In the Drink by Kate Christensen

stood up and tried to pull myself back together. My back and arms ached. The rip in my blouse had widened so much that the sleeve was almost detached. My skirt had a big splotch of tomato juice all over the front that had spilled from an upended can, and my hair was coated with slime from continually having to push it out of my face. I put my sweater back on, then rang for Louie and rode up with him to the fourth floor.
    I opened the side door to the apartment and stepped into the pantry. I could hear the clink of fork on plate in the kitchen. I hesitated. She hadn’t heard me come in; I was tempted to gather up my things and run. She would never see me again. I’d screen all my calls for the rest of my life. Butwhat, exactly, was I afraid of? “Jackie,” I said, walking into the kitchen, “it wasn’t there.”
    She sat alone at her kitchen table under a pool of light from the hooded lamp directly overhead, eating the lunch Juanita had left for her. She looked up and saw me, covered in garbage, with a reeking cloud of hair and a glint in my eye. “It wasn’t there,” she repeated in a cautious, pacifying voice. “Well, you certainly looked thoroughly. You were down there almost two hours.”
    “I found the stuff you threw out. The envelope wasn’t with it.”
    The phone rang. I went to the pantry to answer it. “This is Mrs. Marcos,” said a faint voice. “To whom am I speaking?”
    “Claudia Steiner,” I said. “You got my message?”
    “I don’t have any negatives from that visit,” she said.
    “I’ll put her on.”
    I stood in the doorway while they reminisced about what a wonderful time they’d had a few months ago, going out dancing with Mr. Blevins and Mr. Metcalf. “It was such a treat when you got up and sang with the band,” said Jackie. “You have such a voice, Imelda dear. I know I’ve told you this before, but you should really—yes, yes, I know, one is so terribly busy all the time, I know it myself, I hardly have time to write my books. Well, listen, my dear friend, I’m terribly sorry to bother you over such a little thing, but my secretary misplaced that lovely photograph of the four of us together outside the—yes, wasn’t it, I was just telling my secretary, such a wonderful visit. Well, if you don’t have it, I suppose I’ll have to use another picture instead, but it’s a shame. All right. Thank you, dear. We will, very soon. Love to Bongo.”
    Slouching in opposite doorways at either end of the pantry, we eyed each other with the wary uneasiness of combatants too tired to go on with the fight, but unable to surrender. “Well,”she said finally, “this is really the last straw, Claudia. I’m so exhausted the rest of the day is just shot. I had wanted to get going on the new book, but I suppose it’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”
    “I need to wash my hands,” I said. I went to the bathroom just off the foyer and locked the door. I stuck my hands into a stream of warm water and lathered for several minutes with expensive camellia soap, dabbed at my skirt with a dampened embroidered hand towel and more camellia soap, then took another warm soapy little towel and plunged it around my armpits. I found a comb in my skirt pocket, wet it, and ran it through my hair. I washed my face thoroughly and dried it on yet another monogrammed scrap of terry cloth, then left all the towels in a sodden heap for Juanita to deal with: I didn’t give a shit.
    Jackie was pacing up and down the hall outside the bathroom when I emerged. She silently took me by the arm and marched me the few yards to the foyer, to the marble table by the front door where all her outgoing mail waited for me to take it down and mail it. “Look at that,” she said with insistent eagerness.
    “What is it?”
    “I don’t know, what is it?”
    “It’s addressed to Doris Loewenstein,” I said. “In your handwriting.”
    “Look inside,” she said.
    I shrugged and opened the manila envelope. She hovered