Guilt by Association (19 page)

“I don’t feel very mellow,” she gasped.

“It takes more than one hit.”

“What if I’d just as soon not do it again?”

He shrugged. “How bad do you want to be mellow?”

Karen wrinkled up her nose, put the foul-smelling awful-tasting reefer to her lips and pulled on it. Again she gagged, her insides burned and her eyes watered, but not as much as the first time. By the fourth or fifth hit, she had the hang of it and suddenly began to giggle.

“If my mother could see me, she’d have an apoplectic fit.”

“Does your mother have apoplexy?” Ethan asked.

“No,” Karen replied, wondering why she had never noticed how intelligent he was. “She has astigmatism.”

Ethan shook his head. “You’re not making any sense.”

“Nonsense,” she retorted. “I’m making perfect sense.”

For some reason that seemed outrageously funny to her and the giggles began anew.

“I guess I don’t have to ask how you feel,” he said.

“Very light,” Karen replied. “Like I could tiptoe on air. I can’t remember ever feeling quite this way before.”

“Maybe that’s because you were never mellow before,” suggested Ethan.

Karen stretched up high above her head, wiggling her fingers in the air, and then dropped back against the velvet cushions.
It looked as though she might close her eyes and drift right off to sleep, but in the next second she was alert again, every nerve, every muscle at attention.

“Just look at that, will you,” she urged, pointing to the bead curtain that divided the living area from the dining space.
“Look how beautiful those beads are.” She scrambled to her feet and made an unsteady beeline for the partition, motioning him to follow. “You have to come, too,” she giggled. “I need a hit.”

Ethan obeyed and passed her a fresh joint. She dragged deeply on it and turned to examine the intricacies of color and design that made up the small wooden balls that hung from high over her head.

“These are absolutely fascinating,” she breathed. As riveted on the beads as she was, something caught her eye and she glanced through the curtains.

“Look,” she cried in surprise. “Someone’s dancing. Oh, how lovely. What kind of dance is that?”

Ethan followed her gaze. Indeed, several couples now occupied the mattresses at the far end of the loft, going about their pleasures with complete abandon.

“I think it’s called the mating dance,” he replied with a chuckle.

“I’ve never seen that before,” Karen said as her body began to undulate in imitation. “Can we try it?”

Ethan stared at her. “I guess so,” he gulped.

He seized the joint and took several quick hits, sensing that something far beyond his wildest expectations was about
to happen. Trembling, he followed her across the loft. Although he would have sooner died than admit it, the young Nebraskan had never been with a woman.

Karen walked slowly around the mattresses, studying each oblivious couple.

“Aren’t they magnificent?” she whispered. “So graceful, so rhythmic.” She stopped in front of an unoccupied mattress and turned to him. “What do we do first?” she asked.

“Uh, well, uh, I think we take off our clothes,” he stammered.

She giggled. “I can’t do that.”

“But that’s how it goes,” he said. “We take off our clothes and then we do the dance.”

“Let’s do it with our clothes on.”

“Well, I suppose we could,” he ventured, not wanting to seem too anxious.

She stepped onto the mattress and began to twist her body in an awkward version of the mating dance, humming along with a tune only she could hear. Ethan licked his lips and moved toward her, figuring that, when the time came, the undressing part would take care of itself.

He felt her stiffen when he put his arms around her, but she didn’t pull away. They swayed together for a few bliss-filled moments, sharing the end of his last joint. Her eyes were closed and her lips were turned up in a small smile. He couldn’t resist. He leaned over and kissed her lightly.

Her head snapped back and her eyes flew open. “That’s not part of the dance,” she cried.

“Sure it is,” he said.

Karen squinted at him. “I don’t believe you.”

“Look around,” he invited.

She peered at the couples that surrounded them and, sure enough, she saw that lips were touching lips and hands were touching bodies and bodies were fused tightly together.

“They’re so artistic,” she breathed. “Look how that one’s muscles ripple up and down, and how smooth this one’s skin is—how it glows in the candlelight.”

Now she was fascinated by the candles, mesmerized by the gentle flickering.

