Rennie unlocks the door of her room. The mermaid lamp is on, and for a moment she can't remember whether or not she turned it off when she left. She could swear she did. There's a smell in the room that wasn't there before.
She sees her notebook, laid out on the bed, with the material she's been collecting, maps and brochures, neatly beside it. Someone's been in here. Rennie senses an ambush. She had her purse with her, the camera and lenses are at the front desk, there's nothing anyone would want. Is there? She opens the bureau drawer and hunts for the joints but they're safely in place.
In the bathroom her cosmetic bag has been emptied into the sink: toothbrush, toothpaste, Love deodorant, dental floss, bottle of aspirins, the works. Two of the glass louvres have been slid out of the metal frame that holds them in place. They're nowhere in sight, they must be outside somewhere, on a balcony, a fire escape, the ground, who knows what's out there, and there's no way of putting them back. That is how he got in, sliding himself into the bathroom like an anonymous letter. The man in the bathing suit. She thinks of herself standing there with a flashlight and a can of insect spray. God knows what he'd do, she's glad she wasn't here.
But it's only a thief, there are worse things. Whatever he wanted, which was probably only money, he didn't get: nothing is missing. She moves her notebook, Fun in the Sunspots, and sits down on the bed. Then she looks under it.
The box is there all right, but it's been opened, the packing tape slit neatly. Styrofoam beads leak out onto the floor. Perhaps he's made off with the heart medicine. She slides the box out, lifts the flap, and thrusts her hand into the fake snow.
At first there's nothing. Then there are two tins of smoked oysters, which Rennie sets on the floor, and after that her hand hits something that is in no way like a tin of anything at all, except that it's hard and metallic. Rennie pulls and it comes towards her, scattering styrofoam beads. This is something else she's only seen pictures of. It's the front end of a small machine gun.
Rennie shoves it back, replaces the smoked oysters and the styrofoam beads, and closes the flap. She wonders if the Englishwoman has any Scotch tape. She pushes the box as far under the bed as it will go and re-arranges the chenille coverlet, spreading it so it hangs to the floor.
This, thinks Rennie, is an exceptionally tacky movie. What next, what now? It's not even a good lunchtime story, since the main point of it would have to be her own stupidity. Dumb, gullible, naive, to believe people; it came from drinking too much. Now she must try not to panic.
Everything, especially this room, is now unsafe but it happens to be the middle of the night and there's no way she can move. She can't report the break-in to the police or even to the Englishwoman: she may be naive but it's not terminal. No one would believe she didn't know what was in the box when she picked it up at the airport. Lora knows, of course: that's why she sent Rennie instead of picking it up herself. Who else knows? Whoever sent the box. Harold the customs official, maybe. And now another man, possibly in a bathing suit. A faceless stranger. Mr. X, in the bedroom, with a knife.
Rennie goes to the bathroom door, closes it, tries to lock it. She doesn't want anyone else coming in through the bathroom window while she's asleep. The lock is broken. She opens the bureau drawer again, takes out Lora's joints, crumbles them into the toilet and flushes them down. She refolds her mix 'n' match wardrobe and packs it into her bag. She cleans her things out of the bathroom. Then she lies down on the bed in her clothes and turns out the light. She wants somebody to be with her, she wants somebody to be with. A warm body, she doesn't much care whose.
IV
In the summer, soon after she'd come out of the hospital, Rennie called up Jocasta and asked if they could have lunch. She wanted some support. Support was what the women she knew said to each other, which had once made Rennie think of stretch stockings for varicose veins. Firm support, for life crises or anything else you could mention. Once Rennie had not intended to have life crises and she did not feel in need of support. But now she did. Jocasta was a little too surprised to hear from her, a little too pleased.
Rennie made it to the restaurant in the usual way, one foot in front of the other on a sidewalk that wasn't really there; but it was important to keep your balance, it was important to behave normally. If you did that enough, Daniel said, sooner or later you would begin to feel normal.
