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And then, throwing caution to the winds: “Love, Len”!

Eleven o’clock, and everything still to be done—the groceries, wine, a new dress, and, if she dared—Did she? Was there anything she didn’t dare now?

I’ll go there first, she decided. When the girl showed her the chart with the various swatches she was no less decisive. She pointed to the brightest, carroty orange and said, “That.”

Lottie opened the door, which hadn’t been locked after all, and said, “Mom!”

She had figured out, coming up the stairs, just what tone to take and now she took it. “Do you like it?” She dropped the keys into her purse. Casualness itself.

“Your hair.”

“Yes, I had it dyed. Do you like it?” She picked up her bags and came in. Her back and shoulders were one massive ache from hauling the bags up the stairs. Her scalp was still all pins and needles. Her feet hurt. Her eyes felt like the tops of lightbulbs covered with dust. But she looked good.

Lottie took the bags and she looked, but only looked, at the mercy of a chair. Sit down now and she’d never get up. 

“It’s so startling. I don’t know. Turn around.”

“You’re supposed to say yes, stupid. Just ‘Yes, Mom, it looks fine.’” But she turned round obediently.

“I do like it,” Lottie said, taking the recommended tone. “Yes, I do. the dress too is—Oh Mom, don’t go in there yet.”

She paused with her hand on the knob of the living room door, waiting to be told of whatever catastrophe she was about to confront.

“Shrimp’s in your bedroom. She’s feeling very, very bad. I gave her a bit of first aid. She’s probably sleeping now.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“They’ve busted up. Shrimp went and got herself another subsidy—”

“Oh Jesus.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“A third time? I didn’t think that was legal.”

“Well, her scores, you know. And I suppose the first two must have their own scores by now. Anyhow. When she told January, there was a row. January tried to stab her—it’s nothing bad, just a scratch on her shoulder.”

“With a knife?”

Lottie snickered. “With a fork, actually. January has some kind of political idea that you shouldn’t have babies for the government. Or maybe not at all, Shrimp wasn’t too clear.”

“But she hasn’t come here to stay. Has she?”

“For a while.”

“She can’t. Oh, I know Shrimp. She’ll go back. It’s like all their other arguments. But you shouldn’t have given her pills.”

“She’ll have to stay here. Mom. January’s gone to Seattle, and she gave the room up to some friends. They wouldn’t even let Shrimp in to pack. Her suitcase, her records, everything was sitting in the hall. I think that’s what she was upset about more than anything else.”

“And she’s brought that all here?” A glance into the living room answered the question. Shrimp had emptied herself out everywhere in layers of shoes and underwear, keepsakes and dirty sheets.

“She was looking for a present she’d got me.” Lottie explained. “That’s why it’s all out. Look, a Pepsi bottle, isn’t it pretty?”

“Oh my God.”

“She bought us all presents. She has money now, you know. A regular income.”

“Then she doesn’t have to stay here.”

“Mom. be reasonable.”

“She can’t. I’ve rented the room. I told you I might. The man is coming tonight. That’s what those groceries are for. I’m cooking a nice simple meal to start things off on the right foot.”

“If it’s a question of money. Shrimp can probably—”

“It’s not a question of money. I’ve told him that the room is his, and he’s coming tonight. My God, look at this mess! This morning it was as neat as a, as a— ”

“Shrimp could sleep here on the couch,” Lottie suggested, lifting off one of the cartons.

“And where will
I
sleep?”

“Well, where will she sleep?”

“Let her be a temp!”

“Mother!”

“Let her. I’m sure it wouldn’t be anything new. All the nights she didn’t come home, you don’t suppose she was in somebody’s bed, do you? Hallways and gutters, that’s where she belongs. She’s spent half her life there already, let her go there now.”

“If Shrimp hears you say that—”

“I hope she does.” Mrs. Hanson walked right up to the door of the bedroom and shouted, “Hallways and gutters! Hallways and gutters!”

“Mom, there’s no need to—I’ll tell you what. Mickey can sleep in my bed tonight, he’s always asking to, and Shrimp can have his bunk. Maybe in a day or two she’ll be able to find a room at a hotel or somewhere. But don’t make a scene now. She is very upset.”

“I’m very upset!”

But she let herself be mollified on condition that Lottie cleared away Shrimp’s debris.

