They walked back to the hotel in silence, and into the dark bar.
Saundra hadn’t budged from her table and her friends. From the loudness of her voice, even Laura could tell she was feeling her liquor.
Ginny stopped. “Wait here,” she commanded Laura, and walked over to Saundra.
Laura couldn’t hear what she said; the bar was too noisy with the addition of strolling musicians serenading the patrons. But she saw Saundra place her arm around Ginny’s waist, hug her, and then wave her away. Laura felt a cold knot in her stomach as Ginny returned: was Saundra going to sit out the afternoon in the bar?
“Let’s go,” Ginny said tightly. “Madam Queen is too busy with her friends to join us at the bullfight.”
After another madcap taxi ride Ginny locked arms with Laura as they fought the crowd to the entrance turnstile marked Sombra-Shade.
Laura was disconcertingly aware that she could feel Ginny’s soft breast with her forearm, could feel her body warmth. Self-conscious, she released Ginny quickly.
They climbed the worn and rickety wooden stairs under the bleachers and were grateful for the shade. Finally, at the top, they followed the crowd into the shock of open sunlight. The sense of excitement was almost overpowering. Brightness, color, and movement flooded their vision. The bleachers swarmed with people talking, yelling, and laughing. Climbing down the bleachers as stairs, they made their way to the first row and found the painted numbers corresponding to their tickets.
Suddenly the trumpets sounded. A hush fell over the entire arena. Two enormous wooden gates opened at the east end of the circle, and a beautiful horse came thundering out, straight to the 48
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opposite side of the arena, ridden by a charro on an elaborate silver-and-black saddle. The rider stopped abruptly at the wooden wall of the bleachers, took off his sombrero to the judges and officials of today’s sport, and slowly rode the carefully trained horse backward to the entrance.
Then the trumpets blasted with renewed vigor. The bullfighters and their assistants saluted the aficionados on the shady side, their ornate “suits of lights” catching the afternoon sun.
The formalities out of the way, Ginny leaned on the rail to see better as a voice announced over the loudspeaker that Carlos Arruza would fight the first corrida on horseback.
Laura found herself leaning forward, too, and her elbows touched Ginny. She felt that she should pull away, and then that it was silly to feel that way, and then felt silly for feeling anything at all. She left it where it was, but awareness of the contact kept creeping into her brain.
The first bull had been killed with pageantry and—even to the novice spectator—obvious skill and respect by the matador.
But it was too much for Ginny. She wanted to leave. She had been all right throughout the initial plays, and even the picadores and banderilleros, but the kill had done something.
They walked back down the stairs under the bleachers silently.
Laura felt pity well up in her as the feet overhead stomped and shuffled. She heard the people shifting on the hard benches, avidly squirming for action. It wasn’t pity for the bull that she felt—she accepted his fate. She knew there was no “contest” in the accepted sense—the animal was going to die. Only the how of its death was important to the audience.
She hated that. If she could have, Laura would have lifted the whole arena and shaken it violently—the bullfighters, the crowd, and the bull too.
“I’m sorry I made you leave,” Ginny apologized as they walked out of the darkness toward the parking area. They stepped into a waiting cab.
“Hotel Caesar,” Laura told the driver; then, without looking at Ginny she said, “Don’t be sorry. In a way, I was glad to go anyhow.”
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“It wasn’t that the blood made me sick. I can’t quite explain it to you. The matador and the bull seemed the least important—it was the crowd that bothered me.”
Laura was surprised that Ginny had described her own reactions so accurately.
Once again they entered the bar. It was relatively empty at that hour. The patrons were either at the bullfights, the dog races, or the jai alai games.
Saundra sat in the same booth. She was very drunk. Two men were seated with her.
As Ginny and Laura approached, Sandra slurred, “There’s my baby! Back so soon, baby? Didn’t you like all the blood and scream-ing?”
Laura wanted to turn around and walk out. She felt embarrassed for Saundra and sick for Ginny. The two men made token attempts to stand up.
Saundra flung out her arm dramatically. “You don’t have to stand up for her; she’s my baby! Have a nice time, baby? Did old Laura hold your hand crossing the big street? What d’ya want to drink?”
Saundra leered drunkenly at the two men. “My baby’s old enough to drink. What d’ya think of that!”
Ginny’s face flushed, and she sat down quietly.
“This is William,” Saundra introduced them, “and that’s Martin.”
She grinned lecherously at Ginny. “Which one do you want, baby?
I’ll give him to you.”
Laura decided that someone had to break up this conversation.
“What’s your drink, Saundra,” she asked casually. “We’d like to get in on your kick.”
Martin snorted. He looked as drunk as Saundra.
Laura ignored him. Instead she stared at Saundra and waited for her reply.
“You’re cute,” Martin went on, undaunted. “Younger, too. Saundra’s slipping. Too much competition.”
William reached out and gripped his friend’s arm violently; then he smiled at Laura.
“How’s that for an old friend of Saundra’s? They’ve known each 50
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other for years, you know.” He looked at Laura apologetically. “Of course, he takes a lot of liberties.”
The atmosphere around the small table was electric. Laura could feel the violence closing in.