Jocasta drank red wine and Perrier and gobbled up her spinach salad in no time flat. Then she started on the bread. She didn't ask Rennie how she was, she didn't ask her anything. Politely, elaborately, she avoided the subject of Rennie. If anyone brought it up it wouldn't be her.
Rennie picked at her quiche, watching Jocasta's angular face with the huge mime's eyes. She wondered whether she herself would be that odd at forty. She wondered whether she would ever be forty. She wanted Jocasta to reach across the table, past the breadbasket and the blue silk rose in the bud vase, and put her hand on top of Rennie's and say that everything was going to be fine. She wanted to tell Jocasta she was dying.
Jocasta had just moved in with someone, or was it out on someone? Go with the flow, said Jocasta. She did a lot of moving. She was talking much too fast, Rennie embarrassed the hell out of her. Rennie concentrated on behaving normally. If she drank just enough but not too much, she could do it.
Who knows what goes on in their heads? said Jocasta. They were well into the second carafe of wine. Not me, I've stopped even trying. It used to be women that were so mysterious, remember? Well, not any more, now it's men. Me, I'm an open book. All I want is a good enough time, no hassle, a few laughs, a little how-you-say romance, I'll take the violins if they're going around, dim lights, roses, fantastic sex, let them scrape the pate off the rug in the morning, is that too much to ask? Are they afraid of my first name or something, is that it? Remember when we all batted our eyes and pretended not to know what dirty jokes meant and crossed our legs a lot and they chased around like pigs after a truffle and God did they complain. Frigid, cock teaser, professional virgin, remember those? Remember panty girdles, remember falsies, remember Peter Pan brassieres in the front seat after the formal, with your wires digging into his chest?
Rennie didn't remember these things too well. But she didn't say so, she didn't want to remind Jocasta about her age.
There's probably men still around who don't think a woman's a woman unless she feels like a car grille or the insides of a toaster, said Jocasta. Not the back seat though, God forbid the word should get around you were an easy out.
Well, so two months ago this man, a nice enough man, nice shoulders, said why didn't we go out for dinner. I've known him a while, I like him okay, he's fine, nothing wrong with him, not ultra bright but not a nylon stocking murderer either, and I've always felt I wouldn't mind, you know. If the occasion should arise. Well, it looked as if it was arising, pardon the pun, so I tarted myself up, nothing too obvious, I just bought this fabulous black knitted sheath for the store, remember bat wings?
So out we go, he was paying it seems, though I did offer, it's a new place over on Church, not too many of those damn asparagus ferns shedding down your back, I had the quails, which was a mistake, gnawing those tiny bones and trying to look soignee. But everything was going fine, a lot of eye contact, we talked about his career, he's into real estate, doing up downtown houses. All he has to do is beat off the Marxists, the ones that rent rather than owning. The ones that own don't care, it jacks up their property values.
So I admire him some and he asks me back to his place, and we sit on the broadloom drinking white wine, and he puts on a record, Bartok, which I thought was a little heavy for the occasion but never mind, and he wants to talk about himself some more. Okay, I don't mind listening, but all this time he doesn't touch me. What's the matter, you think I have vaginal warts, I want to ask him, but I'm doing some serious listening, it's all about his two business partners and how they can't express anger. I personally think it's just dandy when people can't express anger, there's enough of it
in the world already.
So nothing happens and finally I say, I'm really tired, this certainly has been nice but I've got to get home, and he says, Why don't you stay the night? Funny you should ask, I think, though I don't say it, so we go into the bedroom and I swear to God he turns around so his back is to me and he takes off all his clothes. I can't believe it, I stand there with my mouth open, and before you know it he's all tucked into his side of the bed, he was practically wearing striped flannelette pyjamas if you know what I mean. He asks if I want the light on or off, and by this time I'm so freaked I say off, so he turns it off and there I am, taking my clothes off all by myself in the dark. If I was smart I'd have left them on and headed fast for the Down elevator, but you know me, Little Mary Sunshine, ever hopeful, so I climb into the bed, expecting to be embraced passionately, maybe he's just afraid of the light, but he says good night and turns over and goes to sleep!
