The Doctor's Daughter by Hilma Wolitzer Page A

that condescending tone some people use to talk to children or the elderly. What kind of phony name was “Everett,” anyway? And “Ev” sounded like a woman, even if he was so blatantly masculine.
    Someone else in our group tried to interject, citing Chekhov and siding with me, I think, but Ev cut him off. “Chekhov’s characters
earn
their tragedy by their humanity. But there’s no shock of recognition here. Not for me, anyway.”
    How could there be, when he was hardly human? “It’s not about you!” I shouted.
    “Exactly!” he shouted back.
    We went on like that until Phil slammed a book on the table and yelled, “Bong!” to indicate the round was over. He’d given up on pushing his philosophy of noncompetition. Now he just wanted to keep us from killing each other.
    That evening there was beer and pizza at somebody’s house on South Gilbert Street. Arthur was cramming for exams, so I went to the party without him. It was the usual scene: loud music, blue lights, manic postworkshop chatter around the crowded room. Ev came up to me soon after I walked in. I was immediately aware of how aggressively big he was. Arthur was muscular, but compact, and we were almost the same height. At least we see things eye-to-eye, I thought at that moment, as if I’d been called upon to defend our relationship. Ev handed me a bottle of beer and grabbed another for himself. “Listen,” he said. “I’m afraid I was a little hard on you this afternoon.”
    “Don’t worry about it,” I said, and turned to walk away.
    He touched my arm. “I think you’re really smart . . . ,” he began.
    “Thank you,” I said stiffly, before he could continue. I wasn’t in the mood for a belated handout from such a complacent bully.
    “You just have to curb your passion a little.”
    I took a long swig of beer, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and plunked the bottle down on a table. “Oh?” I said. “And how would you know, since you don’t seem to have any at all?”
    He set his bottle down alongside mine. Then, without warning, he put his arms around me and kissed me hard on the mouth. I could feel the pressure of his teeth and taste the cold, beery breath we shared. I pulled away from him, enraged and intensely self-conscious. I glanced around, but to my amazement no one seemed to be looking at us. “What do you think you’re doing?” I demanded.
    “Demonstrating my passionate side,” he said, flashing a sudden, unnerving smile.
    “Save it for your writing,” I told him, and I strode out of the room onto the front porch. It was snowing again. I had gotten a ride with friends, but I wasn’t going to look for them now. I’d walk back to my place, even though it was very cold and I’d worn only a light denim jacket.
    Ev came out a moment later, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, okay,” he said. “So I’m an idiot.”
    “At least we agree on something.”
    “Don’t go, Alice,” he said. “Please don’t.”
    “Why not?” I wasn’t fishing, I was genuinely curious. What did he want from me, anyway?
    “Because I’ll feel like hell if you do.”
    “That will be your problem, won’t it?” I was shivering, shuffling my feet in a little get-warm dance.
    “I’m trying to say that I’m sorry. Can I give you a ride, at least?” He was in shirtsleeves and shivering, too. He took a loose cigarette from his pocket. “Or a smoke?” He held it out to me and then lit up. “Or a brand-new Buick convertible?”
    I laughed, attempting to sound sardonic. “You shouldn’t smoke,” I said with my father’s imperious inflection.
And get a haircut,
I almost added; his dark curls were in a tumult around his attentive face.
    He flicked the cigarette into the snow below the porch. “Okay,” he said. “I won’t.”
    “Good night,” I told him, and made my way carefully down the icy steps. But this time he didn’t come after me.
    As Arthur and I became more deeply involved, the news