“To hell with the spring leaf.”
We were crashing into a little eucalyptus grove beside the road.
The Greek had sent us down to the market to take back some T-bone steaks he said were lousy, and on the way back it had got dark.
I slammed the car in there, and it bucked and bounced, but when I was in among the trees I stopped.
Her arms were around me before I even cut the lights.
We did plenty.
After a while we just sat there.
“I can’t go on like this, Frank.”
“Me neither.”
“I can’t stand it.
And I’ve got to get drunk with you, Frank.
You know what I mean?
Drunk.”
“I know.”
“And I hate that Greek.”
“Why did you marry him?
You never did tell me that.”
“I haven’t told you anything.”
“We haven’t wasted any time on talk.”
“I was working in a hash house.
You spend two years in a Los Angeles hash house and you’ll take the first guy that’s got a gold watch.”
“When did you leave Iowa?”
“Three years ago.
I won a beauty contest. I won a high school beauty contest, in Des Moines.
That’s where I lived.
The prize was a trip to Hollywood.
I got off the Chief with fifteen guys taking my picture, and two weeks later I was in the hash house.”
“Didn’t you go back?”
“I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.”
“Did you get in movies?”
“They gave me a test.
It was all right in the face.
But they talk, now.
The pictures, I mean.
And when I began to talk, up there on the screen, they knew me for what I was, and so did I.
A cheap Des Moines trollop, that had as much chance in pictures as a monkey has.
Not as much.
A monkey, anyway, can make you laugh.
All I did was make you sick.”
“And then?”
“Then two years of guys pinching your leg and leaving nickel tips and asking how about a little party tonight.
I went on some of them parties, Frank.”
“And then?”
“You know what I mean about them parties?”
“I know.”
“Then he came along.
I took him, and so help me, I meant to stick by him.
But I can’t stand it any more.
God, do I look like a little white bird?”
“To me, you look more like a hell cat.”