Talk about feeling like an asshole. Now if a girl did that, what would she be called? There I was, horny as hell from looking at his shoulders for about five hours, and he's sleeping away like a baby. So I got up and spent the night on his sofa.
So in the morning he waltzes in, all bright and shiny in his brown velour dressing gown with the monogram on the pocket, with two glasses of fresh orange juice, and he says, Where did you go last night? When I woke up this morning you weren't there.
He hadn't even noticed, he hadn't noticed all night that I was gone.
I'm sorry, I said, but I think we have a semantic problem. A problem in communications, or maybe it's linguistics. What does spending the night usually mean to you? I mean, I'm not knocking the orange juice but I don't have to spend the night on the sofa to get it, I can squeeze it myself, you know what I mean?
Well, it turns out he's having an identity crisis, boy, am I sick of those. Before this he's only made it with younger, dumber chicks, women who're easy to impress, he says, and he's never tried it with someone like me, notice he meant old and wise, like an owl maybe. If you have to be a bird, which would you rather be, a chick or an owl? He's not sure someone like me would think he has anything to offer besides sex, and he wants to be valued for himself, whatever that is. Chinese! He wants a long-term meaningful relationship. I can tell he was a bedwetter as a child. Maybe still is for all I know.
I'm sitting there with my hair not brushed and I really have to pee, but I don't want to interrupt him because he obviously finds this important, and I'm thinking, I've heard this before, only it used to be women saying it to men. I can't believe it! And I'm thinking, do I want a long-term meaningful relationship with this guy? And then I'm thinking, does he have anything to offer besides sex?
Well, the answer was no. But that didn't used to matter, did it? How come it matters all of a sudden? Why do we have to start respecting their minds? Who keeps changing the rules, them or us? You know how many times that's happened to me since then? Three more times! It's an epidemic! What do they want?
My theory is that when sex was such a big deal, above the waist, below the waist, with stages of achievement marked on it like the United Appeal thermometer, they wanted it that way because you could measure it, you could win, scoring, you know? Our team against their team. Getting away with it. One in the teeth for Mummy. So we said, you want it, fine, we want it too, let's get together, and all of a sudden millions of pricks went limp. Nationwide! That's my theory. The new scoring is not scoring. Just so long as you keep control. They don't want love and understanding and meaningful relationships, they still want sex, but only if they can take it. Only if you've got something to lose, only if you struggle a little. It helps if you're eight years old, one way or another. You follow me?
Jocasta paid for Rennie's lunch. That meant she thought Rennie was in terrible shape, on the brink of death in fact, since ordinarily she never paid for anything if she could help it.
I'm hardly dead yet, Rennie wanted to say. But she was touched by this gesture, it was support after all, Jocasta had done what she could. She had paid for the lunch, which was a big thing, and she'd been as amusing as possible, a cheerful bedside visit in the terminal ward. Talk about your own life, life after all goes on, shun morbid subjects. A positive attitude does wonders for out-of-control cell division.
Rennie walked back to the apartment, unsupported, one foot in front of the other, keeping her balance. When she got there Jake was sitting in the livingroom. There were two beer bottles, Carlsberg, on the floor beside the plump pink chair. Ordinarily he never drank from the bottle. He didn't get up.
Once Rennie would have known why he was there, in the middle of the day. But he would not have been sitting in a chair, he would have been hiding behind the door, he'd have grabbed her from behind.
What's wrong? she said.
Jake looked up at her. His eyes were puffy, he hadn't been sleeping well lately. Neither had Rennie, as far as that went, but every time she mentioned it it turned out he'd slept even worse than she had. They were competing for each other's pity, which was too bad because neither of them seemed to have a lot of it lying around, they'd been using it up on themselves.
Rennie went over and kissed Jake on the top of the head. He looked so awful.
He took her hand, held on to it. We should try again, said Jake.
