for so long. As though she had come to a turning point and had to clear the past out of her way before she could go on to the future. But what future could there be? She certainly wasn't ever going to fall in love or get married.

Daddy had stayed out of the sickroom, but he knew. She didn't know how, but she was sure of that. In conscious moments, before the sedative took hold, she jumped with fright every time a footstep sounded outside the door; but it was Mama every time. Wonderful Mama, a wall between her and everything that could hurt her. She shut her lips tightly when Mama asked how she felt, afraid that she would say something to give herself away and then Mama wouldn't love her any more. And later, when that thing happened, she didn't connect it right away with the talk Mama had already had with her about growing up. No, she was sure she was dying
--
God was punishing her or what had happened, and she couldn't tell even to save her life. What a relief, what a wonderful feeling when she found out what it was! She lay for hours with a hot-water bottle on her tummy, enduring the grinding ache of cramps without complaining.

Only, after she was up, Mama had another talk with her
--
embarrassed, neither of them able to look at the other about what men and women do together, and how a girl who lets men do these things to her before she is married ruins her whole life; how sorry she would feel if she had to confess such a sin to the man she loved, when she was older.

Don't think about it.

She rubbed herself dry, pulling the towel across her oulders.
Feels better now. Think about Annice--but she's all right, she's old enough to take care of herself. You can't look ahead or back, either one.

Do something. It will be a few days before he catches me again. Maybe we can move. If the other girls don't want to, I can go by myself.
But the thought of being alone, without even the protection of this casual companionship, made gooseflesh rise on her damp arms. She put on a terry robe and went out to help with the cleaning. Pat said, "Habit's a wonderful thing.”

"How come?"

"Oh
--
makes no difference how you feel, you sort of keep busy anyhow."

It wasn't what Pat had really been thinking. She had been thinking that her heart was broken, and yet she could cover up like this. She could even feel worried about Annice and exasperated at Barby's desire to avoid publicity.
See how calm I am,
she thought. The sweeper came unplugged and was suddenly silent, and she jumped.

“Damn!"

"No call yet?"

"For God's sake, it's only about ten minutes since you said don't call."

"Well, she ought to be up by this time if she stayed all night with somebody."

"What I think is, she went out and got plotzed," Pat said darkly. "She's probably sobering up, that's what I think."

"Well, there always has to be a first time."

"True, true. How do you think I'd look in a chignon
?
"

"A what?"

"Like this." She made a bun of a tissue and held it at the back of her head.

"Oh, one of those. Why don't you get one and see
?
We have them at the Store, nine-ninety-eight, real human hair."

"No, I want to grow my own." Pat tilted her head at the mirror. "I'd like a really smart black dress too. Nothing cheap. Gee, I wish I could afford to have my clothes designed for me."

"You're getting awfully fussy."

"You don't have to worry. Your kind of looks go good with everything."

Sure do,
Barby thought bitterly,
and what have they got me?
She went into the bedroom where their three sets of clothes were kept in confusion when they weren't scattered over the living room and bath. She dropped the white terry robe and stood looking at her reflection in the mirror. A beautiful and sexy body, thin at the waist, urn-shaped in the Greek ideal of womanliness, curving out gently at hips and bosom; the shoulders wide for a girl, the back a long sweet slope of creamy white. The breasts were high and full, pointing out a little
--
she had read somewhere that this was a sign of a passionate nature, and how wrong could you get! A good face, too, smoother and prettier than most, giving no hint of the tumult inside. She moved with grace, and her walk was the rhythmic hip-swinging sort that makes men turn and look.

She took underclothes from her drawer and began putting them on, thinking,
I
wish I was fat and ugly and had warts.

Pat, in the living room, was examining her own reflection and not liking what she saw. Chunky peasant, she thought, wanting to be slender and fine-traced and elegant. She hated her solid frame and big capable hands and feet. A tear rolled down her nose and plopped on the dusty rug. The telephone rang. They both jumped to answer, but it was only Jackson, calling to ask if they had heard from Annice yet. He said "Annice" reverently, as though it would be a sacrilege to call her "Annie," almost like speaking ill of the dead. "I'm coming over. We'll have to think what to do."

It was a relief. Although both of them would have denied it, they were glad to have a man in the house, taking responsibility and making the decisions. They flew downstairs to meet him and escort him upstairs, feeling better even though his pallor and the slight trembling of his lips betrayed that he was worried too. "I think we better call the police," he said soberly. "A lot of people have accidents. It's not anything you can
blame
them for."

