“Bus late again,” one woman said to another behind me, in the verbal shorthand of the usual. “Thought of walking to South for the flyer, but it’s too much money.”
“Mechanical failure at the depot,” said the other woman. “They don’t service regularly downtown, that’s the trouble. City center runs, that’s fine. But out here, we can walk all the way.”
Then they muttered together, and I knew they were talking about me, and I went hot and cold with nervous fear. Then I caught the word “actress” spoken with pity, scorn and interest. I was startled, to have myself compared to exotic Egyptia, even on the streets of the poor. Glad, also. To be an actress from this end of town meant I was struggling, too. They wouldn’t hate me. I was a symbol of possibility, and anyway would probably starve.
The bus finally came. I got off at Beech and went into the Magnum Bank, and cashed the check.
Actress. They thought I was an actress, just like Copper.
Then a flyer came, and I took it from force of habit, regretting it as I paid the coins. I was being so meanly careful of money, and then lapsing in unnecessary extravagance, and it was all a proof that I couldn’t deal with the situation, but I wasn’t going to think of it just now. Or of my mother. Or Clovis, or Egyptia, or even of him.
I got off at Racine, and walked over the New River Bridge, to Clovis’s apartment block.
As I came to the outside of his door every bone in my body seemed suddenly to turn to fluid, but I spoke to the door, anyway, asking to come in.
Maybe he, they, were out. Or—busy. And the door wouldn’t open.
The door didn’t open and didn’t open, and then it did.
I walked in, holding my purse in front of me like a sort of shield, and not looking around at the living area with its couches and pillows and tasteful decor. No one was there.
Snakes fought each other in my stomach, but I ignored them. I sat down on the couch with black cushions, and stared across at the window where I’d said “I love you” to his reflection in the glass, and he’d seen me and known.
After a few minutes, Clovis came through from the main bedroom in a dark blue three-piece suit, as if he were going out. He appeared elegant and casual, as he always does, but as soon as he looked at me, he blushed. I’d never seen the adult Clovis blush, a wave of painful color, hitting the inside of his skin so fast the pulses jumped in his temples. I remembered again, he’s seventeen. And I started to blush in sympathy, but I wouldn’t look down, and it was Clovis who turned his back and walked over to the drinks dispenser.
“Hallo, Jane. What’ll you drink?”
“I don’t want a drink. I’ve brought your money.”
“Dear me, and I was hoping to get the pound of flesh.”
He turned around with something in a glass, drinking it, cool again.
I got up, opened my purse, and counted out the large-unit notes on a table in front of him. It took quite a long while. He watched, sipping the drink from time to time, and there was lace on his shirt sleeves, like the Renaissance shirt Silver had worn on the Grand Stairway.
When I stopped, he said,
“He isn’t here, you know.”
“I know.” I had known, too. Nerves or not, I’d have sensed if he were there, that near me. “Now please just tell me what you spent on Egyptia. Did you buy her the fur coat?”
“No. She bought it herself on her delay account.”
“Do you want the money for the lunch you bought her?”
“No, Jane,” said Clovis. “Jane, it really could have waited.”
“No it couldn’t.”
“Did you have to cry all over your mother to get it?”
I stared at him. It was funny how I could dislike him, detest him so much, and still feel such affection. I didn’t really want to fight with Clovis, I didn’t really want to confide in him, but something made me, perhaps because he was the first person I could tell.
“Would you really like to know how I got the money?”
“Am I going to be awfully shocked?”
“You might be,” I said doggedly. “I sold everything I own. At least, I think I owned it. The contents of my suite. Bed, chairs, ornaments, books, stereo. Everything. And most of my clothes, and—”
“Oh my God,” said Clovis. He took a cigarette out of the box, brushed it over the automatic lighter and started to smoke. “That explains why Demeta called me at seven-thirty this morning.”
I drew away from him, actually backed a step.
“What did she say?”
“Oh, calm and collected, as ever, and not much. Just, Is Jane with you, Clovis? And when I said No, and Did she know what time it was, she said, Please don’t try to be rude to me, Clovis. Do you know where Jane might be? And I said, I haven’t a notion, and I find it quite easy to be rude, I don’t need to try. At which she switched off.”
“Were you alone?” I said.
“Quite alone.”
“He wasn’t with you.”
“Who? Oh, the robot. No. I sent him back to Egyptia. She wanted him. For something.”
“You wanted him.”
“Ah. You saw through my transparent falsehood. Unsubtle little me.”
“But I’ve repaid your money now. So your claim is nonexistent.”
“True. Egyptia, though—”
“I can handle Egyptia.”
“Can you?” Clovis stared back at me. “Is this our sweet little Jane talking? Such wonders, such chemical changes, can love perform upon the human spirit.”
I didn’t know I was going to do it any more than I’d known I’d tell him what I had done. My arm flew up as if on a spring, and I hit him across the face. It must have stung. And to Clovis, who fastidiously abhors any contact except in a bedroom, it had an added horror.
Yes, it must have stung. He moved away from me and stopped looking at me, but he said very coolly: “If you’re going to start that, get out.”
“Did you think I wanted to stay?”
“No. You want to chase your bit of metal excitement round the city.”
“Just to Egyptia’s, where you sent him. What was wrong, Clovis? Had to turn him out before you started getting serious?”