Mrs. Hanson, meanwhile, started the dinner. The dessert first, since it would have to cool after it cooked. Cream-style Strawberry Granola. Len had mentioned liking Granola as a boy in Nebraska, before he’d been sent to a home. Once it was bubbling she added a packet of Juicy Fruit bits, then poured it into her two glass bowls. Lottie licked the pot.

Then they transported Shrimp from the front bedroom to Mickey’s bunk. Shrimp wouldn’t let loose of the pillow Mrs. Hanson had put out for Len, and rather than risk waking her she let her keep it. The fork had left four tiny punctures like squeezed pimples all in a row.

The stew, which came in a kit with instructions in three languages, would have taken no time at all, except that Mrs. Hanson intended to supplement it with meat. She’d bought eight cubes at Stuyvesant Town for $3.20, not a bargain but when was beef ever a bargain? The cubes came out of two Baggies dark red and slimy with blood, but after a fry in the pan they had a nice brown crust. Even so she decided not to add them to the stew till the last minute so as not to upset the flavor.

A fresh salad of carrots and parsnips, with a small onion added for zest—she’d been able to get these with her regular stamps—and she was done.

It was seven o’clock.

Lottie came into the kitchen and sniffed at the fried cubes of beef. “You’re certainly going to a lot of trouble.” Meaning expense.

“First impressions are important.”

“How long is he going to stay here?”

“It probably depends. Oh, go ahead—eat one.”

“There’ll still be a lot left.” Lottie chose the smallest cube and nibbled at it delicately. “Mm. Mm!”

“Are you going to be late tonight?” Mrs. Hanson asked.

Lottie waved her hand about (“I can’t talk now”) and nodded.

“Till when do you think?”

She closed her eyes and swallowed. “Till morning sometime if Juan is there. Lee made a point of inviting him. Thanks. That was good.”

Lottie set off. Amparo had been fed some snaps and sent up to the roof. Mickey, plugged into the teevee, was as good as invisible. In effect, till Len came, she was alone. The feelings of love that she had felt all day on the street and in stores returned, like some shy child who hides when there is company but torments you afterwards. The little rascal frolicked through the apartment, shrieking, sticking his tongue out, putting tacks on chairs, flashing images at her, like the glimpses you’d catch, switching past Channel 5 in the afternoon, of fingers sliding up a leg, of lips touching a nipple, of a cock stiffening. Oh, the anxiety! She delved into Lottie’s makeup drawer, but there wasn’t time for more than a dab of powder. She returned a moment later to put a drop of Molly Bloom beneath each earlobe. And lipstick? A hint.

No, it looked macabre. She wiped it off.

It was eight o’clock.

He wasn’t going to come.

He knocked.

She opened the door, and he stood before her, smiling with his eyes. His chest in its furry maroon rose and fell, rose and fell. She had forgotten, amid the abstractions of love, the reality of his flesh. Her erotic fancies of a moment before were all images, but the creature who came into the kitchen, hefting a black suitcase and a paper carrier full of books, existed solidly in three dimensions. She wanted to walk around him as though he were a statue in Washington Square. He shook her hand and said hello. No more.

His reticence infected her. She couldn’t meet his gaze. She tried to speak to him, as he spoke to her, in silences and trivialities. She led him to his room.

His hand stroked the bedspread and she wanted to surrender to him then and there, but his manner didn’t allow it. He was afraid. Men were always afraid at the start.

“I’m so happy,” she said. “To think you’ll really be staying here.”

“Yeah, so am I.”

“You must let me go into the kitchen now. So that I can … We’re having stew, and a spring salad.”

“That sounds terrific, Mrs. Hanson.”

“I think you’ll like it.”

She put the fried cubes of meat into the simmering paste and turned up the heat. She took the salad and the wine out of the icebox. As she turned round he was in the doorway looking at her. She held up the wine bottle with a gesture of immemorial affirmation. The weariness was gone from her back and shoulders as though by the pressure of his gaze he’d smoothed the soreness from the muscles. What a gift it is to be in love. “Haven’t you done your hair differently?”

“I didn’t think you’d noticed.”

“Oh, I noticed the moment you came to the door.”

She started laughing but stopped short. Her laughter, though its source lay deep in her happiness, had sounded harshly in her ears.

“I like it,” he said.

“Thank you.”

The red wine spurting from the Gallo tetrahedron seemed to issue from the same depths as her laughter.

“I really do,” Len insisted.

“I think the stew must be ready. You sit.”

She dished the stew out onto the plates at the burner so that he wouldn’t see that she was giving him all of the real meat. But in the end she did take one of the cubes for herself.

