Chris (17 page)

"I know I've got no right to hold you," Dizz sobbed. "I know you probably hate me. But, Chris, I need you. You said you wouldn't leave me, Chris. You said you wouldn't."

"No, darling," Chris said. "I won't leave you. I don't think I even wanted to." She tilted Dizz's face to hers and kissed her hard on the mouth. "I belong to you, Dizz. I always have."

They clung together like two drowning souls to a straw. After a while they slept.

It was dark when Chris awoke. She moved Dizz and raised her arm to peer at the watch. Nine-thirty. She had to call Carol.

Dizz stirred and rolled away from her. She opened her eyes. "Darling," she said. "Say it again. Say you won't leave me."

"I won't leave you, Dizz," Chris said. "I love you."

They kissed long and tenderly.

Dizz got up and switched on the light. She looked at Chris and laughed. "You look like Barney Google," she said.

"You don't look so good yourself."

Dizz touched the handkerchief on Chris' hand. "We'd better fix that," she said.

"It's all right," Chris said.

"How do you feel, Chris? You look like you had a pretty rough time of it."

"I did," Chris said. "But I'm fine. Just hungry.”

Dizz started toward the kitchen. "That's easy to cure," she said.

Chris started after her. "Dizz, wait a minute," she said. "I have to call Carol. She's expecting me tonight."

"My," Dizz said. "You were anxious, weren't you?" She shook her head scoldingly, then smiled. Her eyes were not smiling.

"Look," Chris said. "I'm only calling to settle the matter. You can listen, if you want."

"Honey," Dizz said. "Will you promise me something?"

"What?"

"That you won't see Carol again," Dizz said. "And I promise that I won't see George."

Chris sighed. It was a logical request. Yet she knew in her heart she wanted to see Carol. To see her and hold her and make love to her as she could never do with Dizz.

But at the same time she needed Dizz. Needed her because she was a part of her. And needed her now to go to Tongariva. Not that that was a particularly noble reason, but at least it was true.

"Right," Chris said. "It's a deal."

Dizz went out to the kitchen and Chris picked up the phone. She dialed the Yukon number. Carol answered on the first ring.

"Darling," Chris said, "I'm not coming tonight. I'm staying with Dizz."

"What happened?" Carol said.

"I just realized that I love her too much to leave her. Whatever it is we have together," she said, remembering Carol's description of the relationship, "I need it."

There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Then Carol said, "I hope you know what you're doing, Chris."

"I do," Chris answered.

She heard the tears in Carol's voice. "Goodbye, darling," Carol said. Then she hung up.

Chris put down the receiver. She felt suddenly very cold and alone, like the fire was gone.

She walked to the kitchen and stood looking at Dizz. Dizz was whistling, like the world was still the same old world. Like tonight and the weekend had never happened.

Dizz turned to smile at Chris. “Ten minutes," she said. Chris nodded and went to wash up for dinner.

The phone woke Chris at five after nine. It was Jonathan.

"I just got a call from someone in Carol's building," he said. "She's left town. I just called to find out if Sheila's become a grass widow."

Chris could see the smirk over the phone.

"No," she answered. "I'm still here. And I aim to stay." She banged down the receiver. Her first thought was to say, Damn him. Then she remembered what he had said. She frowned. It didn't make sense to her for Carol to have gone.

Dizz was standing in the doorway, stretching sleepily. "What was that?" she said.

"Jonathan," Chris said. "Carol's left town. He was hoping I went with her."

"Why?"

"You," Chris said. "He still thinks he can make out if I drop dead."

Dizz laughed nastily. "That fat .poppycock!" She turned back to the bedroom, unbuttoning the pajama top and reaching for a bra.

Chris went into the bathroom and washed the sleep out of her eyes. She looked in the mirror. Her eyes were puffy from crying. Her cheeks were scratched and streaked with iodine. A lovely sight early in the morning.

She remembered Carol kneeling beside her on the beach, kissing her bloody hand. She wondered guiltily where the girl had gone.

It didn't seem right that Carol would walk out on her job like that. She was good at her job and she liked it. Chris did not comprehend how anybody could let a thing like a broken heart ruin his life. She thought of Max Petersen and the filthy apartment and the fat blonde.

