talking, but the short-haired girl seemed somehow apart from them. Now and then she would turn and smile at one of them and say a word or two. Then she turned her gaze back to the bar or into her drink, or just stared into the mirror behind the bar without seeing anything.
Laura glanced at her now and then. She had an interesting face. It made Laura want to talk to her. It must be the drinks, she thought, and refused another.
“I see by the look in your eye,” Jack said, “that you’ve had enough of this place. It’s nearly midnight. Are you going to turn into a pumpkin?”
“God, I hope not,” said Laura.
“It’s after midnight,” said Marcie. “Let’s go. After all, poor Burr had to get up at six this morning to get to work. He’s probably exhausted. Maybe we should leave him here and let him organize a night school for the ladies.”
“Wouldn’t be any takers in here,” Jack observed, looking around. “They aren’t ladies, they’re lessies.”
“Do you have to talk about them as if they were exhibits in a zoo?” Laura exclaimed.
“God, now we’re quarreling” said Jack, laughing. But they weren’t really, for it takes two to make a quarrel and he was feeling powerfully good-natured with all that booze in him. “Leave us not forget our dignity,” he told Laura. He enunciated with meticulous care, not to let the liquor trip his tongue.
Marcie laughed at him, and pulled Laura aside as they got up. “Let’s go,” she said, and Laura walked with her to the ladies’ room. It was a glaring change from the softly lighted Cellar. They were nearly blinded with a big bare bulb which hung by a frayed wire far down into the room and watched all the proceedings with an unblinking eye.
“You go first,” Laura said to Marcie. There were few things less appealing to her than a public rest room—especially a one-horse job like this with its staring light, cracked mirror, and mounds of used paper towels on the cement floor. She wet her comb slightly in the tap and ran it through her hair. The door opened and the girl with the short dark hair and black pants came in. She lounged indolently against the wall, studying Laura. Laura recognized her from the bar, but ignored her royally. Marcie was talking to her through the john door.
“How do you like Jack?” she said.
“A lot,” Laura said, for the benefit of the girl in the black pants. Her voice was warm enough to surprise Marcie.
“I’m glad,” she said. “I thought once or twice you were mad at him.”
Laura’s cheeks went red again. God, how she hated that! And there was nothing she could do about it. She pulled the comb hard through her hair, afraid to look into the mirror. She knew she would meet the eyes of the girl in the black pants. “He’s very intelligent,” she said to Marcie.
“He’s funny,” Marcie said, coming out of the john. She nearly walked into the strange girl and said, “Oh! Excuse me.”
“My pleasure,” the girl murmured with a grin.
Laura felt suddenly jealous. It was maddening. She didn’t know who she was jealous of. She wanted the other girl to notice her, not Marcie. And she wanted Marcie to notice her, too. She stood a moment in confusion and then she said to the girl in the black pants, “Go ahead.” And nodded at the john. She said it to make her look up, which she did, slowly, and smiled. She looked shockingly boyish. Laura stared slightly.
“Thanks,” said the girl.
She shut the door behind her and Marcie laughed silently, covering her mouth with her hand. But Laura turned away, excitement tight in her throat. “Let’s go,” she said impatiently, dragging Marcie away from the mirror. She was afraid the strange girl would come out and talk to them. She was anxious to get out of The Cellar, out of the Village. She felt a pressing sense of danger.
Marcie turned to her as they went back to the table, and said, “I’ll bet Burr couldn’t have gotten anywhere with that one!” And she laughed. “She’d throw a hammer lock on him and tell him to pick on somebody his own size.”
Laura smiled faintly at her.
“Did you see how she stared at you?” Marcie said.
“Did she stare at me?”
“Yes, but she stared at me too. That’s the awful thing about Lesbians, they have no discrimination.”
Laura suddenly wanted to scream at her. It was so wrong, so false; so agonizing to have your lips sealed when you wanted to shout the truth.
They left the smoky Cellar and walked a few blocks, talking. Jack took a weaving course, and Laura had to steer him with one arm.
“Let’s take a taxi,” Marcie said.
“It’s only two blocks to the subway,” Burr reminded her.
“Can’t you ever spend a little extra on me?” she exclaimed. “Don’t you think I’m good enough to ride in a taxi? Don’t you think I’m worth another buck once in a while? You did when we got married.”
“Yeah, and I went broke. Subway’s cheap.”
“Well, I’m not!”
“Here, here,” said Jack. He took a quarter from his pocket and held it up to Marcie’s face.
“Heads,” she said.
He flipped while Laura thought to herself what child’s play it all was. Jack seemed unsophisticated now and Marcie and Burr had lost the beauty and excitement they seemed to generate together, even in the midst of their quarrels, perhaps because of them. We all look tired and silly, Laura thought, and I wish we were anywhere but the middle of Greenwich Village flipping over a taxi ride.
“Heads!” said Marcie. She poked Burr in the stomach.
“No show next week,” he said.
“You don’t think I care, do you?”
“Never mind, children, this is my treat,” said Jack. He smiled foxily. “I’m no fool with money,” he said. “I grow it in my window box. I give it all to Mother, here, and she invests it for me. Don’t you, Mother?”
“Don’t be an ass,” said Laura, but she laughed at him. “She loves me,” Jack explained to Burr and Marcie. Suddenly he left them all to dash into the middle of the street, waving his arms wildly at a pair of headlights that were bearing down on him. They screeched to a halt with an irate taxi driver behind them. Marcie gave a little scream and the driver leaned out and said, “You damn fool!”
“You’d better get that punk home and give him some black coffee, lady,” he told Laura as they started uptown. “If you don’t mind a little advice.”
“He’s going to hate himself tomorrow,” Marcie said.
“He’s damn lucky he’s gonna be around tomorrow,” said the cabbie. They all talked about him as if he were deaf.
And in fact, he was, for he had fallen asleep almost as soon as he got into the cab.
“Does he do this all the time?” Laura asked Burr.
“He’s a great guy, Laura,” Burr said, as if trying to bolster Jack in Laura’s eyes. “He just flies off the handle now and then. I guess he’s got problems.”
At the apartment Laura got out first. Burr said, “I’ll wake him up, Laura,” but she protested. “Just let him sleep,” she said. “I’d hate to interrupt his dreams.”
“I heard that,” said a ragged voice from the shadow inside the car. “You’re a doll, Mother. Sleep well.”
“Good night,” Laura said, smiling.