Warpaint by Stephanie A. Smith Page B

it had given her the veneer of a sophisticate – she smoked, drank martinis, wore the latest, no matter what it was – but then again, most middle-class American girls in 1960 feigned so much world-weary sophistication. C.C. was no different than the rest: she arrived off ship with a Samsonite set, complete with pert little make-up bag, though Liz knew C.C. never made up.
    Must be Nancy’s doing
, she thought, as she gave the girl a customary Parisian kiss; predictably, C.C. found the unfashionable 11 th arrondissement studio appalling. It took her a week to give up her white gloves, and she never quite stopped walking on her toes in the morning, sure the place had mice: it didn’t. What it did have was birdsong in the bathroom, some kind of acoustic trick that funneled the lark and pigeon tweets down the roof and into the bathroom, as if the birds had nested in the pipes.
    One Sunday morning found Lizzie with
Le Monde
, late coffee and oranges in a sunny chair on the enclosed patio. The cracked cement floor was as dingy as the dead delphinium and sagging clothesline, but she was reasonably happy. She restricted her view to the oranges and the dark sweet coffee or, better still, when she leaned back, to the sky, past the backs of the apartments with the shuttered Sunday windows, their mute façades. She’d taken, lately, to watching birds, an idling sort of interest, born of loneliness.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” asked C.C. from the solitary window that looked out on the front patio.
    â€œWhat does it look like? I’m writing a piano concerto.”
    â€œIt looks like lazy to me.”
    â€œAnd just what should I be doing?”
    C.C. stepped out onto the patio, barefoot, wearing a man’s shirt, her hair braided into a knot at the back of her neck. She looked every inch a well-scrubbed American.
    Lizzie regarded her houseguest appraisingly. “Lovely.”
    â€œDo you think so?” C.C. made a quick pirouette.
    â€œOf course. I’ve always thought you were a pretty child.”
    â€œI’m not a child.”
    Liz tipped back her chair. “Aren’t you?”
    â€œNo. I wish you’d stop treating me like one. I want to go out to the bars and cafés at night. I want to hear jazz, and dance. I want to meet…” she hesitated, her glance on the ground. Then she gave Liz a frowning look. “I want to meet a girl.”
    Liz sat very still, tipping the chair back into place. “What sort of girl?”
    C.C. said nothing. Slowly, she sat down on the stoop.
    â€œI see,” said Liz. “Have you told your mother?”
    â€œOh, no. Not Dad, either. I can’t. They’d be so – shocked.”
    â€œYou’ll have to tell them someday.” Liz folded the paper. “Sooner or later. I won’t lie to them. I couldn’t. Not to Nancy.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œAnd are you sure? Sometimes, you know, it passes, that feeling. You’re young.”
    C.C. laughed. “I’d be lying if I said I wanted a boy. I’ve tried. I dated a couple Amherst guys, my freshman year, whooo, what a mistake! I couldn’t stand them, not at all, the very idea of petting made me queasy. I couldn’t get away fast enough. I thought, of course, that there was something wrong with me, but to whom could I spill the beans? Then one night, late, I was talking to this other girl in my dorm – we were in French class together – and I told her, well, I told her how much I couldn’t stand boys and the next thing I know, she’s kissing me. And I liked it. I liked it a lot. We became roommates. Her name’s Susan Perry.”
    â€œAnd you fell in love with this Susan Perry?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd where is she now?”
    C.C. pouted. “I don’t know. When she found out I had a ticket to Paris she threw a fit. ‘You’re not going without me!’ she kept shouting, but how could I bring