The Lonely Lady (33 page)

It was, as the doctor had told her to expect, the aftereffect of the anesthetic.

After a moment the pain subsided and she got out of bed. She made her way to the bathroom, quickly swallowed two Bufferin and sat on the toilet. She felt congested and swollen, as if she needed to have a bowel movement. But after a moment when nothing happened she gave up and simply decided to change the tampon.

She looked at it curiously before discarding it. It wasn’t as bloody as she thought it might be, no more so than an ordinary period. So far the doctor had been right.

Angela’s voice was soft through the closed bathroom door. “JeriLee. Are you all right in there?”

“I’m fine.”

“The coffee is made,” Angela said. “I’ll have breakfast ready by the time you come out.”

“Thank you. But I’ll be a few minutes. I want to shower first.”

“It’s okay. Take your time.”

JeriLee realized as she stepped into the stall shower that it had been more than a month since Angela had been to see her, and she wondered why she had chosen to come today of all days.

Coffee and orange juice were waiting on the night table when JeriLee emerged from the bathroom. The sheets felt cool and crisp against her skin and she realized that Angela must have changed them while she was showering. She propped the pillows behind her, drained the glass of orange juice and had just finished pouring her first cup of coffee when Angela came back carrying a tray laden with scrambled eggs, bacon and toast.

“I didn’t think I’d be hungry,” JeriLee said.

Angela’s gentle eyes smiled. “Eat then. If you want more I can make it.”

Angela sat on the chair next to the bed and poured herself a cup of coffee. “Aren’t you eating?” JeriLee asked.

Angela shook her head. “I just want some coffee.”

“What made you come today?” JeriLee asked after a moment.

Angela’s eyes were steady. “I thought you could use some help.”

“You knew?”

Angela nodded. “Everyone knows. George can’t keep his mouth shut and your agent wasn’t much better.”

There were no secrets anywhere, she thought, taking another bite of egg. “You’re not working today?”

“No. We’ve taped all our shows for the week. I’m not due back in the studio until Monday.”

Angela was the ingénue on a daily television show,
The Stars Never Fall
. Every afternoon at two o’clock housewives all over the country turned on their sets to watch it. It was probably the most successful soap in history. In the five years Angela had been on the show it had always been number one in its time slot.

JeriLee wiped up the plate with a piece of toast. “That was good,” she said.

“Food always helps,” Angela said.

JeriLee smiled. “My mother always said that.”

Angela picked up the tray and started for the door. “If there is anything else you want,” she said, “I’ll be here.”

“Angela,” JeriLee called.

The girl looked back.

“Thank you, Angela,” JeriLee said.

Angela’s eyes filled with tears and she turned, closing the door behind her with her foot.

JeriLee stared at the closed door. Angela cared about her. She had always known that. She cared about Angela too. But there was a difference. The difference was that she loved Angela but Angela was in love with her.

Angela—tall, slim, beautiful—so cool on the outside but so frightened and fucked up on the inside. Why had it happened? It should have been so easy for her. But nothing ever brought her any real satisfaction. Her search for love was endless and unrequited.

Still it had to have begun somewhere for Angela, just as it had to have begun somewhere for her. But it was difficult to tell exactly where. We are the sum total of our experiences to any given point. And the point was always changing.

For JeriLee it had started somewhere between Port Clare, New York and Los Angeles and all the way stops and towns in between—Pittsburgh, Gary, Chicago, Des Moines, Phoenix, Las Vegas. She’d been to all of them. And she’d had them all—all the way to the madhouse.

Strange that that should come back to her now. A cold shiver of fear ran through her. Did it mean she was sliding back, back into that world of fear where everyone was a stranger?

No! she thought. She was not going back. It would never be like that again. Never would she let herself be used, not by anyone, not for any reason, even love.

She would give only what she could give. Too many times she had tried to be what others wanted her to be. And it hadn’t worked. She could not be all things to all people. She could not even be all things to one person. And it was not until she recognized that in herself and saw the limitations of her own capacities that she began to be able to accept herself and give up some of the guilt.

