42

A hoodlum loitered on the corner near Lida’s car. He watched her approach it.

Lida watched back. What was his problem? If he thought he was going to snatch her purse, he’d better think again.

Maybe he would try to rape her. Ha! She’d let him get his pants down, she decided, and then she’d point at his pecker and laugh and laugh and laugh. And then she’d bring her heel down on his instep, jam her ignition key up his nose, and knee him in the balls. Then …

He didn’t move toward her. He just watched. Expectantly. And with, yes, amusement.

Had he done something to her car?

She turned the key. The engine gave its customary eager growl. And then she put the car in gear.

Something was wrong. She checked the emergency brake. No, it was off. She hit the gas pedal again, more determinedly than before.

The car started forward. Then there was a loud crunch. Then the car rocked back and stalled.

That fucker! And here he was, now, coming toward her.

She took the keys out of the ignition, ready to gouge.

He knocked at her window, holding a little placard.

Lida cranked the window open and snatched it.

“NOTICE!” it began. Oh, no. She jumped out of the car to the accompaniment of his simian hoots and hollers.

“Nothing personal,” he assured her, barely able to get the words out, he was laughing so hard.

“Get out of here,” she said, “or I’ll jam these keys up your nose.”

That amused him even more.

Lida looked at her car, which was trussed and bound. The Iron Maiden, the Denver Boot, the Yellow Submarine. Whatever you chose to call it, it was the sunny little clamp that the District of Columbia police affix to the front wheel of the vehicles on their shit list.

Lida’s attempt to drive away had bent the thing a bit. But it had held. The hoodlum, however, had pointed to a passage on the card. So now the police were going to fine her for damaging city property as well. It was a racket. They got you coming and going. They’d probably ticket her in the morning, too, for being in the parking space longer than the allotted two hours.

She stalked away. Let them have the goddamned car. Let them sell it at auction. Let them shove it up their ass.

She wished she’d had dessert, after all.

She could call Diana. But, no. That was too much to ask, her driving all the way downtown. She could take a bus. But she hated buses. She could take a cab. Yes. She would take a cab.

She walked and walked in search of one, clear to Dupont Circle. None in sight. She peered down a side street and saw the Embassy Row Hotel. That’s what she would do. Stay downtown.

She backtracked to the People’s Drugstore on the Circle and bought what she would need. A toothbrush. A razor. Nail polish. A new pair of pantyhose. That way, she wouldn’t have to wash out the pair she was wearing.

The Embassy Row Hotel, she remembered, once ran a radio commercial wherein the hotel purported to speak. “I am the Embassy Row Hotel,” it would say, just before Lida would switch to another station. She went through the entrance feeling as though she had walked through a great glass mouth.

There were three women behind the desk, jabbering. One broke away to attend to Lida, but the others continued their talk.

“… and he snores like this, half the night.” The woman rattled her tongue against the roof of her mouth, producing a loud trill.

“You ought to hear mine grind his teeth,” the other countered.

Lida thought of Mrs. Semple. And then, inexplicably, of Diana. She really ought to call Diana. Just in case. In case? She wondered at the phrase.

“Who is this?” Lida said into the receiver. “Timmy?”

“Eddie.”

“Put your mother on,” she said.

“She’s not here.”

“What do you mean, not there? Where is she?”

“I dunno.”

“Well, ask, you moron. Ask your brothers.”

“They aren’t here.”

“Well, tell her I called,” Lida said.

“I can’t,” he answered, “I’m goin’ out.”

“Well, leave a note. You can write, can’t you?”

If Diana wasn’t with her kids, where would she be? Probably with what’s-his-face. The one who comes for coffee. Christ, if that’s all he did after all this time, he must be queer. And not only queer. He probably snored. And ground his teeth. Poor Diana. Her ovaries had probably turned to powder by now. What Diana needed was someone like Duvivier.

She leaned back, remembering the whole thing. His silly questions. The way he had pressed his face against her leg and then withdrawn, startled by the stubble.

She grabbed her handbag and dumped its contents on the bed. She found the razor and ripped the cardboard free. And then she changed her mind. No. She would go to the Elizabeth Arden salon tomorrow. Have a half-leg. And what they euphemistically called a bikini. And, if they could squeeze her in, she’d have a paraffin bath, and a massage.

Georgy Girl, coming down the stairs, sleek and paraffined.

She wished she’d said that to the departmental secretary: I won’t be meeting my classes tomorrow. I’m going to have a paraffin bath. Yes, at Elizabeth Arden. That would have been so much better than flu. Flu was so ordinary. And they’d have loved it. She was the only person in the English Department who could have gotten away with saying it. Maybe the only person in the whole school. A paraffin bath.

She looked at the rubble she had created, glad to have broken the noncommittal cleanliness of the room. Her history—her recent history, anyway—was there in that heap. The theater stubs. The soiled hankies. The matchbooks from restaurants about town. God, there was even a tube of spermicidal jelly.

One by one she hurled these things at the wastebasket, missing more often than not. But she didn’t throw the jelly away. She would give that to Diana. “Here,” she would say, “for your hope chest.”

She wished she’d brought the Wendolyn book along. She’d begun it at the Library Committee meeting, before she’d discovered that the jacket bore his photograph. She could have finished it tonight. She took up a novel she’d found in her purse. Nabokov. Close, she thought, but no cigar.

She read until she fell asleep.

Lida dreamed she was at Diana’s, standing in front of the refrigerator. “I have a taste for something,” she announced, though she was alone there, “but I don’t know what it is.” She opened the refrigerator door and hung on it, scanning the shelves.

There were men inside, everywhere. They were in the egg bins and the butter keeper. They were peering around milk cartons and juice cans. One was leaning against some half-and-half, as though waiting for someone, killing time.

Charles was one of the men. He was wrapped in cellophane, a neat little collar tied around the bag to keep him fresh. “No,” Lida said, “that’s not what I want.”

The psychiatrist was in the freezer sitting on some breasts and thighs. Chicken breasts and thighs, of course. “Lord, no,” Lida said, slamming the freezer shut.

The hoodlum emerged from a foil-capped bowl, exposing himself. Lida pointed at his penis and laughed and laughed and laughed.

Jerry was on the glass shelf at the bottom, treading water in a half-filled jar of artichoke hearts. They were banging against his shoulder and he had to keep pushing them away to keep his head above the brine. “Uh-uh,” Lida said.

What was it she wanted? She closed the refrigerator and moved to one of the cupboards above the stove. The one where Diana kept crackers and pretzels and chips. She had just reached up, about to settle for something, when Duvivier, life-size, appeared and caught her hand.

“Let’s go on a diet,” he said. “Lock ourselves in a room and eat only each other.”

She woke up smiling.