Naked in the Promised Land by Lillian Faderman Page A

it up. The more I struggled, the harder he gripped me. His fingers wrestled with my garter belt, with the band of my panties; his knees pushed at my thighs. "Chuck, stop!" I screamed.

    And he did. He loosened his hold on me, then moved back to the driver's seat, his breath coming in whistles through his mouth. He gripped the wheel and banged his head on it, again, then again. "I'm an idiot," he moaned. "She just got me so angry." He slumped over the wheel and stayed that way for so long that I thought he'd fainted. My teeth chattered as if I were sitting in a refrigerator. What should I do?
    When he snapped his head up, I jumped. "We're going to Evelyn's party," he announced, backing the truck out of the weeds so quickly that the tires spun. I pressed up against the passenger door, moving as far away from him as I could, and he didn't say another word. I wasn't scared of him now as much as I was angry. Where had that monster sprung from that tore at my clothes and hurt me with his hands and mouth? What had that been about?
    I followed Chuck up the Frombergs' steps, and Evelyn swung open the door. Over Chuck's shoulder I could see that people were kicking in a conga line. Evelyn blew loudly at an orange noisemaker that snaked from her lips and then shouted, "Hap-py New Year!" She wore a tiny gold cardboard tiara on her head and a red and purple gown sausaged her big body. He entered first. Then she took one look at me and her jaw dropped. "You bastard, get out," she spat at Chuck. "You son of a bitch!"
    How had she known?
    "Okay, okay." He threw up his hands as if he were fending off a blow. "You're right. I'm a bastard son of a bitch." Then he slunk off like a kicked alley cat—even more pathetic because of the funny tuxedo. I could hear Evelyn breathing through her teeth. I kept my eyes on him till he turned the corner, and then she drew me to her big bosom in a motherly hug. "Sweetie, go change and then come back to the party," she said gently. I left, fighting back the rush of tears that her kindness had loosed. It wasn't really his fault. Rae had made him angry. But why did he have to terrify me? I was mad at him, but I was also sorry that he might lose Evelyn's friendship and, because of me, never sit in her kitchen and sip coffee again.
    My mother was in bed with the light off, and the house was mausoleum-quiet. As a kid, I used to panic when I couldn't see her breathing or hear her snoring: What if she were dead? Standing now at the threshold, wide-eyed in the spook-filled dark, I listened as I used to. I shouldn't have left her alone. I heard a squeak of springs as she turned over.

    Then I tiptoed into the bathroom, closed the door behind me, and turned on the light. For an instant I didn't recognize the girl in the mirror. Now I saw what Evelyn had seen. My cheeks and chin were blotchy red from the friction of Chuck's stubble, my lips blurry with lipstick smear, my hair wild. I looked like I'd been raped.

    It had been three years since Irene signed me to an exclusive management contract, and though Lillian Foster had done scores of shows in the pink gown, Irene had called them all "charity performances." "It's good experience and exposure," she told the troupe in her mellow amber voice. Despite my crush, I wondered what good the experience and exposure could do when she didn't send me out on a single Hollywood audition. How would I ever earn money to help my mother? Years had passed, and I'd accomplished nothing toward her rescue. The hot seasons were still the worst, when she came home dripping and exhausted from Schneiderman's unventilated top floor and the steam of the pressing machines. "Save me from the shop!" she cried, flopping on her bed in a dress wet with sweat, as in New York; but now it was to the ceiling that she cried, as though she'd lost faith in our dream. I'd lost faith too.
    One Saturday, tacked on the wall above the briny pickle barrels in the grocery store, I saw a penciled message in Yiddish