Two Girls Fat and Thin (43 page)

Justine’s boyfriend seemed to contemplate this silently. I heard the door across the hall close. I heard rustling and floor creaking; probably he was getting dressed. I relaxed slightly.

The bathroom door popped open, and Justine minced out, a towel precariously wrapped about her nakedness. Her short hair was sleekly wet against her head. At first glance she seemed much refreshed. She looked at me, blinking rapidly, rubbed her face, and stood in the middle of the room with her arms around herself, staring at the door.

“Justine,” he said from the hallway. “Justine.”

His voice surprised me. It was mournful and gentle, full of
remorse. It was vulnerable as a child alone in the dark. I looked at Justine. I could see in her face that the voice affected her, but she made no move to open the door.

“Justine,” he said. “Honey.”

She shook her head and approached the door, her buttocks peeking out of her towel. “Bryan,” she answered, “you have to go away.”

“Will you call me later?”

“No. Go away.”

He made no response, nor did we hear him walk away. Justine listened attentively for a moment, then shrugged. She went to the bed and sat on it, looked at me, and then looked away. “Shit,” she muttered. She covered her face with her hands and hunched forward.

I didn’t know what to say.

“So,” she said into her hands. “I guess you didn’t like the article.”

“No,” I said. “I didn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t think you would.” She came out of her hunch and faced me. “But I couldn’t help it. I had to say my opinion.”

“You certainly didn’t say your opinion when you were talking to me.”

“Well as a reporter I don’t have to. And I did say enough that—”

There was a quiet knock at the door.

Her little face coiled furiously, she shot off the bed and attacked the door with vicious, flat-footed kicks. “Dumb fucking scumbag!” she screamed. “Get away!” She stood combative, panting, I thought rather ridiculous as she faced down the door, clutching her towel. After a few seconds of silence, she daintily adjusted the towel and returned to the bed. She looked at me. “But I don’t think I can talk about it now. I’m exhausted. I’ve been up all night.” Somewhat incongruously, she blushed.

“Me too,” I said.

In the ensuing silence we heard footsteps retreating down the stairs. “Thank God,” said Justine. “I thought he’d never leave.” She stood up and walked past me to the kitchenette against the wall. “Would you like some camomile tea?”

I said yes and looked for a place to sit. There were no chairs or couch in the tiny studio, only the bed. I moved to sit on it, and she stopped me. “Wait,” she said, “let me change those sheets.” She dropped the towel and momentarily revealed her wounded body.

“Why,” I said, “why did you let him do that to you?”

She didn’t answer me. She took a robe from the closet and put it on. She began to strip the sheets from the bed. I waited, but she just said, “I’m glad you came.” Her voice trembled, and she seemed to be trying to hide her face from me. She turned and stuffed the sheets in a laundry bag then drew a folded new sheet from the closet. She cracked it open and let it float over the bed. Then she crawled over the mattress tucking it under, looking like an animal in its burrow. “There,” she said. “Have a seat.”

We sat against large pillows and drank tea from china cups with flowers on them. We were silent at first, looking at each other, then looking away. I noticed that our hands were still shaking. I said again, “Why did you let him do that to you?”

“I didn’t let him do anything,” she snapped. She looked at me almost insolently. “I told him what to do.” Her jaw twitched violently. “Except towards the end.”

“Why?”

She looked away and slightly down and shrugged one small shoulder, the gesture of an adolescent in the principal’s office. “I don’t know.” With tight lips, she sipped her tea. I noted the outline of her naked eyelashes and the fine curve of her cheek. She looked back at me. “Does it disgust you?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know. I think so.”

“Well, you’re probably right. Although it’s not as awful as it looks when you just sort of burst in on it like that. I mean
when
you’re doing it, it’s, you know. Except this got a little . . .” She put her teacup on the table near the bed and lay back against the pillow, curling her legs up and tucking her feet securely under the robe. She didn’t finish her sentence.