She went back into the bedroom and took a pair of slacks out of the closet. She dressed slowly. She knew she should be thinking of Dizz and how to make up to her for the mess of this weekend. Dizz wouldn't show it, but she would be blaming Chris for what had happened. And Chris wanted Dizz to be agreeable for awhile.

But somehow the business of Carol was getting out of hand. Chris felt responsible and a little ashamed.

Chris managed to get through breakfast. Dizz was in a good mood and making funny. She had had a good night's sleep, apparently, and now had nothing on her conscience. She had cried it all away and it was gone. Chris didn't have the energy to keep up the banter. She left the kitchen and walked out to the terrace.

She sat down on the wooden lawn chair, stretched out and looked up to the sky. It would be raining soon. Maybe if she just sat here long enough, she would wash down the drain with the rest of the dirt; just disappear and not have to think and feel and suffer anymore.

In a second floor window directly across from Chris a woman was getting dressed. She struggled to hook her bra, then slid into a slip. She came to stand at the window and look out, lifting her arms to toss back the long brown hair. She put back her head and smiled. For just a second she reminded Chris of Carol.

Chris threw herself off the chair and went back inside. The sudden jump wrenched her crippled leg and she leaned against the wall in pain.

"Chris, what's wrong?" Dizz said. She was busily dusting the living room. She had an ashtray in her hand and she did not bother to stop.

“I forgot about the leg for a minute," Chris said. "It's still pretty sore."

“Why don't you go soak in the tub?" Dizz said. "It would probably take out some of the stiffness."

Chris went into the bathroom and turned on the hot water in the basin. She didn't feel like getting undressed for a bath but it might help to soak her hands. Her head too, maybe. She dipped her hands into the steaming water and flexed the fingers.

Dizz turned on the sweeper. The shrill whine caught at Chris' nerves and she felt a shiver of irritation run up her spine. She let the water out of the sink, went back to her bedroom and shut the door.

She sat down at the desk and picked up a pencil. She put it down. She pushed some papers into a neater pile. She propped her feet on the desk and folded her arms.

It started to rain, all of a sudden, driving hard. She heard Dizz banging the windows, got up and shut the window in the room. She sat down again.

Dizz was back with the sweeper.

Chris picked up a gum eraser and heaved it at the wall. She watched it bounce and roll under the bed. She did not bother to retrieve it.

Then she got up and went to the closet. She took out a trench coat, and went back to the living room.

Dizz looked up and shut off the machine.

"I have to go out for a while," Chris said.

Dizz looked at her disgustedly. "You're going to be stiff as a board if you go out there," she said. "You'll be drenched."

"I can't help it," Chris said angrily. "I'm giving myself the creeps."

Dizz waved her away. "Go," she said.

Chris left the building and limped painfully through the rain to the corner of First Avenue. She waited three minutes for a cab, then told the driver to rush it to Seventy-second.

Chris had to keep reminding herself that what she had done to Carol was a rotten thing. It was much simpler to believe that Carol had done her wrong, that Carol didn't understand, just as Dizz never had. How could Carol run out on her without giving her a chance?

Chris remembered Carol's little speech about Dizz and how she could not fight her, how she would not sneak around behind Dizz's back. If she had really meant it, then maybe she had gone away for good.

She was nervous and shaky when she entered Carol's building. Her temples were throbbing and she felt the first flush of fever burn through her. The wetness of the hall and her own hair and clothes clung in her throat. She did not find the smell of the halls nostalgic or appealing. It turned her stomach.

She knocked at Carol's door and waited for a long time. She knocked again. There was no answer. She tried the apartment next door.

A woman with her hair in pin curls and wearing a bath robe came to the door. She looked up at Chris and the look was not pleasant.

Chris smiled. "I'm a friend of Carol Martin," she said. "I was supposed to meet her here." It was the only dodge she could think of.

"Carol went away," the woman said.

"Oh?" Chris said. "Do you know where?"