“See how the flames reach for the sky? They look like the tongues of hell.”

One moment she was staring at the candles, the next she was sagging against him and he had to hold her to keep her from falling.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

The whole room had begun to spin out of control and a flurry of bright lights swirled before her eyes.

“Let’s sit down,” she suggested.

“Okay.”

He let go of her and she dropped like a sack of flour.

“Plop!” she giggled. “I need another hit.”

Ethan sat down beside her. “I think you’ve had enough,” he told her. “Besides, we’re right in the middle of our dance.”

“So we are,” she agreed with an acquiescent yawn. “I like the lights, though. Don’t turn off the lights.”

He didn’t know what lights she was talking about.

“The lights stay,” he said as he pushed her gently back against the mattress. She didn’t resist. He slid his hand down her arm, brushing against her breast.

“The colors are so pretty,” she murmured. “I can see them even with my eyes closed.”

He unbuttoned her blouse.

“They’re red and blue and green and pink and purple and silver.”

He unzipped her skirt.

“See how they sparkle.”

He unhooked her bra.

“Look, now they’re showering down on top of us.”

He slipped off her panties.

“Why, it’s just like the fireworks on the Fourth of July.”

Even in the candlelight, he could see the scars, thin jagged welts from her neck to her knee. He wondered fleetingly what had happened to her as he pulled his T-shirt over his head and unzipped his jeans.

“I feel as though I’m going to break into a thousand pieces of light and float through the air,” she cried.

He had worshiped her from afar for so many months that he could barely contain himself as his hands moved over her body and his mouth found her nipples.

“There’s that tune again,” she trilled. “La-li-la-la, la-li-la-la. Everybody’s dancing, the chandeliers are sparkling with a thousand pieces of light. La-li-la-la.”

Without any further ado, he rolled over on top of her and began to fumble between her legs.

Her scream split the loft, a scream not of pain but of terror as, through her daze, she understood what it was he had in mind.

“Stop it!” she shrieked, clawing at him like a cat, pushing against him with all her strength. “Stop!”

Ethan blanched. “What’d I do?” he implored. People were staring and he was mortified.

She was crying now. “It was beautiful,” she sobbed. “The music, the lights, the dancing, and you ruined it all.”

“I didn’t mean to,” he pleaded.

Someone opened a window and Karen felt a sudden draft sweep across her. She shivered and, looking down, realized she had no clothes on. She froze. Images blurred. The music stopped. The lights vanished. The dance was over. Everything went black.

A
bright shaft of sun was burning through her eyelids. Karen groaned, still half asleep, and pulled the sheet up over her head

“Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty,” Demelza chuckled from somewhere above her. “There’s no Prince Charming, but there is fresh coffee.”

Karen blinked several times and forced her eyes open, but everything was fuzzy and white. Then she remembered the sheet and pushed it down under her chin. High arched windows looked down on her. Karen glanced around. She was lying on a mattress in one part of a large room, it was definitely morning—and she didn’t know what she was doing there.

“Where am I?” she asked.

Demelza loomed into view. “In my loft, of course. You came to my party last night. You ate my moussaka, drank my ouzo, and then Ethan must have given you too much of the good stuff, because somewhere around midnight you passed out cold. You looked so comfortable, I decided not to wake you.”

“That’s right,” Karen recalled. “I got mellow, didn’t I?”

“Quite,” Demelza chuckled.

“It felt wonderful. I was floating and I could hear this incredible music.” Karen frowned. “Is that when I passed out?”

“Just about.” Demelza peered down at the girl for a moment and decided that, if she didn’t remember anything else, there was nothing to be gained by reminding her.

“I’m so embarrassed,” Karen mumbled. “Everyone must have thought me terribly rude.”

“I doubt anyone noticed,” Demelza said with a bright smile.

Actually, she had given everyone a terrible fright, screaming and clawing at Ethan like that, as though the devil himself were after her. Demelza didn’t grasp the situation immediately, but in the flickering candlelight she saw the scars, and that was enough to make her push Ethan away, grab a sheet to pull over Karen’s body, and persuade them all to go on about their business.

