Alligators in the Trees by Cynthia Hamilton Page A

bothered to fill your ice trays,” she said, extracting six measly cubes from the aluminum tray.
    “If I’d known you were coming, I would’ve had Mai Tai’s and canapés waiting for you,” Priscilla said, staring up at her ceiling, wondering why she had opened the door. Rochelle laid her bag and fur on the futon next to Darlene’s and minced her way to the kitchen area. It took a good bit of doing, but she managed to bend over far enough to reach the small cans of grapefruit juice from the back of the refrigerator.
    “Are we really going to have to drink rum and grapefruit juice?” Darlene asked, her mouth puckering at the thought.
    “It doesn’t sound that bad,” Rochelle said, as she popped a can and poured it into a glass, topping it with a generous dose of dark rum. She pushed the two ice cubes down with her fingers in a crude attempt at mixing. “Hmm… it’s actually kinda refreshing,” she said, as she tasted the odd concoction. Darlene looked at her skeptically out of the corner of her eye.
    “No wonder you think it tastes good—you’ve got about three inches of rum floating on the top. Wait till that’s all gone and you hit the grapefruit,” she said. To make her point, Darlene took a spoon and gave Rochelle’s drink a proper stir. “Now see if you still find it refreshing,” she challenged.
    Rochelle bravely took a large sip, wincing visibly as the two flavors collided in her mouth. “It’s okay,” she croaked out optimistically. “Actually,” she amended as she smacked her lips thoughtfully, “the taste kinda grows on you. Hey Sammy, try this—tell me what you think.”
    “No thanks. It sounds revolting.”
    “Oh, c’mon. You gotta try it. It ain’t so bad, I swear.”
    Priscilla took a cautious sip and thrust the glass back at Rochelle. “Ugh, that’s disgusting,” she said, glancing around futilely for something to take the taste out of her mouth. She went to the sink and filled a glass with water and drank a couple quick gulps. Unfortunately, her tap water was almost as bad as Rochelle’s drink.
    “Pour a little rum in here, would you,” she said to Darlene, who instead gave her a glass with two cubes of ice. “Just to there,” Priscilla directed her. She swirled the cubes a moment before taking a drink. The warmish rum burned all the way down, but at least it managed to cut through the awful aftertaste on her tongue. She and Darlene, who had already made the sensible decision to drink hers straight, rejoined Rochelle.
    “So, besides drinking rum like a couple of pirates, what are you two girls up to tonight? You have hot dates or something?” Priscilla asked, after she had made herself comfortable. It had been years since she’d had rum, and she soon remembered why. She’d only had a couple of sips, but she could feel the effects of the alcohol almost immediately. She couldn’t say with certainty where her legs stopped and the chair began.
    “Yeah, as a matter of fact we do,” Rochelle said. She had sucked down half of her exotic cocktail and was appropriately giddy.
    “Oh really? With who?” Priscilla asked distractedly.
    “With you!” Rochelle sang out merrily. “We’re going to this great new place we found called NYCE, over on Fifty-Eighth, between Park and Lexington.”
    “Nice?” Priscilla asked dubiously.
    “N,Y,C,E. It stands for New York Cotton Exchange, or something. It’s a really fancy place, the kind that serves their drinks in those great big martini glasses—”
    “Rochelle likes it because they have free yuppie hors d’oeuvres, plus she thinks one of the bartenders has a crush on her,” Darlene said with a snort.
    “Well, you gotta admit he did spend a lot of time talking to us.”
    “That couldn’t have anything to do with the fact you kept calling him over every two minutes to answer some stupid question.”
    Rochelle, who rarely got her feathers ruffled, took this criticism in stride. “I have an inquiring mind. Men appreciate