“You don’t disgust me,” I said uncertainly. I looked at her cheaply beautiful old vanity with its chipped wood, its carved mirror under a gray veil of dust. On it were musty old perfume bottles with sticky remnants on the bottom, scattered rings and brooches, a
piece of ribbon, and different colored candles in holders of all shapes and sizes, all lightly layered with dust. Pasted to the mirror was a black-and-white photograph of a very young child in a bathing suit, posing with a seductiveness that was unsettling in a preschooler. “I always thought you were interesting,” I said. “I thought about you a lot.”

“Really? What did you think?”

“Just that I would like to talk to you. Of course,” I continued, rather bitterly, “that’s probably because I don’t have any friends. When you came to interview me, it was the longest talk I’d had with anyone for years. So naturally I fixated.” I drank my tea.

“I don’t have any friends either.” She spoke sorrowfully.

“Really?” It was hard for me to believe. I thought all pretty people had friends.

“Well, I know a few people. I go out sometimes. But I don’t have real friends.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard for me to be close to people.” She sat up again and allowed her hair to shield her profile.

We sat silently for some time. As my body systems slowly regained their usual stately plod, the adrenaline drained from my flesh, and I imagined going home to sleep.

Then I realized she was crying. Tears dropped from her chin onto her folded hands, and she trembled small and hard. She sat erect and contained, dabbing at her face with the sleeve of her robe and gulping discreetly. I didn’t comfort her because her body did not invite it. But I sat with my heart opened to her, feeling her heart mournfully opening to me, sending me the messages that can be received only by another heart, that which the intellect can never apprehend.

Still crying, she said, “I’m sorry about the article. I really am.”

“It’s all right,” I said. “Frankly I haven’t had so much excitement in years.”

I felt her smile inwardly; her trembling stopped.

“I thought of you too sometimes,” she said, tears still in her throat.

“What? What did you think?”

She sniffed and wiped at her nose. “They weren’t really thoughts. Just images, feelings. I could tell you were very strong, and I wondered how you got to be that way.”

“I already told you how.” I spoke rather stiffly.

She smiled. “Anna Granite?”

“Yes. Anna Granite.” My irritation with her flickered and died.

“I don’t think that’s it,” she said.

I didn’t answer. A cloud swallowed what little sun had come in through her barred window. She settled more deeply into the pillow and stretched her naked legs out from beneath the robe, tautly splaying then relaxing her toes. I felt the last of her tears leave her. She closed her eyes. I sat there watching her hand rise and fall on her stomach, the sound of her breath stroking my face. The hum of her refrigerator crawled up my backbone. I closed my eyes. A cocoon of dreams spun about me.

“Dorothy.” Justine’s voice woke me. Dimly I regarded her. “I’m going to lie down and try to sleep. I know the bed is small but if you want, you can sleep here.”

We lay down side by side, politely observing the conventions of strangers sharing a bed. I could feel her small body bristling with contained fidgets as she lay stiffly on her side, not invading my side of the bed. I too clung rigorously to etiquette, lying with my back to her, curled to take up as little room as possible.

The politeness of course kept us awake; although I had barely been able to keep my eyes open a moment ago, now I found myself trying to soothe my tense body to sleep by parading before it the gray images of ordinariness. Legal documents. Breakfast. Justine scratched herself and sighed. A long moment rolled by. She shifted her legs. I thought: If only I could lie on my back. Exhaustion eased down upon us, dimming mental clarity but not extinguishing it. Asia Maconda’s face swam across my mental field.

“I can’t sleep,” said Justine.

Her voice was so worn that I turned to her with an impulse to comfort. At the same time she turned towards me. Her thin arms went around my body, her face pressed against my shoulder. I held her side and cupped her head, careful not to touch her injured back. Her body against me was like a phrase of music. My muscles
were calmed, white flowers bloomed on my heart. Asia Maconda’s face still stared at me from inside my head. I stared back, wondering that this completely imaginary face had meant so much to me for so long. I watched it dissolve into pieces as I went to sleep with my arms around Justine Shade.

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