Second Chances by Alice Adams Page A

women need things for parties. Don’t be such an old puritan, Pol.”
    “Well, you needn’t be so cross. Such a dictator, Celeste.”
    But what on earth has happened, suddenly? Polly and Celeste, so fond of each other, really, are quarreling, or nearly. In the yellow April sunshine from Celeste’s long open window, in the attractive room, now all festively strewn with pretty clothes, soft fabrics—in the midst of all this attractiveness a quarrel has erupted. It is present in their eyes, Celeste’s and Polly’s, as for an instant they simply stare at each other, glittering brown-black into pale blue.
    Suppose I said it? Celeste now wonders. Suppose all vulgarly like a fishwife I said to Polly: I know you had an affair with Charles, whom you don’t—you could never deserve. You were never beautiful enough for Charles. But I
know
. You can’t pretend any longer.
    Celeste shivers at the very thought of saying such a thing, such
things
. And for an instant she closes her eyes to cancel the thoughts. Opening them after an instant, she says to Polly, “I’m sorry, darling. I am being snappish today, I know. Do you think it’s pre-bridal tension, even at my age?”
    “Well, that would be quite legitimate, I think.”
    “The truth is,” lies Celeste, “I’m just so worried over Sara. Insome way she’s more like my daughter, you know? Especially now that Emma’s gone. I suppose it has to do with not having children, don’t you think?”
    “I guess.” Enigmatic Polly, so solemn. Polly who never in a million years would have done for Charles, at any age.
    Sara and her lover, a thin, towheaded boy named Alex, were picked up for buying dope in Puerto Vallarta, and that is where they are now, in jail: a single room with no floor, just smooth, unevenly worn-down dirt. No windows, no air. A toilet hole for men on one side of the room, for women on the other. People take turns shielding each other while they defecate, and then they give up on privacy, usually.
    One couple, a girl from Florida and a very young Mexican boy, about sixteen, make a point of humping into each other in a corner of the room as a few people watch, idly clapping to the rhythm of their fuck. The girl, whose hair is long and blonde but now all heavily dirty, darkened, tangled, cries out as though in climax, but Sara for one does not believe her. Sara does not believe that she is at all enjoying what she does.
    Sara and Alex themselves sit chastely and angrily some feet apart, and Alex, whose beauty has been so frightening, so powerful a force to Sara—Alex now looks greasy and fat; he looks like everyone else in the room. He looks like Sara. Except that this is probably how she has always looked to him: a dark fat girl whom he happened to fall into bed with, stoned. A girl who kept hanging around after that and who finally said, “Why don’t we go down to Mexico during spring break? I know a place near Vallarta where we could score some really good stuff.” And handsome, evasive Alex, with his wild white-blond curls, unkempt beard, strong nose and clear sea-green eyes, Alex said, “Yes. Well, okay. Why not?”
    Sara’s birthday check from her Aunt Celeste covered the cost of the two round-trip tickets, and they found a cheap hotel out near the tiny, corny airport. The town was fairly corny too, but sometimes extremely pretty: a pink plaster wall all overgrown with falling purple flowers, with heavy, sexy blossoms. They walked a lot, Alex and Sara. They crossed the bridge where to one side women were spreading their laundry out over the rocks to dry in the sun, and where on theother side the river came down from the hills. Where rich Americans have large fancy houses. A whole colony of them. Gringo Gulch—Alex had somehow come by that name. So disgusting.
    But everything was fine, everything going really well between them: a lot of sex, early-morning sex and siesta sex and then long stoned hours of sex at night. And, in between, all those long