Chapter 6
Amy was a different girl the next day. She remembered getting back to Mrs. Cartison's very late, making Earl take her even though he wanted her to stay the night. But that had been last night when she still had thought it was important that Mrs. Cartison did not know. Today when she awoke she knew that if it came up again she could handle Mrs. Cartison and that she would not care what Mrs. Cartison thought or said.
She was pleased with herself. That was one of the new things that had happened to Amy. She could not recall when she had actually approved of herself before. Any action she had undertaken had always been a compound of doubts, fears and hesitation that had been overcome only by the application of sufficient external pressure.
So it had threatened to be last night, but it had been the sight of Bull that had liberated her from doubt. Strangely enough she had achieved something from her betrayal by Bull, something she felt would never desert her as long as she lived. With Earl it had had been an accident, a result of the mistake Earl had made in estimating her that had willy-nilly put her in the role of a self-assured woman. Now she knew she enjoyed it, that it was a way she had always wanted to be but had feared to reach out and take it for herself.
Amy luxuriated in the feeling. Never had she felt so free, so able to live as she pleased, to suit only herself and no one else. When she thought of how she had dreamed over Bull now she was able to laugh at herself, ridiculing her naive dependence on his approval. And when it had not come as she had hoped she had been plunged into total despair. That would never happen again, Amy was sure. If any despair resulted from her life, she would be sure that from now on it was not Amy who felt it.
There was another way also in which Amy knew herself more frankly than she had before. This morning she could face the fact of her physical appetite without a sense of shame of fear. Secretly, she was grateful to Bull for that. Recalling her frenzied passion the night before Amy was able to see that was how she was. And, since it was something that all men wanted, she was glad that she had a lovely body. Her beauty and her knowledge were the instruments she would use to further herself from now on.
Earl called for her shortly after noon. She saw him from her window when she was still in bed and she paid no attention to his honking of the horn. If he wanted to see her, he could come in and wait. Watching indolently she saw him climb out of the convertible finally and come up the walk. She heard Mrs. Cartison going to the door, but she could not hear what they said, although she could guess that Mrs. Cartison was telling Earl he could not visit her room. At last she heard the sound of Mrs. Cartison climbing the stairs.
"Come in," she called in answer to the knock.
Mrs. Cartison's face was a study in mixed emotions-angered at being forced to carry a message to Amy, disapproval of men calling on her roomers and, finally, complete shock at finding Amy in bed and naked at that. She stood by the door forgetting to close it, her small eyes glittering nastily and taking in the whole scene-Amy languid and amused, her clothes strewn in disorder and the shade not drawn. Then she opened her mouth and closed it without speaking. Amy giggled.
"There's a man to see you," the landlady snapped.
Amy grinned wickedly.
"Send him up, please," she said.
Mrs. Cartison's eyes widened at that.
"No visitors in the rooms," she said flatly.
Amy sighed.
"Oh, isn't that too bad?" she said quietly. "And I was planning on staying indefinitely. Such a nice room too, even if it is a little small. I suppose I'll have to find another somewheres."
Mrs. Cartison stopped in the act of turning to leave. Amid all the other emotions that struggled for expression on her face a new one showed itself. Greed. She remained frozen in immobility for more than a minute while the silent struggle fought within her. Greed won.
"How long were you planning on staying?" Her voice had taken on a wheedling, insinuating quality.
Amy shrugged her bare shoulders, deliberately letting the blanket slip so that almost all of one breast was revealed.
"Oh, perhaps permanently," she said indifferently. "I sort of like Millersville."
Mrs. Cartison's eyes glittered.
"Oh, in that case it's different," she said quickly. "If you're a steady roomer, not a transient, you certainly would have to be able to have visitors."
"And I'd like a larger room too," Amy said in the same languid manner. "With two windows."
"That would be fifteen dollars a week just for the room," she said with finality.
"And I want my breakfast whenever I get up, even if it's afternoon," Amy continued, ignoring her.
Mrs. Cartison set her mouth tight.
"I have to charge for that too," she said grimly. "Another five dollars."
Amy smiled.
"How much does it come to, Mrs. Cartison?"
One breast, white and rosy-tipped, escaped the concealment of the blanket, but Mrs. Cartison forgot to be scandalized, occupied as she was with higher mathematics.
"Twenty-five dollars a week," she said. She could not control the faint reflection of an inner smile showing at the corners of her mouth.
"Twenty-two and it's settled," Amy said calmly.
The smile vanished from the corners of Mrs. Cartison's mouth.
"I can't go down on my rates," she said.
"Then I'll have to look elsewhere," Amy said. "Please send the gentleman up."
Mrs. Cartison's eyes snapped wide again at the abrupt end of what she had expected to be a siege of bargaining. She hesitated and, therefore, lost.
"All right," she said, bowing to the inevitable. "Twenty-two dollars it is."
"Oh, that's sweet of you," Amy smiled, "Would you hand me that blue robe that's hanging in the closet, please? "
It was the flimsiest negligee Amy owned, but it was a lesson she wanted to drive home clearly to Mrs. Cartison. She was sure that up to arson Mrs. Cartison would tolerate anything for twenty-two dollars a week.
When the landlady handed her the robe, Amy stepped quickly from her bed and let her gape at her nude torso before she slipped into the negligee. Then she deliberately walked between the window and Mrs. Cartison, so that the sunlight behind her revealed every line of her body, and standing there before the woman's astonished gaze, asked her to send Earl up. It was only the twenty-two dollars which Mrs. Cartison could see, however, and she turned and went out, leaving Amy convulsed with silent laughter.
