What’s Happening? (3 page)

“Come on, let's go. You can think about it as we walk. Come on. What's the story?” Bill smiled. He stood, moving Rita's chair out so that she could stand. She looked at him, trembling unknowingly. Her stomach turned uncomfortably. He took her hand that trembled slightly. She stood, smiling, biting her lip, and they made their way out of the theatre.

2

“So when do you go to this drama class of yours?”

Bill's voice floated abstractly through the darkness of Rita's apartment. The dimness was relieved by occasional comet-like flashes across the ceiling, reflected from the traffic babbling in the street below. Rita and Bill lay on the bed engaged in naked, anti-climactic conversation, fulfilling the awkward need for verbal intercourse to affirm their humanity.

“We have class three nights a week. Phil Avery teaches us. Ever hear of him?”

She twisted onto her side to face Bill. In the shrouded room, she could distinguish only the dark outline of his head against the pillow. Her eyes strained to pierce the darkness surrounding his features but failed. Clamping her eyes shut to block out the present dim realities, Rita pondered if she had wanted—really wanted—to go to bed with Bill. It was too late, of course, but she wanted to be sure. Had she wanted him, or had she merely reacted impulsively against her fear of indecision, of immaturity? If she had assumed her present position solely out of fright, it served no purpose save to physically underscore her utter failure to stand on her own reasonable, adult feet.
Of course it was what I wanted
, she thought, furious at her doubting self. She opened her eyes suddenly, abandoning insidious thought, turning her attention to Bill and the conversation.

“No, I haven't. Should I have?”

His fingers touched her arm, slid to her hand and pressed it in his. He twisted to look at her. She too was a faceless shadow. She snuggled closer to him, resting her hand on his chest, methodically smoothing the hair there, still peering at his shadow. She wondered if she remembered what he looked like.

“Well, he was in the original cast of
Oklahoma
and
South Pacific
, and now he's in
My Fair Lady
.”

Certainly I know what he looks like
, she thought angrily, forcing his image to appear before her mind's eye.

“Sounds like he knows what he's doing. But how the hell does he teach if he's in a show now?”

Another comet flashed through the slit in the curtains. It passed across Bill, for an instant illuminating his face to a cadaverous grey. Rita stopped stroking his chest; her hand rested inertly. It was a stranger's face—a face the features of which she knew only fleetingly—and yet this stranger was in bed with her, and she with him. Qualms stirred her stomach uncomfortably.
Hell
, she admonished herself,
it is only the hollow ideals about propriety my parents have crammed into me that disturb me—a lot of frightened bourgeois nonsense that means nothing, that is constantly paid lip service, and that is only adhered to by the mouthers when absolutely necessary
. Bill was fun and she was enjoying him, she concluded. She twisted away from Bill to lie flat on her back and stare thoughtfully at the ceiling.

“The class begins at five thirty and lasts until seven o'clock, that's how.”

Bill folded his arms behind his head for a pillow, still peering toward her. She twisted her head toward him, gazing at his face, for which her imagination supplied the features, and smiled. It was exactly what she had wanted, she ventured to convince herself. She leaned forward and their mouths fused. They parted and she rested her head on his chest.

“How're you doing with it?”

“I've been taking lessons since I moved down here.… That's three months.” Her jaw muscles flexed against his chest as she spoke. “I've done pretty good so far. Phil said I'd really make it if I kept at it. I will, too. I've got to,” she vowed, utterly determined, her jaw muscles set firmly against his chest. “You know what I want to do—achieve? I want to be so good … so good that someday I'll make a whole audience … cry.” She fell silent, inwardly choked up. “I've already won a scholarship for next term. That's good,” she exclaimed proudly, thinking aloud, “I can sure use the money I'll save.”

“You pay for your own lessons now?”

“Sure. You don't think my folks are supporting me, do you?” she asked sharply, a tremor of anger in her voice. She raised her head to look toward his face.