She knew she couldn’t run the mile in four minutes, or soar like a gull in the morning wind. And there were mornings when the day seemed to stretch into disaster. But there would always be those times, those days, and if she recognized them not as signs of failure and weakness, but as part of her basic humanness and right to be imperfect, she would never have to be afraid again.

That was the one thing she had learned and it had helped. At least now she could stand alone without the need to clutch and cling for support. Still it would be good if there were someone. It was not fun to be alone.

She lit a cigarette and leaned back against the pillows. That was the heart of it. Aloneness. All of it, all of them, the men, the women. When it was over and they were gone you came back to being alone. Still she knew that just outside the window there was a world filled with people.

What was it Angela had said to her one morning while they were lying on the bed together, the Sunday papers spread between them. “You never seem to want anything, JeriLee. You never ask anyone to do anything for you, not even to get you a cup of coffee. Just once I would like you to ask me to do something. At least that way I would feel needed.”

“Is that what you want—to be needed?”

Angela nodded. “How else can I tell that I mean something to you.”

“Isn’t it enough that we’re together, that we’ve been balling all night? Doesn’t that mean anything?”

“That’s sex. I know I’m not the only one you sleep with and there’s nothing you can do with me that you don’t do with others. But I want more. I want to be important to you.”

“Would you feel better if I couldn’t function without you?” JeriLee asked.

Angela didn’t answer.

Suddenly she was angry, more with herself than with Angela. “I haven’t lied to you, have I?” she demanded. “I told you exactly where it would be with us, didn’t I?”

Angela nodded, misery in her eyes. “Yes,” she answered in a small voice.

“Then what more do you want from me?”

“I want you to love me.”

“I can’t love you the way you want me to. I can only love you the way I do.”

“Don’t be angry with me, JeriLee.”

She walked over to the window and looked out into the bright California sunshine. Down below them the traffic on the Strip was beginning to come alive. “There’s a whole world out there, Angela,” she said. “And somewhere there is someone who will love you the way you want to be loved. All you have to do is give that world a chance.”

Angela came to the window and stood beside her. “Is there someone out there for you too, JeriLee?” she asked.

A sudden sorrow flooded JeriLee, a knowledge of her own and Angela’s pain. It was as if they were sisters, even more than sisters. Suddenly they moved toward each other and their tears mingled.

“I hope so,” JeriLee said softly. “I should hate to think there wasn’t.”

Then they had gone back to bed and made love and in the sweet agony of their sex they had rediscovered their sameness and their separateness. But by the time Sunday had gone they knew that the affair was over, even though a residue of their love would remain with them.

The next morning when Angela had gone to work she had taken her small suitcase but she had not returned JeriLee’s key. Suddenly she realized how Angela had come into her apartment this morning. But right now she was tired. The pain throbbed in her pelvis, a reminder of yesterday.

The telephone rang and she picked it up. “How are you feeling?” the doctor asked.

“Okay,” she answered. “The pain just started up again but I’m not bleeding as much as I thought.”

His voice was matter-of-fact. “You’ll bleed a little but don’t be frightened, and keep taking some aspirin to kill the pain. Stay in bed if you can. If you need someone to take care of you I can send over a practical nurse.”

“That’s okay. A friend of mine is here.”

“Good. I’ll look in on you this afternoon on my way back from the hospital.”

“Thank you.”

A moment later the door opened. “Everything all right?” Angela asked.

“Yes. It was the doctor. He’s coming by this afternoon.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Nothing, thanks. He just told me to stay in bed and rest.” She leaned back against the pillows. “I think I’ll try to sleep.”

JeriLee stared at the closed door. Which, she wondered, was the stronger—needing, or the need to be needed? She didn’t know the answer. Probably never would.

Suddenly she remembered what Fred had said many years ago: “We’re good for each other, baby, because we need each other.”

She had agreed with him. But neither of them had really known what the needs were. And in the end it turned out that she had been feeding on herself.

