The Dud Avocado - Elaine Dundy [64]
“Do you think we ought to get ahold of the Herald Trib to look at the notice?” I asked, hoping it was the right thing to say.
“It’ll be too early yet,” he replied tenderly; and then, “Hey, I’ll be damned!” He sat up suddenly. “Speak of the devil! Look who’s over there will you?” He indicated the bar, where Crazy Eyes and his sister the mono-dancer stood at the far end over in a corner, and waved at them gaily. Larry’s erratic behavior was beginning to get me down. All this blowing hot and cold was making me dizzy, and apart from everything else the idea that he could like those two infuriated me.
“Well for God’s sake don’t ask them over here,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t stand them, that’s why. I spent the night at the prefecture on account of him, you remember, and—oh, why go on? She’s nothing but a prostitute and he’s just a common thief.”
“Oh-h-h. Oh, well. Thanks for telling me. That makes all the difference of course. I wouldn’t dream of asking them over now that I know that. Pimps, prostitutes and thieves. You’ve got a label for everything, haven’t you, Miss Gorce? Why don’t you try living in this world for a change?” He rose. “Excuse me for a minute, will you? I’ll just go over and say hello.”
I wanted to cry; I couldn’t think why I wasn’t. The unfairness of it all. What had I done, anyway? I sat on, propped up on the table, staring blankly at nothing, like one of those Absinthe Drinkers. I noticed my elbows and arms were caked with dirt from all the dirty tables I’d been sitting at, and my hands black from all the dirty people I’d been meeting. I felt myself kind of slipping away.
Larry, back at my side again, was apologizing for jumping down my throat. He said he didn’t know what had got into him, probably his delayed First Night reaction, and then he fell into one of his corny moods and got all wound up about how if only he had enough money he could tell them all to go —— themselves and start his own theater, a Balletic Puppet Theater like the one run by someone called Pertu Dubecq, which was the only True Theater, because it was the Universal Theater; theater everyone could understand. And I said everyone except me, because people were always telling me ballet was universal, but I’d never seen a ballet whose story I was able to follow even when the program notes were in English. And he laughed and said the hell with all that, how about ordering a bottle of champagne to celebrate living in this world? And I said I’d had so much to drink I was practically out of it.
It was true: the evening was swimming together into a great big, shiny mother-of-pearl oyster-shell floating off to infinity.… But time was spreading itself out before me now, instead of slipping away.…
It was halfway through the morning, the sun shining into my hotel room between spaces in the drawn curtains, and I was lying naked under the bedclothes feeling that something had gone horribly, horribly wrong. For one thing, there at my feet sat Larry, getting dressed not quickly exactly, but, well, steadily. For another, although I couldn’t remember any of the details, the whole thought stretched across my mind was: What a stupid thing to have done. What a stupid thing to have done.… But what? What? It was no use. Whatever it was seemed destined to remain buried deep down inside that bed forever.
I made a colossal effort. I raised myself up and said hello.
“Good morning,” said Larry. “How do you feel?”
“Gosh, I——” I stopped. Quite independently of anything I knew about myself, I found I was all hot and faint. My breath was coming in gasps. Larry went right on dressing. The suspense was suffocating.
“What … happened?” I finally asked.
There was a pause during which I had to close my eyes.
“Don’t worry, it’s O.K. Nothing,” he assured me.
Nothing! I was reeling with shame.
“Was I … just … too awful … or something?” I whispered faintly.
“Oh no. Oh, come now. As a matter of fact we were both pretty drunk you know, and tired, and exhausted and overwrought. I—um—I didn’t mean to