She sat at the bar, slumping over like a manikin, sipping her fourth vodka and tonic. Behind her on the jukebox she could hear the Bee Gee’s chirping away about staying alive, and she began to giggle a bit. She was acting like a goddamned adolescent, not at all the liberated woman she had intended to become when she moved to New York.
She looked down the bar and saw a man with the John Travolta look—his hair coiffed straight back, his tan Italian pants, so tight she could see the outline of his briefs, and the open-necked silk shirt. He was turning now, bobbing his head to the music, and she started to giggle again. He was sexy, she supposed, but he looked to her like a clone … the kind you read about in the Post. There was nothing about him that turned her on. He was simply a product of the media. Jesus, it seemed the whole world was getting that way.
She turned away from him in disgust and thought of Peter. He would laugh at her sitting here, slurping this drink, staring at the bottles behind the bar like they were old friends. But she couldn’t sleep … she couldn’t bear to spend another night in her bed, knowing she could be with him. She looked at her watch … two thirty. Then she got up and almost slipped at the bar, caught herself, and wandered to the back booth, shutting the door and getting a dime from her purse. She dialed his number slowly, thickly, and felt dizzy, the cheap flat tonic water coming up in her throat. There was a long wait and then the phone rang, and she felt herself tighten up—she was going to make a goddamned fool of herself again. She thought of the consciousness-raising sessions she had attended in Rochester, how brave she had felt then … without a man to lean on for the first time in years. She had been strong, good, and felt the heroine in her coming alive, which is why she risked coming to New York. But now that she was in love again (and there was no doubt about it), she was weak, thin, barely human. She felt a sudden savage urge to slam the phone down and cancel out on the whole damned thing, but there was that room, the huge, empty bed waiting for her, and she thought of the vastness of the sheets, the terror of their crisp whiteness … lying there night after night was almost like death. Last night she had dreamed the bed was closing in on her. Oh, Christ, it was ridiculous.
He didn’t answer. He wasn’t home. But where could he be? Out with another woman? No … don’t start that. She hung up and started out of the booth. The Travolta clone was moving toward her. The Bee Gee’s were still playing, and the idiot was even strutting like he was in the damned movie.
“Hey,” he said, “like, don’t I know you?”
“Buzz off,” Debby said. “I don’t dig guys.”
He moved away, holding his hands up, and she walked by him, tossing her head and pretending to chew gum. It relieved her tension, putting him down—it felt good.
Outside on the street, she looked up at the moon, cursed softly, and hurried down the block. All the way back to her apartment house, she could feel the huge yellow eye staring down at her, the bright rays lancing her back.