14

The telephone, it seemed to Lida, always rang when least she needed it. It rang now as she stumbled into the house with a grocery bag that had begun to split. She was out of breath. “Hello,” she coughed into the receiver.

“We have never met, my dear,” he began.

The bag gave way and cans and oranges rattled across the floor.

“… but we have corresponded a time or two. My name is Duvivier.”

Lida’s heart flashed neon. “God!” she said.

“I am at the Watergate Hotel. Do you think we could have a drink together?”

“Oh, no!” she gasped. “I have to go to traffic court tonight!” Her driving record had finally caught up with her. “Wait a minute! Screw traffic court. When?”

“An hour?”

She looked at the clock. She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. She hadn’t shaved her legs, God, since Jerry. Her nail polish was chipped and her hair in need of a shampoo. “Okay,” she said, “an hour.”

“I’ll meet you in the bar,” he said.

“Wait a minute. Which bar?” She had never been to the Watergate. She wasn’t sure, in fact, that she knew how to get there. And maybe there were several bars. Maybe she’d never find him.

“All right. Go to the check-in desk. You’ll see a circular staircase. Follow it to the bottom, and you’ll be in the bar.”

She sidestepped the mess on the floor and ran upstairs to fill the tub, adding to the litter by discarding her clothes along the way.

She would call Diana. But there was no time. And, damn! Diana was away.

“Jesus!” she shouted, reborn. “Jeeeesus!”