"Cleo has caught on. She keeps thinking up excuses to get out but I won't let her go. I've locked the door and hid the key. It's lucky she's here because she's turned out to be a goldmine of advice," Lucy said.
Having this in common, Vida thought as she lay in bed that night waiting, had had a subtle effect on the relationship between Lucy and herself. As though they had become one individual, and Lucy the better part. She never once showed the slightest curiosity about the man and kept striving to make the situation appear no worse than a toothache.
The next afternoon Tessie came and Lucy went to get a prescription filled. When she returned Vida was in pain with Tessie at her side.
"You know," Tessie said to Lucy, "it's fascinating to watch. Kovnikoff who was with the Moscow Art Theatre says it's very important for an actress to observe suffering. I feel I'm having an important lesson."
"Get out of here," Vida screamed.
"We better get her to bed and call the doctor," Cleo said.
Through the haze of pain Vida saw Lucy, a folded napkin over her hair like a nurse's cap, in a large white apron. There was clinking of instruments on a porcelain pan, the short grumpy doctor muttering about the consequences of lovemaking, and then the pain became so intense she lost control of her body; it arched up, her head falling back, and she twisted and arched and jerked and the whites of Cleo's eyes and the face of the doctor and Lucy blurred and she leapt and twisted in the air like Tina did for a ball when she was young and faster faster faster and at the apex of one intolerable pain a great warm avalanche swept down and she was swimming in blood and the angelic figure of Lucy swayed and straightened and sight and hearing went.
And then senses returned and muffled sounds of running water and departures and then everything was quiet and she saw Lucy standing in the door with a glass in her hand.
"I'm having another drink of gin. You know I hardly ever touch it, but I didn't have sense enough to turn my head. The doctor's done everything. Cleo's gone. She was scared to death of landing in jail. I told her to take off tomorrow."
"No words are—there just aren't—" she babbled.
"Don't think of a thing. Maybe you'll help me some way someday, so now let's get a good sleep."
