She sat on the edge of the bed watching him as he came in. He stopped just inside the door, pulling it closed behind him so that the doorknob punched him in the back and he had to take another step forward.
She sat stiffly, her knees close together, her hands folded in her lap. One corner of her mouth twitched, as though she wanted to smile but could not, and there was no lipstick on her mouth. On the bed beside her was an old leather suitcase, and another stood upright on the floor at her feet.
“Where’s Jack?” Ben asked.
“He said he was going out and get something to drink.” Her voice was young and frightened, and the smile she finally managed was frightened. She had been crying, he saw, and he wished he had stayed down at the Hitching Post, drinking beer with Harpy and Petey Willing and Red.
“I’m Ben Proctor,” he said. “Jack’s roommate.”
“Oh, he’s told me about you. I’m Vassilia Baird. Everybody calls me V, though.”
“Okay, V,” Ben said. “Any friend of Jack’s.” He picked up an armful of clothes from the rickety straight chair, dropped them on his bed, and sat down facing her over the back of the chair. Blonde hair grew low on her forehead and curved inward almost to meet her eyebrows at the sides of her face. She hesitated when Ben offered her a cigarette, then took one; her fingernails were unpainted and cut short. Ben lit the cigarette for her and she drew on it intently and exhaled a huge cloud of smoke.
“I haven’t been smoking very long,” she said. Her smile grew a little more sure of itself. Her brown eyes looked directly into his, seeming to demand he keep the conversation going.
Ben jerked his head at the suitcases. “Leaving town, V?”
Her eyes dropped. She shook her head. Ben said quickly, “Well, it’s sure a lousy night.”
“Oh, is it?” V got up and walked to the window with quick, nervous steps. She stood gazing at the dark pane. Ben could see the reflection of her blouse, startlingly white in the mirror of the window. He looked her over, remembering what Jack had said: She’s cute as hell, and I don’t think she’s ever even seen a man before. And she’s really stacked. And she was: long legs and high breasts and just enough flesh around her hips. Ben watched the curve of her cheek as she rested her hands on the sill and stared out the window. Her face was very young. Jailbait, he said to himself, but it did not express what he was thinking. He wondered if Jack had slept with her yet. Somehow he knew Jack had, and he hated it, because she looked young and fresh, and she did not look like that kind.
“It isn’t very nice, is it?” V said. She came back to the bed and sat down again, resuming exactly the same position. “Is it going to rain, Ben?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” He flicked ashes from his cigarette into the cuff of his pants. “I guess it will,” he said angrily.
“What do you do, Ben?”
“I run a cat. Like Jack.”
“Are you working now?”
“I’m working on the new highway. Down south of town.”
“Have you known Jack a long time?”
“Three or four years,” Ben said.
Her smile was strengthened again, as though she were glad of this, and he knew that now she was going to ask questions about Jack. He tried to think of something to say so that she wouldn’t, but then he heard footsteps on the stairs, on the landing, the door opened and Jack came in, carrying a paper sack. Ben glanced at him quickly.
“Hi,” Jack said. “What do you know, Ben?”
“Not much.” He got to his feet and said, “Well, I guess I’ll go out and get some dinner.”
“Stick around,” Jack said. “Have a drink.” He put the sack down on the table beside the washstand, and took from it a bottle of bourbon and a bottle of ginger ale. The empty sack toppled over and fell to the floor. Jack brought down the two glasses from the shelf, rinsed out the glass their toothbrushes stood in, half-filled the three with liquor and ginger ale and handed them around.
Ben watched V watching Jack. Everything she felt was on her face for him to see. She was smiling, still sitting stiffly, but when Jack sat down beside her she stopped smiling and looked up at him. Ben turned his eyes to the window; his face felt frozen and stiff. In the railroad yards he could hear a string of freights sliding by, the yard engine going, “Huh-huh-huh.” The window was black and depthless, reflecting the ceiling light like a white, artificial moon.
“Well, here’s to every damn thing,” Jack said. He raised his glass. Ben watched a strained expression come over V’s face; her throat worked as she took a drink, and he knew it was the first she had ever had. He felt the expression on his own face change slightly to become the same as hers. He saw her shudder, and then she tried to smile.
“What’s the matter?” Jack asked, grinning crookedly.
“Ugh!”
“That your first drink, V?” Ben asked, and when she nodded, he said, “Jack should have got you some good stuff, instead of feeding you this cheap junk.”
Jack frowned, turned, and looked steadily at Ben. “Hey, Ben.”
“Yeah?”
“Hey, do you suppose you could go over and stay with Red for a couple days?”
“Oh,” Ben said. “Okay. Sure, Jack.” He looked at the suitcases, then at V, then at Jack. Jack winked. V’s eyes were fixed on her lap. She crossed her legs and tucked her skirt in around them.
“Sure,” Ben said again. He finished his drink in silence, rose self-consciously and went over to the bureau. He could feel Jack’s eyes watching him as he pulled some underpants and socks and shirts and a pair of clean levis from his drawer and stuffed them into his canvas bag. Carrying the bag he took his shaving gear and toothbrush from the washstand and walked to the door.
V was drawing a circle on the bed cover with her forefinger and Jack’s arm lay around her waist. Somehow Ben knew she was crying. He heard her whisper, “Goodbye, Ben, I’m glad to’ve met you,” and Jack said, “So long,” and then he stepped outside and pulled the door closed.
As he did so he dropped his toothbrush, and stooping to pick it up, he felt furious; at the toothbrush for falling, and at Jack and V. In his car driving over to Red’s, he grumbled aloud at this imposition, but he knew what angered him was Jack, at whom he did not want to be angry, and V, because he was sorry for her, and there was no use being sorry for her. But he could not force from his mind the picture of V sitting on the bed with her knees and feet close together and her hands in her lap, and in her eyes fear and loneliness, and in them too the hope for something for which she had no right to hope.