They sat down. She lifted her glass. “What shall we drink to?”

“To?” Smiling uncertainly he picked up his own glass. Then, getting her drift: “To life?”

“Yes! Yes, to life!”

They toasted life, ate their stew and salad, drank the red wine. They spoke seldom but their eyes often met in complex and graceful dialogues. Any words either of them might have spoken at this point would have been in some way untrue; their eyes couldn’t lie.

They’d finished the dinner and Mrs. Hanson had set out the chilled pink Granola, when there was a thud and a loud cry from Lottie’s room. Shrimp had awakened!

Len looked at Mrs. Hanson questioningly.

“I forgot to tell you, Lenny. My daughter came home. But it isn’t anything for you to—”

It was too late. Shrimp had stumbled into the kitchen in one of Lottie’s dilapidated transparencies, unbuckled and candid as an ad for Pier 19. Not till she’d reached the refrigerator did she become aware of Len, and it took her another little while for her to remember to wrap her attractions in the yellow mists of the nightgown.

Mrs. Hanson made introductions. Len insisted that Shrimp join them at the table and took it on himself to spoon out some Granola into a third bowl.

“Why was I in Mickey’s bed?” Shrimp asked.

There was no help for it. Briefly she explained Shrimp to Len, and Len to Shrimp. When Len expressed what polite interest the situation required, Shrimp started in on the sordid details, baring her shoulder to show the tine wounds.

Mrs. Hanson said, “Shrimp, please—”

Shrimp said, “I’m not ashamed, Mother, not anymore.” And went right on. Mrs. Hanson stared at the fork resting on her greasy dinner plate. She could have taken it and torn Shrimp to pieces.

When Shrimp led Len off into the living room, Mrs. Hanson got out of hearing any more by pleading the dishes.

Len had left three of the cubes of beef on the side of his plate untasted. The ounce of Granola he’d kept for himself was stirred about in the bowl. He’d hated the meal.

His wine glass was three-quarters full. She thought, should she pour it down the sink. She wanted to but it seemed such a waste. She drank it. Len came back to the kitchen finally with the news that Shrimp had returned to bed. She couldn’t bear to look at him. She just waited for the blade to drop, and it didn’t take long.

“Mrs. Hanson.” he said “it should be obvious that I can’t stay here now, not if it means putting your pregnant daughter out on the street.”

“My daughter! Ha!”

“I’m disappointed and—”

“You’re disappointed!”

“Of course I am.”

“Oh. of course, of course!”

He turned away from her. She couldn’t bear it. She would do anything to keep him. “Len!” she called after him.

He returned in no time with his suitcase and his bag of books, moving at the uncanny, hyped-up speed of the five-fifteen puppets.

“Len!” She stretched out a hand, to forgive him, to beg forgiveness. The speed! The terrible speed of it!

She followed him out into the corridor, weeping, wretched afraid. “Len.” she pleaded “look at me.”

He strode ahead heedless, but at the very first step of the stairs his bag swung into the railing and split open. Books spilled out onto the landing.

“I’ll get you another bag.” she said calculating quickly and exactly what might hold him to the spot.

He hesitated.

“Len. please don’t go.” She grasped handfuls of the maroon sweater. “Len, I love you!”

“Sweet fucking Jesus, that’s what I thought!”

He pulled away from her. She thought he was falling down the steps and screamed.

Then there were only the books at her feet. She recognized the fat black textbook and kicked it out through the gap in the rails. Then the rest, some down the steps, others into the abyss of the stairwell. Forever.

The next day when Lottie asked her what had become of the boarder, she said, “He was a vegetarian. He couldn’t live anywhere where there was meat.”

“He should have told you that before he came.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Hanson agreed bitterly. “That’s what I thought.”

Financially, being a widow was way ahead of being a wife. Lottie was able to phone Jerry Lighthall and tell her that she didn’t need her job now, or anyone else’s. She was free and then some. Besides the weekly, and now completely reliable, allotment, Bellevue paid her a lump sum settlement of five thousand dollars. With Lottie’s go-ahead the owner of the Abingdon sold what was left of Princess Cass through
Buy-Lines
for eight hundred and sixty dollars, off the top of which he skimmed no more than was reasonable. Even after paying out a small fortune for the memorial service that no one came to and and wiping up the family’s various existing debts, Lottie had over four thousand dollars to do with as she pleased. Four thousand dollars. Her first reaction was fear. She put the money in a bank and tried to forget about it.