“Take it easy, baby. I don't know … I haven't the slightest idea.” Bill didn't want an argument to jeopardize his warm position. He twisted and put an arm across her soft belly. “Come on, baby … take it easy. Let's not spoil it.”

She relaxed again under his urging.

“Where you from originally?” he asked.

“Brooklyn. My folks still live there.” Brooklyn—shady streets of black asphalt and sunlight filtering between fluttering leaves—flashed through her memory.

“So how come you live here? Brooklyn's not far. It's kind of tough having to pay for school and the rent and everything, isn't it?”

“It's better than being a brainless stooge,” she fired back determinedly.

“You mean it was a hassle?”

“It wasn't that so much. It was just … I don't know what. They bugged me, … told me to wear this, hear that, say this, do that, you know? What a God damn rotten deal it was! They thought I was just a lump of clay to be smacked into any shape they wanted. I don't know why they bother to have children. They don't know a God damn thing about raising them.” She snorted contempt.

“What do you think, everybody else has a picnic?”

“No, it's just that this is what I felt. I can't feel everything for everybody else, can I? I only really know the things that bother me. If somebody else has a rough time, let him stick up for himself.”

“You sound harder than you are,” he joshed with innuendo.

“It's not that …” she said, ignoring his comment. “But you've got to watch out for yourself in this world. Nobody else does it for you. Maybe that's right … that everybody should care for themselves. But it would be nice once in a while to relax. You know, once have somebody care for you, about you.…” Her voice trailed off forlornly. She reflected quietly for many moments. “Nobody can love you like your parents, you know that?” she continued.

“I never thought about it much.”

“Well, everybody is out for something. You know, they treat people nice if they can get something for themselves out of it. Your parents, they love you all the time—they should anyway—not because you do anything, can do anything, but like you're theirs … you're you, part of them.”

“I guess you're right. Like I said, I never think about it.”

“It's a bitch when they don't even give a shit about you! Take my parents, … please?” They laughed momentarily. “I don't know why they had me,” she continued, serious again. “I guess for the same reason they do everything else—it's the
thing
! They didn't want to be out of the race, you know?” One thought led, through painful association, to another, and Rita's anger spilled over. It was a sort of relief, however, to give these thoughts their freedom, to be able to vent her true emotions and feelings to someone without polite suppression or fear of retaliation. It felt like being alive and real inside herself for a change.

“They think the only thing they have to do is go to bed and make babies. They don't know they have to care for children, that everything they do influences their children. They think a kid is a dumb clod. But it isn't. A kid is a little person! They think they're kidding you when they lie to you—you know, white lies—to get you to do things, to go to the store for them, to act nice—stories, nonsense—as if, well, someday the kid'll understand. But you don't. You resent the lie. When you can't rely on your father, where is there to go?” She fell silent for many moments.

“I wasn't treated like a person. I was a nothing … a dummy they pulled strings on,” she continued. “They want animals, little nothings, not children. It's just like some people have dogs, you know? They want the dog to be cute and to do tricks, see? But when it comes to the dog being a dog, you know, he wants to do his business, or he wants to play when his master isn't in the mood—Wham!” Rita grimaced, cutting the air viciously with her hand. “… right across the head with a strap. People like that ought to buy paper dolls and paper dogs; they never move unless you want them to.”

Bill still held her across the waist, listening quietly, breathing slowly. He thought her story a bit trite and tedious; it was her problem. He restrained his feelings, however, being in no position to be annoyed.

Bill's quiet, firm support, his understanding, calmed Rita's doubts about being with him.

“You know, they even held my God damn acting lessons over my head. I was planning to take acting lessons and they agreed to pay for them. But when anything went wrong, the first thing they said was they wouldn't pay for my lessons. They thought I was nuts, you know? The jerky kid wants to be an actress. They humored me so they'd get me to behave. They humored me like I was a fff … a dummy. Stupid bastards!” she hissed between clenched teeth. “Who needs it?” she yelled angrily, sitting up in bed.

“Hey, take it easy.” Bill sat up too. “Don't think about it.” He put his hands on her shoulders and tried to ease her back to a prone position.