If I could do it over again I'd do it a different way, says Lora, God knows. Except maybe I wouldn't, you know? Look before you leap, my mother used to say, not that she ever did, she never had the time. When they're right behind you you don't look, you only leap, you better believe it, because if you don't leap that's fucking it, eh? Just keep moving, is my motto.
The year I turned sixteen my mother got a job selling Avon door to door, so she wasn't there in the afternoons when I got home. I didn't like being there in the cellar with just Bob, he gave me the creeps, so I used to hang out after school with Gary, that's my boyfriend. Sometimes we'd skip after lunch, and we'd have a few beers in his car, he sure loved that car, and then we'd neck afterwards. We never went all the way. Everyone thought it was the girls like me and Marie who went all the way, but mostly it was the nice girls. They figured it was okay if you were going with the guy and you were in love with him. Sometimes they'd get caught, that was before the Pill was a big thing or abortions either, and Marie and me would kill ourselves laughing, because we were the ones always getting accused of it.
At that high school they thought we were the tough girls and I guess we thought that too. We wore this heavy eye makeup and white lipstick, I guess we were something. But I never let myself get too drunk or carried away or anything. When the nice girls got in trouble their parents bought them trips to the States to get fixed up, but I knew what happened to you if you couldn't afford it. Somebody's kitchen table. There was one girl a couple of grades ahead of us at school, she tried it herself with a knitting needle only it didn't work. The teachers told us it was some kind of a rare disease but everyone knew the truth, it got around. As for me, I knew Bob would make sure I'd be out on my ass just as soon as he could throw me out, and that would be it.
Gary liked me to stop him, he said he respected me for it. He wasn't the motorcycle type, he had a job too on weekends. It was the other kind you had to look out for, the ones with money. No one at our school was a millionaire or anything but some had more money than others and they thought they were the cat's ass. I never went out with them, they'd never ask me anyway except to somewhere like the back of the field hut. It was all how much money you had. If you had enough you could get away with anything, you know?
Whenever I'd come in late Bob would be there, sitting at the kitchen table with his cardigan sleeves coming unravelled, and he'd look at me like I was dirt. He didn't slap me around any more though; I was too big for that. I used to get Gary to park right in front of the kitchen window, it was half below street level because we lived in a cellar, and we'd neck away like crazy right where Bob could hear us and maybe see us too if he looked out.
Then I quit school and started wor
king full-time, at the pizza takeout, it was no great hell but it was money. I figured I'd have enough soon to move into my own place, and Gary said, Why don't we get married. That was what I wanted then, I wanted to get married, have kids; only I wanted to do it right, not like my mother.
It was pretty soon after that I let him go all the way, it was okay because we were getting married anyway. It just happened that way, we didn't have a safe or anything. It was in the back seat of his car, right in broad daylight behind this reservoir where we used to go. It was uncomfortable as hell, and I kept thinking someone would come along and look in the window. There wasn't all that much to it, except it hurt, not a lot though, and I couldn't figure out what they were always making so much fuss about. It was like my first cigarette, I was sick as a dog, though I ended up smoking in a big way.
We didn't have any Kleenex or anything so we had to use this old undershirt he had in the trunk, to polish the car with, he made some joke about running me through the car wash. When he saw the blood though he stopped laughing, he said everything would be okay, he'd take care of me. What he meant was we were still getting married.
I had to go to work that night, I was working three evenings with two afternoons off, so I got Gary to drop me off at the apartment so I could change into my uniform. After I did that I went into the kitchen to make myself some dinner, I could get free pizza at the shop but by that time I couldn't stand the sight of it. You don't like it so much once you know what they put into it. Bob was in there as usual, smoking and finishing off a beer. I guess by that time my mother was supporting him because he didn't seem to be in the television business any more.
His damn cats came over right away and began rubbing on my legs, they must've smelled it, like I was a raw steak or a fish or something. It was the same when I got the curse, when I started using Tampax they'd fish the used ones out of the garbage and go around with the strings hanging out of their mouths, the first time Bob saw that he was so proud, he thought they'd finally caught a mouse and those were the tails. When he found out what it really was he was mad as hell.