Кэндес Бушнелл: Four Blondes

"Oh, the modern woman speaks," Zack said. "How old are you?”

"Twenty-eight," Janey said, casually lying. She'd been fibbing about her age for professional reasons for so long that she actually believed it.

"You look older," he said, and laughed. "You use men, but you yourself are totally useless. You think your views are revolutionary, but they're not. They're just annoying and immature.”

"And yours aren't?'' "As a matter of fact, they're not," Zack said. "I'm what you Yanks would call a self-made man. Everything I have, I got myself." He lit up a cigarette. "But along the way, I noticed something curious. I lost my emotions. My ability to feel. It comes from having to fuck people over all the time to get what you think you want." He smiled. Those teeth! Janey thought. "So you see, you and I are really quite alike.”

"I have my reasons," Janey said.

"No doubt you do. But they're probably very mundane," he said. Janey reached across the couch and slapped him. He grabbed her wrist. "Very good," he said. "You're getting the idea.”

"I'm not mundane," Janey hissed.

"Oh, but you are," he said. He pushed her back against the couch. She didn't struggle too much. "Degradation," he said into her face. She could smell his breath. "That's all that's left for people like us. Degradation. If s the only way we can feel.”

"You're nuts," Janey said.

"Come upstairs. Quickly!" he said. He grabbed her hand. He hopped up the stairs two at a time. He pulled her into the bedroom. "I've been looking forward to this all week." He pulled off his shirt and pants. Underneath, he was wearing tatty stained briefs that were frayed in the leg holes. He turned around and pulled down his underpants. His bottom was splattered with pimples. "Hit me, Mum!" he shouted.

"I'm not your mum," Janey said. "Hit me, Mum! Please!”

Janey didn't know what to do, so she started screaming. She backed toward the window. It was open. She backed out of it, onto the balcony. Then she ran to the edge and jumped over, onto the roof. She scrambled across that and jumped to the ground. "Owwww," she screamed.

For a few minutes, she just lay there. Then she heard footsteps coming down the stairs and the front door banged open. Zack, still naked, and smoking a cigarette, walked toward her. "Get up, you silly cow. You're not hurt.”

"Fuck off," Janey said.

"I'd appreciate it if you'd leave the premises as quickly and expediently as possible," Zack said. Then he went back in the house and snorted more cocaine. Janey limped into the house. She passed Zack. He didn't look up. She went into the kitchen to make a phone call. "Please, please be home," she said, then, "Thank God." She started sobbing. "If s me. Something terrible has happened. I was with this English guy and he went crazy. I'm scared. Yes. Yes," she said, sniveling, and gave the address. Then she went out onto the porch to wait.

Twenty minutes later, a Range Rover came roaring up Further Lane. The driver bypassed the driveway, and drove across the lawn, scattering bits of the croquet set. The Rover stopped in front of the house and Harold got out. He kept the car door open. "Your ride is here," he said.

Zack ran out of the house with a towel around his waist. "You really fucked it up," he said to Janey. "You had a chance. We could have spent the whole summer together. You blew it.”

"Get away from her," Harold said.

Zack ignored him, following Janey as she limped to the car. "Go back to your little Jew boys. Where you feel safe.”

Harold took a step forward. "Hey. Listen here, asshole. Take it easy. This is America. You can't talk like that.”

"Oh yeah?" Zack laughed. He took a drag on his cigarette. "I'll say whatever I damn please.”

“When my lawyers get finished with you, you won't be out of court for years," Harold said calmly. He got into the car and slammed the door.

"Yeah, yeah, 'course you will," Zack shouted.

"You Yanks. Take all the fun out of everything with your damn lawyers." He hiked the towel up around his waist and walked back into the house.

Harold backed his car across the lawn. "Jesus Christ, Janey," he said.

"Harold," Janey said. She put her hands over her eyes. "I can't really take any lectures right now, okay?”

"I'm not going to lecture you, baby. I just want to make sure you're all right. He didn't ...”

"No," she said. "Who is that creep?”

"Zack Manners," Janey said. "The English record producer.”

"Goddamn Brits," Harold said. "Why don't they go back to England where they belong? Don't worry," he said, patting Janey's hand, "I'll see to it that he's persona non grata on the East End. He won't be able to get a reservation anywhere.”

“You're wonderful, Harold. You really are," Janey said.

"I know," Harold said.

"I just wanted to have a good summer," Janey said an hour later, lying in a bed in a private room in Southampton Hospital. "Like when I was sixteen.”

"Shhhh," said the nurse. "Everyone wants to be sixteen again. Count backwards from a hundred and go to sleep.”

Sixteen. That was the summer when Janey had gone from ugly to beautiful. Until then, she'd been the pudgy, funny-faced kid in a family of beauties.

Her father was six foot two, all-American, the town's local doctor. He wanted Janey to be a nurse, so she'd find a decent husband. Her mother was French and perfect. Janey was the middle child, sandwiched between a boy and a girl who could do no wrong.

While the rest of the family ate veal with a mushroom cream sauce, Janey's mother served her half a head of iceberg lettuce. "If you don't lose weight, you won't find a man. Then you'll have to work. There is nothing more unattractive than a woman who works," she'd say.

"I want to be a vet," Janey said.

Every summer, spent at the country club, was agony. Janey's mother, thin, tanned, in a Pucci bathing suit, was constantly drinking iced tea and flirting with the lifeguards, and later, with her son's friends, who adored her. Janey's brother and sister, both on the swim team, were state champs. Janey, who had a fat belly and fat thighs, was never able to distinguish herself. At fourteen, when she got her period, her mother said, "Janey, you must be very careful with boys. Boys like to take advantage of girls who are not pretty because the boys know the girl is, how you say, desperate. For attention.”

Then Janey turned sixteen. She grew four inches. When she walked into the country club that summer, no one recognized her. She took to wearing her mother's Pucci bathing suits. She stole her lipstick. She smoked cigarettes behind the clubhouse. Boys flocked around. Her mother caught her kissing a boy under a picnic table. She slapped Janey across the face. That was when Janey knew she'd won. "I'll show you," Janey said. "I'll do better than you.”

“You cannot do better than me," said her mother. "Oh yes I can," Janey said.

The Saturday after Janey jumped from Zack's roof, she showed up at Media Beach in Sagaponack with Redmon Richardly. Her foot was in a cast, and Redmon helped her, limping, across the sand. He settled her on a beach towel, then he went to take a swim. Allison came running over. "Is it true?" she asked breathlessly.

"Which part?" Janey asked. She leaned back on her elbows, in order to better display her magnificent body. "You mean about Redmon and me being together?”

"No. About last night.”

"Don't say anything to Redmon. Especially don't mention Zack's name," Janey said.

The night before, Janey and Redmon had stopped at the club Twenty-Seven on their way out to the Hamptons. Zack was there. He walked by Redmon and said, "Another sucker born every minute. Isn't that what you Yanks say?" and Redmon had taken a swing at him. Since then, Redmon had told everyone that Zack had been in love with Janey, but she'd left Zack for him, and that's why Zack was flipping out.