He plucked self-consciously at the fabric and rubbed at his neck as though he could feel the stain of the dye.
"What do you think?" Ellen asked.
Corny looked back toward the bathroom, as though remembering his reflection. "It's like I'm hiding in my own skin."
Chapter 4
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.
—Pablo Neruda, "Love Sonnet XI"
The ride on the subway was awful. Kaye felt the iron all around her, felt the weight of it and the stink pressing down, suffocating her. She gripped the aluminum pole and tried not to breathe.
"You look kind of pale," Corny said as they climbed the concrete steps to the street.
She could feel her glamour being eaten away, weakening with each moment.
"Why don't you kids walk around awhile?" Ellen's lips shone with gloss and her hair was sprayed so thickly that it didn't move when the breeze hit it. "It'd be boring watching us set up.”
Kaye nodded. "Also, if I would just see how cool New York was, I would move up here instead of wasting my time cooling my heels in Jersey?”
Ellen smiled. "And that.”
Kaye and Corny walked a little ways through the streets on the edge of the West Village. They passed clothing shops displaying ruffled hats and plaid shorts, tiny record stores promising imports, and a fetish shop featuring a vinyl ball/gag mask with cat ears against a backdrop of holiday red-and-white velvet. A guy in a torn army jacket stood near a corner playing Christmas carols on a nose flute.
"Hey," Corny said. "Coffee shop. We can sit down and warm up.”
They walked up the stairs and through the gold-stenciled door.
Café des Artistes was a series of rooms leading one into another through large passageways. Kaye walked past the counter and through a doorway into a chamber that featured a mantel covered in melted white candles, like a monstrous sand castle eroded by waves. Dimly lit by black chandeliers that hung from a black tin ceiling and reflected in the glass of the aged prints and gilt mirrors, the rooms felt shadowy and cool. A faint and reassuring smell of tea and coffee in the air made her sigh.
They sat down in ornate gilt armchairs, worn so that white molded plastic showed on the hand rests. Corny picked at a golden swirl, and a small piece chipped off with his fingernail. Kaye idly opened the drawer of the small cream-colored table in front of her. Inside, she was surprised to find a collection of paper—notes, postcards, letters.
A waitress walked over and Kaye pushed the drawer shut. The woman's hair was blond on top and a glossy black underneath. "What can I get you?”
Corny picked up a menu off the middle of the table and read from it, as though he were picking things at random. "An omelet with green peppers, tomatoes, and mushrooms, a cheese plate, and a cup of coffee.”
"Coffee for me, too." Kaye grabbed the paper out of his hands and ordered the first thing she saw. "And a piece of lemon pie.”
"Real well-balanced diet," Corny said. "Sugar and caffeine.”
"There might be meringue," Kaye said. "That's eggs. Protein.”
He rolled his eyes.
As the waitress walked away, Kaye opened the drawer again and picked through the cards.
"Look at these." Girlish handwriting described a trip to Italy: I couldn't stop thinking about Lawrence's prediction that I would meet someone in Rome. A card with a hastily drawn mug in one corner had words written in blocky print with a pencil: I spit into my coffee and then switched with Laura's boyfriend so that he would taste me in his mouth. Kaye read the words out loud and then asked, "Where do you think these came from?”
"Garage sales?" Corny said. "Or maybe these are notes people never mailed anywhere. You know, like if you want to write something down, but don't want to let the person it was intended for read it. You leave it here.”
"Let's leave something," Kaye said. She fumbled with her bag and pulled out two scraps of paper and an eyeliner pencil. "Be careful. It's soft and it smears.”
"So, what, you want me to write down a secret? Like, how about I always wanted a comic book villain for a boyfriend, and after Nephamael, I'm not sure a nice guy is ever going to do it for me.”
A couple at another table looked up as though they had caught a few of the words, but not enough to make any sense of what he'd said.
Kaye rolled her eyes. "Yeah, why would one sadistic lunatic put you off sadistic lunatics in general?”