"She asked me to call her boss and say she was leaving town is all I know," the woman said. "I saw her downstairs. She asked me to call and she said she wouldn't be back except to move her stuff. She went off with a redheaded guy in a station wagon."

"Thank you," Chris said.

She went back down the stairs, leaning heavily against the bannister. It should have been easier, the trip down. But it was worse.

Why in the hell did she do that? Chris wondered. She's not in love with Johnnie. She's in love with me.

She crossed First Avenue and went into a Greek luncheonette. She was already soaked to the skin through the trench coat. She could feel the wet bandage on her shoulder plastered to her torn flesh.

"Coffee," she said.

She sat nursing the cup. By now she knew beyond doubt that she was ill. Her head was burning and the palms of her hands were clammy. A trickle of perspiration shivered down her back. Her insides were heaving and she had a mild case of the shakes.

But she had more important things on her mind. She was remembering again Carol's lecture on the subject of Dizz. What was it Carol had said? If you're going to live with Dizz, you'll have to stop seeing me.

It had never occurred to Chris for a moment that somehow she couldn't eat her cake and have it too. Of course she wanted Dizz; she needed her. But she wanted Carol, too, and needed her. But she hadn't considered the possibility that she couldn't have them both.

In all the years of her adult life, Chris had never encountered a woman who told her what to do. She'd run through more women than she cared to count. It had been like a game. She'd believed in having a hell of a good time, then just walking away. She had never taken anybody seriously.

Then Dizz came along. The serpent in her Garden of Eden. Dizz had gotten inside her soul and, like a cancer, taken root. Dizz—who had knocked her down and then spent four years kicking her; who had never shown her anything but contempt, never really cared about anything but the dull ache of misery in her own heart.

Then Carol. She had come into Chris' life and started patching up the wounds Dizz had opened. She had been everything good and warm, everything Dizz was not. And now Carol had betrayed her.

It did not occur to Chris at the moment that perhaps Carol had felt betrayed herself. All she could realize was that Carol had walked out on her and that Carol had one hell of a nerve. And Chris intended to find out just what the devil Carol thought she was doing.

Chris gulped the cold coffee and slid off the stool. She walked to the back of the lunchroom and stepped into a phone booth. She put in a long distance call to Johnnie's lodge.

"Yeah, skipper," Johnnie's voice said. "She's here."

"Why, Johnnie?" Chris asked.

Johnnie waited a minute, then said simply, "Skipper, you may never have known this, I guess. But some people don't like being kicked around."

"But I love her, Johnnie," Chris said. She knew she was beginning to sound desperate.

"Look, kid, you promised Carol you'd come live with her, right?"

"Yes," Chris said. "But she knows I have to hang on to Dizz until after this trip. We could have worked something out then."

"Carol doesn't go for that, skipper," Johnnie said. Chris knew Johnnie had been coached in his lines. "She thinks you'll never leave blondie. She thinks you'd just use her to calm you down, like you use the rest of them."

"She loves me," Chris said.

"Yeah," Johnnie said. "She loves you. Maybe she'll get over it someday. Maybe not. But I'm going to keep an eye on her just in case. She might decide to settle for me. At least, that's what I'm hoping."

Chris left the lunchroom and walked back into the rain. She couldn't help feeling a grudging admiration for Carol—it took courage to give up somebody you love, somebody you know is no damned good for you.

Chris headed toward home. She didn't especially want to go back, but for the moment she couldn't think of anything else to do with herself.

Where's to go but home? What do you do when somebody you love tells you all about yourself? Where can you go but home and stuff your head under a pillow and sob?

With a sudden frightening clarity Chris realized that she would never see Carol again. Until that instant of realization, she hadn't really believed it. It was to her mind like having a little argument and going to bed mad. Tomorrow you would kiss and make up. That's the way it ought to be when you love somebody—kiss and make up.

But she would have no tomorrow with Carol. Not even many yesterdays. Only a little over a week. Just a couple of minutes out of a lifetime, a few minutes of perfect happiness to lock away somewhere and save to enjoy in her old age, when she was too worn to feel it.

Chris felt hot with fever and shame and anger. She had held it, right there in her fingers, and she had let it slip away. Oh, the weak, sniveling fool that she was.