Early Warning

Marla’s room was next to hers, and they shared a bathroom — she had moved in because she knew Bobby at Safeway and also knew Cat, who had gone from nude modeling to being in a movie — admittedly, a short movie, but nevertheless a movie. Maybe because Marla was so beautiful, she and Cat were rather formal with each other. After about four days, Marla got more relaxed with Janet, and invited her into her room. It was important in a house like theirs not to form teams or gossip about one another, and so neither of them talked about anything that was going on (including food storage, which was an issue). They talked about French plays and movies. Whereas Janet had seen two Alain Delon films, Marla had seen eight — if there was a tiny little theater somewhere playing something obscure, Marla made an effort to get there. As beautiful as she was, she did not want to be a movie star; she wanted to be a director. She was saving the money she made working two jobs so that she could go to France — she wanted Janet to talk French to her. Marla knew two things about France: a beautiful woman, black or white, could get ahead there, and a play in France could be about anything; it could be about four people sitting on a stage, crossing and uncrossing their legs and occasionally coughing.

Marla was from Los Angeles — not Hollywood, but Crenshaw. Nothing about Los Angeles impressed her. When Janet asked her about it (especially on rainy days), she turned her feet edgewise and wiped them on the rug. Her father worked for the city and her mother for the costume department at Paramount, sewing.

Marla was impressed only by Paris — all Janet had to do was say words like “Tuileries” and “Montparnasse” and Marla would smile. After a week, she got Janet to read plays to her in French. The first one was Rhinocéros, by Ionesco, then Antigone, by Jean Anouilh. They each had a copy; Janet would translate a line, then read it in French, and then Marla would read the line. If her pronunciation was wrong, even a little bit, Janet was supposed to stop her and correct her. Marla was absolutely dedicated to this, and since she had a sense of her own future that was built of stone, Janet thought of this as her vocation more than her job at Lasagna Paradise. She told Marla that her father was a farmer in Usherton, Iowa, and that she had gone to the University of Iowa. Marla didn’t ask if the University of Iowa had a junior-year-abroad program. Anyway, in a just world, Uncle Joe would be her father and Aunt Minnie would be her mother. It was a good thing to lie about.

Cat was nice, too. In the ongoing tensions about food, Cat was the only one who didn’t care if one of the boys drank her milk, as long as they didn’t drink directly from the carton, and she was the only one who brought popcorn into the living room when everyone was watching television and passed it around. The source of the food problem was really Louis, the mailman. He was always hungry. He bought a lot of food, but if he had eaten it all and it was late at night and there was leftover spaghetti Bolognese in the refrigerator, he would eat it. As for Janet herself, she got a free lunch at Lasagna Paradise, so she didn’t care about anything except dried apricots, and she kept them in her room. She was white, she was bland, she had no stories to tell. She was glad they let her stay and were nice to her.

—

ITHACA WAS farther north than Richie had lived before — already in May it was light into the evening. He looked at his watch, wondering what he was going to eat. He was half a block from the Haunt, and it was a Sunday night. He’d been studying most of the day, which he had to do in order to make up almost the whole semester’s work in his American Twentieth Century History course before his final exam in a week. He liked the Haunt — just the night before, he’d taken Alicia there for a Roscos set and she had gotten pretty wild. Back at his dorm, she had left while he was still sleeping. Since then he hadn’t heard from her. Balch Hall was a good walk from his dorm, and the weather had been cold.

But today was sunny. As Richie came around the curve on Willow, he saw the door open, and a couple come out of the Haunt, laughing. The couple was Alicia and himself. They turned left and headed toward the golf course. He slowed down, because they weren’t walking very fast, and followed them.