“Friends!” Saundra sneered. “Buddies, that’s us.” She grimaced and raised her eyes to look contemptuously at Laura. “I detest him.
But you want to know something? He’s a man. . . . Do you know what that means? No,” Saundra went on with a cold, sick smile.
“No. You wouldn’t. You don’t know even what it means to want a man, do you? Your kind never knows!”
“Come on, now, Saundra,” William interrupted.
“Shut up!” Saundra commanded without even looking at him.
“Wearing pants doesn’t make you a man, and lipstick doesn’t make her a woman.” She glared at Laura. Then she giggled.
Laura sat helplessly. She knew that any second Saundra would say something that Laura would not want to face. Something she knew already but had not admitted.
Saundra continued slowly, maliciously. “The only one at this table who’s got any real sex is Martin.” She raised her head with obvious effort. “But that’s all he’s got!”
“Saundra, please . . .” Ginny whispered.
“Oh, so you do have a tongue,” Saundra laughed cruelly. “What’s the matter, sweetie? Don’t you like the way I talk about sex? Want me to show a little respect for your stock in trade?”
“Don’t make a scene, Saundra . . .” Ginny pleaded. “Everyone is watching.”
“Scene? Me?” Saundra glared at Ginny. “Next to your daily performances I’m practically an amateur. I may be the star, Ginny,” she continued in a hoarse, drunken voice, “but you are the actress. Of course, I’ll admit you have to resort to props . . .”
Saundra’s eyes dropped slyly to Ginny’s breasts, and her mouth slackened into a mirthless grin.
Panic ripped through Laura, and everything around her faded into a kind of haze. A stinging metallic clatter brought her back to reality. She stared at the car keys Saundra had hurled on the table.
Then she heard Saundra’s voice agai
n, rasping and infuriated.
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“Take the car, Ginny. Go ahead.” She laughed again with a frightening choke in her throat. “You don’t have to act with me, you know. I know you’ve got a new audience. . . . She’ll be a little diver-sion for a while, anyway.”
“Don’t. Please!” Ginny was close to tears.
But Saundra disregarded her. “It’s all right with me. I have my own plans for tonight!” She ran an unsteady hand over Martin’s chest. “Besides,” she said, turning back to Ginny, “I’m not worried about you, sweetie. You’ll come back to me . . . to what nobody else can do for you.”
Ginny’s face filled with rage and despair. She started to answer, then got up and walked unsteadily out of the room. It was obvious that she was crying.
Laura stood up, feeling surprised that there was no weight to her body. She felt numb. With detached fascination she saw Saundra lift the keys from the table and throw them in the air with alcoholic passion.
Automatically, Laura reached and caught them.
“Go to hell!” Saundra screamed.
Laura wheeled around quickly and walked out of the room without looking where she was going.
Walking into the lobby brought her back to reality. The late-afternoon sun poured into the large room, and suddenly it looked dirty and old. The quaintness and charm she had seen on her arrival were gone. In their place was an ordinary, dingy hotel lobby and all the things her mind suddenly recoiled at: illicit love, prepaid orgies, drunken parties, empty promises, loneliness.
Then, she saw Ginny sitting on the far side of the lobby. She sat in a straight-back chair, the bleak wall of the room behind her. She was staring blankly at nothing.
Laura felt her throat constrict with sympathy. My God, that poor kid. She felt an overwhelming need to help Ginny, to offer her friendship, to take care of her.
As Laura walked slowly toward Ginny, her body tingled strangely and her mind seemed very sharp and clear.
“Come on, Ginny,” she said with a new, quiet tenderness. “Let’s get out of here.”
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Ginny sat still as if unable to move or to speak. Her face was rigid.
Laura put out her hand, helped the girl to her feet, and led her out of the hotel. The street looked like a ghost town now; everyone was gone, it seemed, except for a few scattered people. Even the cabaret barkers had gone indoors out of the hot sun. Laura became aware of the dirt of the town, the gaudiness of it.
She led the silent Ginny halfway down the block to a small restaurant she had seen earlier, and walked in behind her.
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Chapter 7
They sat down at a table against the imitation-adobe wall, their chairs scraping noisily on the floor in the nearly empty restaurant. The restaurant boasted checked tablecloths, painted gourds, hanging wall plants and fake balconies with awnings. All trite, Laura thought. And shabby.
Ginny still said nothing.
The waiter came up to their table, surprised to have customers at this time of day.
Laura ordered two ponies of brandy and advised him they would not have dinner. As he walked away, she asked, “All right with you, Ginny?”
Ginny nodded and suddenly burst into tears. She covered her face with her hands and turned toward the wall. “I’m so ashamed,”
she gasped softly. Then, incongruously: “That whore!”
It was almost more than Laura could bear, just watching her cry.
She said, “You don’t have to say anything, Ginny.” But Laura knew she didn’t mean it; she did want an explanation. She waited for Ginny to regain control of herself.
The waiter placed their drinks in front of them and walked away, apparently unconcerned with these crazy Americans.