Chapter 2

The chatter of the typewriter keys stopped. She sat at the small table staring at the words on the page, their sound still echoing in her mind.

“I love you. I don’t love you. How the hell do I know how I feel?”

She rose from the chair and went to the window. The city street was dark and deserted except for a garbage truck that was collecting refuse from the restaurant across the street. The radio clock told her it was two thirty in the morning. She went back to the table, took a deep drag on the cigarette and ground it out in the ashtray already littered with broken butts. Without sitting down, she hit the keys, forming the final word: CURTAIN.

Almost angrily, she tore the page from the typewriter and put it in the box on top of the rest of the neatly typed pages. It was finished.

The momentary anger passed and now she felt drained and empty. Tomorrow, with the realities she had put off day after day while clinging to her writing, loomed in front of her. Tomorrow she would have to think about money, about paying bills. Tomorrow she would have to go beyond her own walls, back into the world of people, back into the marketplace which sat in judgment upon her work.

She felt the nervousness rise within her, and she started to tremble. What are you afraid of, JeriLee? she asked herself. You’ve done nothing wrong. You’ve been working. You had a reason not to leave the cocoon.

But her hands were shaking to the point that she couldn’t hold them still. She went into the bathroom and took the vial of Valium from the medicine cabinet, then popped a ten-mg blue, which she flushed down with a swallow of water.

She looked up at the clock. Two thirty-five. It would be an hour and a half before Fred got home. He had a weekend gig at a bar on West Forty-ninth Street and wouldn’t be out until after three o’clock. The tightness began to disappear from the pit of her stomach. She was beginning to feel better now. Her confidence was returning.

It was done. The play was finished. Tomorrow she could get on with her life. There was nothing to be afraid of, except what was in her head.

The first thing she had to do was get the play to Fannon. He had promised that he would do it. The next thing she had to do was to go to a beauty parlor. No, first she would go to the beauty parlor, then she would take the play to Fannon. She wanted to look her best when she walked into his office.

She began to separate the originals and the carbons. In a few minutes she had them all neatly together, each copy in its own ring binder. It wasn’t a bad job. The typing service couldn’t have done better—and they charged more than a hundred dollars, for five copies. Quickly she stacked them on the shelf, put the cover over the typewriter and wheeled it into the closet. The room looked strangely empty. It was the first time in almost six months that the typewriter wasn’t the main fixture.

A feeling of elation came over her. This was an important moment. A time to celebrate. This was a night for champagne and caviar. She opened the cupboard—Gallo chablis and Planter’s peanuts. That wasn’t so bad either.

She put the bottle of wine into the freezing compartment, placed a tablecloth and two candles on the small table and emptied the can of peanuts into a glass bowl. Quickly she straightened the rest of the room, even emptying the wastebasket of all the rejected pages. Now there was no messy trace of work. She lit the candles and turned off the lights, then stepped back to observe the effect. The warm yellow glow flickered through the room.

Satisfied, she went into the bathroom and stripped off her shirt and jeans. She still had time to shower and do something with her hair before Fred came home. After all, it was a special night and she wanted to look special.

***

Despite the efforts of the conditioners, the air was still heavy with the smell of cigarettes, beer and sweat. Fred looked at his watch. A quarter to three. Only fifteen minutes to go. He looked down at the white keyboard of the piano. There was a nothing feeling to playing and singing. Nobody listened, and if they did they couldn’t hear over the noise.

From his perch near the back of the room he looked down the bar. The bar girls were hustling. It was a good night. Maybe fifty percent of the men were in uniform. Now he knew why the owners fought so hard to keep off the armed services’ banned list. Without servicemen there was no business.

“Fred.” He turned and saw Licia standing behind him. She was a big honey-colored girl with a lustrous Nancy Wilson wig. The unofficial chief bar girl, she had a quiet air about her that belied her inner toughness. And for whatever reason, nobody fooled with her, neither the girls nor the customers. She talked with them, had drinks with them, but when the bar closed she left alone.