“Oh, leave me alone,” she said coldly, shrugging him off.

“Listen, baby, I'm trying to help. If you don't want help, like we'll sort of forget the whole thing.”

His angered threat of sudden desertion, aloneness, cooled her raging. She turned to him, forced a smile, and slowly relented, lying down again. Bill slid his arm over her waist again.

“I live here with the girls and nobody tells me what to do,” she continued, slowly, sullenly. “Sure it's tougher than living at home in a couple of ways, but then, man,” she smiled a little now, “if I were home I wouldn't have this pad and you wouldn't be here with me.” She slid her hand across his chest, wanting to forget the unpleasant past. It was the warm and pleasant present that was important, and she wanted it to be real, tangible.

“That's right too.” Bill smiled. “I'm glad you don't live home.”

He twisted on his side to face Rita, becoming conscious of his presence and surroundings once again. He moved closer and kissed her. They embraced. Their bodies touched, and slowly began to pulsate.

It was warm and tender and nice here, she thought. She was a woman here. She was no longer a child here.

Bill's hand slid along her flank. He jerked her closer to himself, lifted himself, then enclosed her in his arms. They were engulfed in a writhing, blind passion. The room and the bed no longer existed. All that could be seen was the other's face—twisting mouth, biting lips, gnashing teeth.

Slowly, the room returned into focus. Bill lay on his back. Both breathed heavily, saying nothing, studying the ceiling.

“What do you do, Bill?”

“I'm a photographer.”

“Really? Who do you work for?”

“Myself. I'm my own boss.”

“Gee, that's great. Maybe you'll take my pictures for my composite?”

“Sure, why not?”

They were silent again. A slick of perspiration covered their bodies. She thought of being in bed with Bill, and then she thought of her bed in Brooklyn. How foreign this scene was to that other bed. How appalled her parents would be if they saw her with Bill.

Presently, a scratching sound was heard as a key slid into the lock in the front door. Rita bolted to a sitting position, thinking momentarily that it was her father entering her bedroom. After the initial shock, she realized she was in her own apartment, and that no one had more authority than she. Though she still waited cautiously to see who it was, fear relaxed its grip. Bill, too, had lurched to a sitting position instinctively. Rita put her hand on his chest to assure him with a confidence born of her feelings of adulthood, just now confirmed by her realization of independence and by Bill's nervousness. She felt very adult about her entire position now.

“It's all right,” she whispered, “only one of the girls. Shh …”

They both watched the slit in the drapes that separated the bedroom from the middle room.

The apartment was three rooms. Rita and Bill were in the bedroom. The middle room, into which the door from the hall opened, was a kitchen-dining room. In it was an old refrigerator with the large exposed coil on top, a tub supported on claw feet and covered with a porcelain top, and a low, wooden-inlaid Chinese table which was used, while people sat around it on large colored pillows, as a dining table. The front room had two windows that faced Christopher Street four stories below. One wall of the front room was covered with frosted mirroring. The room contained a couch, heavy stuffed chairs, and paintings on the walls.

Suddenly, the light from the outside hall flitted through the open door. It shed a ray of light into the middle room. Bill saw Jeannie walk into the apartment. She stood just outside the curtained doorway of the room in which he and Rita were, talking to someone in the hall. She told whoever was out there to wait until she lit a lamp.

“She'll be coming in here?” Bill whispered.

Rita was still sitting up, also gazing through the split in the drapes. She held the sheets up to her neck.

“No,” she whispered, “Jeannie sleeps outside in the living room. Laura and I sleep here. Don't worry about Laura, she won't be back for a while.”

Jeannie turned the light on in the middle room. Its rays passed between the curtains that separated the rooms. The voice of the person to whom Jeannie spoke was familiar, but Bill couldn't place it. Suddenly, the curtains parted and the shadowy outline of a head appeared in the slit. A stream of light from the outside room fell across the bed. Bill and Rita cringed self-consciously.