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Ginny straightened up slowly and sighed almost perceptibly. She dried her eyes. Then she raised her glass with an unsteady but manage-able hand. “Here’s to self-pity and psychiatrists,” she said quietly, with a trace of bitterness in her voice.
Laura smiled and met Ginny’s eyes with her own, hoping she looked as casually friendly as she wanted.
“And—honesty,” Ginny added in a whisper.
“Feel like telling me about it?”
Ginny gave a short little laugh. “Saundra seems to have covered the most important facts. . . .”
“I was asking for your version.” It was terribly important now to Laura, as if by knowing what had happened to Ginny she could avert . . . avert. Now there’s a good word.
“Could we leave here?” Ginny asked suddenly.
“Where do you want to go?” Laura felt her stomach tense strangely.
Ginny shrugged hopelessly. “Home, I guess.”
“No,” Laura said decisively. “I don’t think you should be alone tonight. You can stay at my place until we figure out what to do with you.”
Ginny made no protest, and Laura paid the check. They took a cab to the border and walked across to Saundra’s car. Automatically, Laura slid into the driver’s seat.
She had just assumed that she would drive, and it didn’t occur to her to ask Ginny; she was taking care of Ginny; it was her obligation to help Ginny. The silence between them was now becoming unbearable.
As if Ginny sensed Laura’s need to know her story, she lit a cigarette for Laura, then, faltering a moment, began, “Still want to know?”
That so much time had passed since Laura had asked her didn’t seem at all important—they both had only one thing on their minds right now.
“You don’t have to tell me anything, Ginny,” Laura said after a moment.
“It’s no big confession,” Ginny laughed a little stiffly. “You’d probably get a better ‘story’ out of hundreds of other women.”
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“But I’m not interested in other women right now.” Even as she said it, Laura felt that she should not have phrased it quite that way.
But Ginny had not seemed to notice.
“I came to Hollywood a little over a year ago on contract to Excelsior. But there was nothing for me to do. Oh, I’d get a bit part here and there, but nothing worth mentioning. I found one of those cheap, stamp-size apartments on Melrose and tried to make the best of it.” She paused. Laura waited.
“After about two months of crumbs, I got another bit part. Only this time in a picture starring Saundra. I’d heard a great deal about her, of course.” Ginny exhaled, then said, wryly, “But not enough!”
Laura kept her eyes on the road. The evening sun was just horizon level, casting long dark shadows across the road, yet bright enough to sparkle on the glass and chrome of other cars. “Anyhow,”
Ginny went on in a soft voice, “Saundra seemed to pick me out from the others. She began by asking me to do things for her: she forgot something in her dressing room, a cup of coffee between takes, cue her for a scene—that sort of thing.” Her voice sounded weary and hard.
Laura nodded.
“The next thing I knew, she was telling me that she believed in me—thought I had what she called an outstanding talent. But I needed coaching, she said. I was too immature, stiff, and needed rounding out. Not just with my acting, she explained, but as a person, too. An actress of stature could not separate her personality from her career and remain on top—much less reach the top.”
“Of course, you were impressed,” Laura said with a trace of sarcasm.
“Impressed?” Ginny laughed. “I was walking on air!”
“Go on,” Laura said.
“Saundra was going to teach me the ropes, and I was spellbound.
She can be pretty spellbinding, you know. Why, according to her I’d be a star in no time at all.”
Laura nodded grimly, and Ginny went on. “She began by having me over to her house on Saturday mornings—her last husband played golf then. Diction,
posture, dress, just about everything.
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“One day I showed up and she was still in her dressing gown . . .
said that her husband had gone out of town and that her housekeeper had gone to Oakland to be with her sister and that she was all alone and terribly bored, and . . .”
“And would you stay overnight with her?” Laura supplied knowingly.
“Yes.”
“And you accepted?”
“Yes.” Ginny twisted in her seat. “It never occurred to me that . . .
that . . .”
“All right, I get the idea.” Laura felt a little sick to her stomach.
She was torn between hating Ginny for being such a dumb little kid, and marvelling at her spirit. You don’t hate people for being dumb, she told herself; you hate them for pinpointing your own weaknesses. Oh, sure, Laura sneered silently to herself, now I suppose you think you’re a pervert like Ginny.
It was an unkind—and uncomfortable—thought.
“But why did you stick it out all this time? That’s what I really would like to understand.”
Ginny didn’t answer immediately. Then, “I suppose you’re thinking that I’m over twenty-one and could have walked out, that nobody was holding me prisoner.”
“Something like that.”
“I’m not sure I can explain it to you,” Ginny said.
Laura waited for her to try but was beginning to feel uneasy with the whole conversation. She wanted to know about Ginny’s problems, yet she didn’t like hearing about her being a . . . abnormal.
Yet at the same time Laura was fascinated.
“I’m not sure even that I understand it myself,” Ginny continued. “I guess it was sort of the easiest way.”
“Easiest!”
“In a way, I had no decisions to make, I didn’t have to be alone and wonder what to do with myself. But most of all, my career was—important to me. And Saundra is helping me.”
“You would have made friends on your own.”
“How many friends do you have, Laura?”
Another Kind of Love Page 6