As soon as the party broke up, she fixed herself some tea and, bringing the thick mug with her, came back to stare thoughtfully down at Karen. After a while, she pushed the sheet aside and, with some effort, managed to put the girl’s clothes back on.
Then, tucking the sheet back in place, she sat down on a mattress, her back against the exposed brick wall.

Doris Ulasewicz was the oldest of six children. Her mother was an unstable woman, frequently unable to cope, and her father was a longshoreman who spent more days at the racetracks than he did on the docks. Doris always knew how the ponies had run by how he came home—singing or swinging.

From the time she was eight, she had protected her brothers and sisters from their father’s ire and their mother’s neglect.
She cooked and cleaned, changed diapers, prepared formula and, when the ponies were running badly, she found a way to wheedle the grocer out of one more grapefruit, one more loaf of bread, one more quart of milk.

There was never enough of anything—never enough food, never enough warm clothes, never enough love. When she was thirteen,
she slept with the butcher, on a rough wooden floor in a back room, for a pound of hamburger and a scrawny chicken. She stretched the meat into two meals and made
soup from the chicken bones and a purloined onion. The following week, she got a pork roast.

At fifteen, she quit school and lied about her age to get a job behind the counter of a luncheonette. The wages were hardly worth her time, but the tips were occasionally good, she was fed a hot meal, and she was allowed to take home whatever scraps she could salvage. She saved every penny, and once a month she would go to the Salvation Army store and dig through piles of used clothing for pieces she could rework into outfits for the children.

Her only refuge was the public library. For a few precious hours each afternoon, she would escape to the musty stacks and lose herself in incredible worlds that were filled with beauty, mystery, and adventure. It was the beginning of a love affair with books that never ended.

On Pearl Harbor Day, she turned eighteen and forever remembered the occasion, not as the beginning of a war for freedom,
but as the beginning of her own freedom. Within a matter of weeks, her father was being called to work on the docks every day.

Doris got a job in a downtown Manhattan bookstore and never looked back. She moved into a cold-water flat on Houston Street,
as far away from the Bronx as she could get, changed her name, and found a life. By the time she was thirty, she had gained forty pounds and saved enough money to start her own small business in the basement of a Washington Square tenement.

Her brothers and sisters had long since stopped relying on her, but she never quite got over the urge to nurture. Fortunately,
there was always an abundance of needy souls and lost causes for her to champion. And as she sat there in her loft, sipping her tea and watching over Karen, Demelza felt that familiar tug at her heart.

The girl looked like an angel, so innocent and trusting, curled up in sleep, but Demelza had seen the scars and wondered what demons populated her dreams. The Bookery proprietor could not have said how she came to choose her needy souls and lost causes, or whether it was the other way around,
but there was a real sense of tragedy about Karen that she had felt from the first day the young woman walked into her shop—and tragedy was definitely Demelza’s thing.

Caretaker of the Down and Out, that’s what the Village people called her. If there was a person with no place to stay, see Demelza. If there was someone who needed a handout, tap Demelza. If there was an outrage that needed exposing, tell Demelza.
Any day of the week, she would gladly give her only warm coat to a freezing vagrant and her last dime to a starving child

Karen wasn’t freezing or starving but she was certainly in need of something, if only Demelza could figure out what.

The candles had burned themselves down to nothing and dawn was painting the windows gray before Demelza’s eyes closed. When she opened them again, it was past nine o’clock and they were late for work.

“I can’t believe I fell asleep and stayed the whole night,” Karen was saying as she came out of the bathroom and helped herself to a cup of coffee.

“You look none the worse for the experience,” Demelza commented.

“I feel fine,” Karen said. “In fact, I feel terrific. I can’t remember the last time I had a better night’s rest.”

“Pot has been known to have that effect on people.”

A shadow flickered across Karen’s face. “I didn’t do anything to embarrass myself last night, did I?” she asked.

“Not that I saw,” Demelza replied glibly. “Why?”

“Well, this is going to sound stupid, I know, but I’ve got this weird picture in my head—a dream, I guess, of me dancing without my clothes.”