The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg Read Online Free PDF Page A

people, you talk to them—their faces say one thing, you never know what’s inside.” For a moment, he seemed almost incandescent, but then he smiled impatiently toward the room, laying aside his trustful seriousness. “Anyhow,” he said, “I like to keep in shape.” The gold around his neck winked, and I looked away quickly.
    “Excuse me,” I said. “I’ll be back in a minute.” I fought through the dancers and sat down near the wall. When I closed my eyes, I felt private for a moment, but when I opened them I was looking straight into the whole, huge crowd, right to where Hector was standing, listening attentively to the tiny dark girl. He looked dignified and brotherly as she smiled up at him, but then, suddenly, he flared into a laugh of pure appreciation.
    In the ladies’ room, I held a wet paper towel against my forehead while a herd of girls jostled and giggled around me. Keep in shape, I thought. What had that meant! Had I been expected to admire him? Who was Hector, anyway? What on earth did he think I was doing there with him? Did he think I was attracted to him? And why had I chattered on with him so during dinner? He was just some kid my roommate had picked up on the street! I was wearing, the mirror reminded me, the same nasty office dress I’d been wearing when I sat next to Mr. Bunder light-years earlier in the day. Hector belonged with that girl who was flirting with him, or with Cinder, not with me, and I knew that just as much as he could ever know that, and if he had wanted to prove something to, or because of, Cinder, he had certainly picked the wrong person to prove it with.
    When I got to the exit I glanced back and saw Hector in the throng, struggling toward me. And although because of the music I couldn’t hear him, I could see that he was calling my name. I stood in the cool air outside and closed the door slowly against the throbbing room, watching, like a scientist watching the demise of an experiment, as Hector’s expression changed from surprise to consternation to…what? Was he enraged? Affronted? Relieved?
    On the subway, I thought how if Hector had been there with me, if we had been heading downtown together, tired out from dancing, we would have looked aligned. His restful, measuring regard as he leaned back against the wall of the car would have been matched by mine, and our arms would have been close enough so that I could feel the dissipating heat from his against my much paler, thinner one.
    There was a group of girls balancing at one of the car’s center poles. They were slight and black-haired, like the girl Hector had been talking to, and like her they had long, brilliant nails. Their wrists were marvelously fragile, and their feet, in shiny leather, were like little hooves. I had never asked to compete with such girls, I thought, fuming.
     
     
    I wanted to be alone when I got back to the apartment, but Mitchell was in the kitchen, pushing something around on a little hand mirror with a straw, and Cinder was lying on the floor in the peacock-blue dress.
    “The dress with the bad seam!” I said.
    “Madame wishes another snootful?” Mitchell asked, offering Cinder the mirror.
    “Christ, no.” Cinder turned over and groaned. “What is that stuff, anyhow?”
    “Drug du jour,” Mitchell said. “It was on sale.”
    “Oh, Mitchell, Jesus,” she said. Mitchell had been right. She looked even better in that dress than the girl in the store had.
    “Charlie,” she said, turning to me. I could see that she had been crying. “Listen. Let me ask you something. Do men always tell you that you’re really great in bed? That you’re the best?”
    Only an instant escaped before I knew what to answer. “Always,” I said. “They always say that.”
    “They are so sick,” she said. “What a bunch of sickos.”
    “Guess you had a bad time with John Paul,” I said, even though I really didn’t want to hear about it.
    “That about sums it up,” she said. “See