Earl came into the room without knocking and stopped dead when he saw Amy as Mrs. Cartison had seen her, the sunlight piercing the flimsy material of the negligee. He pushed the door shut behind him with a slam and stepped quickly toward her with the intention of kissing her.
Amy quickly forestalled him.
"Not in the morning," she said with a laugh.
By daylight, Amy thought, Earl did not look particularly handsome, his complexion sallow and his face pinched. His eyes had a darting shifting manner which she had not noticed before, which gave him a quality of furtiveness and emphasized what he was, a small-time operator in a small-time place. Still, there was no reason why Amy should not share his loot.
"You come to buy me breakfast?"
"More than breakfast," he boasted. "What?" she teased. "Whatever you want."
She laughed, a rich hearty laugh such as she never had before, one that set her breasts shaking.
"You want me to be your girl, Earl?"
He caught on to the fact that she was teasing him and he stepped close to her and caught her by the shoulders.
"Sure," he said harshly. "I'll be good to you, Amy. I'm crazy about you and I want you to stay here with me."
She wriggled out of his grip, still smiling. "I told you I need a job," she said. "What for? I'll take care of that." She shook her head.
"I want to stay here, if I stay. I won't live with you."
"You can work at my place," he said. "Not like the others. I mean you can walk around, kid the guys along and that's all. I'll pay you."
"How much?"
She had cornered him neatly, but the braggart in him would not admit it and he played out the part she had assigned him. He shrugged his shoulders, as if it were a matter of indifference to him.
"A hundred," he said. "Every week?"
"Every week." He smiled, anticipating her acceptance.
"I need clothes," she said, driving the bargain harder.
He wasn't going to quibble now. "Let's go get them."
"Not your local stuff," she said. "Nice clothes."
"I know the place. Come on, get dressed. We've got some traveling to do."
Amy smiled lazily, triumphantly.
"All right, Earl," she said softly. "But turn around."
Dressing with a man in the room gave Amy a delightful feeling of maturity along with the sense of wickedness that pleased her. She took her time, knowing also that the sound of her padding around behind him could not be restful to Earl. All in all she was quite pleased with the way things had turned out. Only two days before she was in a desperate plight and now it seemed that everything was before her. She hummed gaily to herself as she dressed.
He drove her to a big town more than an hour away, and took her to a department store which made Amy turn up her nose.
"Don't worry," he said. "They've got a good department too."
He wasn't wrong. Amy outfitted herself completely, buying everything she could possibly need. Most of the stuff she arranged to have sent, but she took a few things with her to use until the others arrived. Her gay mood was at a peak now. She left very warm toward Earl and on the way back she cuddled against him in the car. When he drove to his house she made no objection.
Later, she watched him in the mirror as she dressed, recalling the dark flow of lust that had caught them both and swept them along in its turgid stream.
To her surprise she was somewhat uneasy about her first night as a hostess at the tavern. It was one thing to be with a man like Earl, who had made things easier for her by handing her a dominant position, but it was something else to be smooth and cool and teasing in a crowd of drunks and half-drunks with only sex on their minds. Still, it was a hundred dollars and a way of keeping her independence. She would not liked having had to live with Earl. In this manner she could, up to a point, control the affair.
Earl told her that it was his idea that she should concentrate on steering the soldiers into the gambling room.
"I make more there than upstairs," he said. "I thought you had nothing to do with upstairs," she reminded him. He flushed.
"It's my place," he said, "and if they're going to spend money there, I got to get it.
"You leave them anything to get back to camp with?"
He snorted.
"If I did, they'd only get rolled by their buddies. Or lose it in a crap game. They got no use for money except for liquor and dames. I give them the liquor and the dames, they give me the dough. A fair shake."
She laughed.
"A shake anyway."
She was finished dressing and she surveyed herself in the mirror. It was one of several gowns she had bought for her role as hostess, black and strapless, curving snugly about her bosom. When she walked she could see where it hung for a moment on each thing and then slipped back with a soft whisper that only she could hear. She wore her hair up as she had the night before and around her neck was a three-strand cultured pearl choker. She felt she had an elegance that might seem out of place in Earl's Tavern, but it was part of the impression she wanted to create, so that she would not be too encumbered by the GIs.
"You've got class, baby," Earl whispered. "Real class."
"Is that what you like about me?" she teased. "That's an extra," he laughed.
When she came into the place, Earl introduced her to the other girls and the bouncers.
"If there's any trouble, just get out of the way," he told her, "and let these guys handle it."
When she came out she felt a contempt for the soldiers as she saw their eyes fall on her. They flocked around her, wanting to hold her and buy her drinks, but she slipped from one to the other, letting them buy her drinks at each stop, but not bothering to drink them. She managed to coax several into the game room and as soon as she saw they were hooked at the table she would leave them and come back for another sucker.
In each of the soldiers she saw a part of Bull and she felt that she hated them all. They seemed drunk and violent to her, foolish and deserving of neither pity nor friendship. Each time she managed to lead one into the gambling room, she felt that she was revenging herself on Bull. And she went at her work with a savage glee, teasing and gypping the soldiers without mercy, mocking them for wanting her, making them pay heavily just for having the desire. It pleased her that she gave them nothing and because of that they preferred her to the other girls.
At quitting time she seemed as fresh as when she had started. The other girls were wilted and showed their fatigue, but Amy's eyes glittered harshly and her mouth curled with contempt as she saw the soldiers stumble out one by one into the night.