"Well, sure, that's what the police are for, to help people."

"It's in the front of the phone book." He dialed with shaking fingers. The sergeant was kind, "like a good family man," Jack said later. "You sure your girl friend didn't stay all night with one of her school friends, maybe?"

"She would have called up."

"Try not to worry. We'll call the hospitals and let you know. Prob'ly come walking in safe and sound about the time you start to worry. Happens every day."

Pat put on the coffeepot. They felt better, listening to the pleasant gurgle in the glass top of the percolator. After a short wait Barby made some sandwiches, apologetically, feeling that with a man in the house they ought to provide something to eat. They were all a little ashamed of being hungry.

The sun stood high in the sky, and neighbors passed heavy-footed down the hall, laden with bags of groceries for the Saturday night party, the Sunday family dinner. The police station called back.

Annice was not in any of the hospitals, nor in the morgue
--
a grisly possibility that had occurred to all three of them, although nobody wanted to be the first to mention it. No newspaper had word of an accident involving a young red-haired girl. They were not sure if this was good or bad. They sat drinking coffee and looking silently at one another, terrified by the unknown.

Colors, shifting and swirling. Green, yellow, then a bright bland drift of white like sunlit snow, then bright pink, the color of candy and ice cream. Then red, so blinding in its brilliance that Annice screamed. There were two of her, one screaming, the other standing aside and listening with faraway amusement. The red ebbed and wavered away, to be replaced by undulating waves of a sickening dark brown.

Lines, intricately woven and interlaced, undulated across a gigantic screen
--
a screen as large as the whole world, reaching farther than she could see in every direction. Blades of light chopped through the lines, silvery and sharp, slashing and ripping, growing wider and sharper. Everything was a silvery blade falling and slicing, and in the distance bells were ringing. The ringing became a roar, and the roar closed over her head. She was sinking, her ears and mouth filled with the ringing, her eyes hurting with it, her whole body shaking with it.

She turned with immense effort, and the bells stopped, leaving an echoing ominous silence. At once the colors returned, a confused mass of them, dancing and whirling until she grew dizzy and lost her balance. She was falling
--
falling
--

Somebody's hand lay on her side. She stirred, and the hand melted and ran down like snow water.
Oh God,
she thought,
now I've killed it.
She bent to pick up the hand before it vanished completely. In front of her there loomed a high tower made of thin wires, reaching up and up into the sky. It was so beautiful that her eyes strained to take it in, she cried out in rapture, she was filled with happiness. The tower became a fountain, the water rising up and up, with butterflies flitting through it. The word "cupcakes" suggested itself to her and she said it over and over, recognizing the importance of remembering it. Ruffles, and cupcakes, and doom.

When she said
doom
a small green snake squirmed across her foot, and her knee jerked in protest. The snake stretched to enormous length. Behind the door stood a coal scuttle
--
she hadn't noticed it until now
--
filled with babies' heads, round and bald, like baseballs. All of the little eyes were open and winking.

Animals in a row, marching into the Ark, flat and two-dimensional. Closer, then receding, then growing to vast size. A prickling in her foot. She was lying on a bed
--
no, a floor
--
no, the floor of a forest carpeted with brown oak leaves, and large green caterpillars were hanging from all the branches. The caterpillars were evil. She said, "This is Sherwood Forest," and someone stirred beside her.

Then there was nothing for hundreds and hundreds of years, while time and history slid by.

The animals again. She pried her eyes open, and they stopped still, but now they were painted or pasted on the wall of a room she had never seen before. First they were toy-size, then large, then waiting to spring on her and do her some dreadful harm. Her arms and legs began to shudder, but they were so far away that she couldn't care, The shudder rose into her stomach, and she retched. She fell back into emptiness.

They were shouting at her, a whole crowd of people with green faces and white hair like snow, pushing closer and shouting. She wished they would stop. Her head was sore. Someone had taken a silver axe and chopped her head in two, through the skull and down to the chin, and half of it was gone. She tried to rub her nose, but it wasn't there. Her mouth was enormous, swollen and prickly. They had been sticking needles in it. There was a huge hand in front of her, bright red; as she stared at it, the skin turned green and dissolved. She pushed herself into a sitting position, and the floor waved and heaved for miles in front of her.
Hands and knees,
she thought, very pleased with herself for being so shrewd. She rolled over into a crouching position. Her head was green too. She could stand there looking down at herself, split into two green people, and see how silly she looked inching across the floor. She laughed.