The lost stars

NANCY HALE

What happened to a sensation-seeking young modern when a handsome gentleman treated her roughly in a speakeasy

Tonight it was two men that had taken her out speakeasying. "Let's go speakeasying," he had cried over the telephone. Paul, who asked her, laughing gaily and trying to sound amusing so that she would like him, and who knew what that might not lead to. So now they were all three sitting in a chic, self-conscious little speakeasy, Paul and Albert and Tasia. Two more men had joined them; that made five, and they all sat there, drinking and drinking. There were Scotches and rye highballs and lemon-and-gin drinks, tall glasses in shades of light brown. Paul was being amusing and Albert was being bright, and the two other men were being bright and amusing and all of them leaning over to her as they got off each remark, avid, excited. This is the divine Tasia. And they tried so hard. Because who knew what it might not lead to?

There must be meaning to what they are saying, she thought. They put some words together into a sentence, and get it off, and although it may not be important, at least it must mean something. But I don't know what it is. I have heard the things they say, and heard the things they say, so that it just doesn't take any more. Let's be frank, I don't care whether I ever see them again, I don't care if they die, I don't care who dies. I care if I die. But I don't know why.

Is anything going to happen to me? Is anything going to be able to get through and touch me so that I notice it? I'd like to feel anything, just so that I felt it. Nothing is happening to me now. Nothing. Nobody. What's the matter with me I don't like anything any more? I don't have to go out. But what else? I had fun once. I can remember when stars and sunrises got me. What's a star more or less to me now? I'm getting old, I'm getting old. I'm not old, but I feel old. My God, I can't think this way, it makes it worse. I've got to amuse myself, I've got to try.

I wonder what would happen if I took the edge of the tablecloth and pulled it off the table, and the drinks went all over their feet. Would one of them hit me? No. Wouldn't it be nice if one of them hit me. A change, and l"d feel something. But they'd think How temperamental and nobody knows what they'd say. Something amusing, no doubt.

"You're pretty dull, all of you," she said, staring at them. I show I hate them, but they like it, she thought. You are like a Russian heroine, you are so awful to me. Tasia, if you could see how divine you are when you are angry, they cried, and one of them seized her long, cold hand and whispered Darling let's go away together. She dragged her hand away and managed to scratch the flesh of his thumb with her pointed finger-nail, meanly. He loved it.

Now what shall I do to amuse myself? If I listen to them then I will certainly go crazy. I wonder, perhaps I really might go crazy. It would be funny, one more chic little man or clean-shaven big man would lean toward me—at me—and say Darling you have a face like a Derain, a mask, a Mona Lisa and with a loud pop I would go crazy and he would be so surprised. I will have to go crazy or else have to listen to the rest of it, Darling 1 love, lof, luv you, and a little later, Darling I must show you my collection of firearms, or even stamps as the case may be. And we all know what happens when a lady goes to look at a gentleman's collection of anything. And after that, pacing, and morose luncheons, and so it is all over, and I cannot live without you, wa wa wa wa. Let's see, how old am I, she thought, while far away the four men were being competitively bright for her benefit, I am twenty-six years old. Seven amusing men a week times fifty-two weeks in the year makes three hundred and sixty-four amusing men in a year for years and years and so if I hear one more Darling, I have a perfect right to go crazy. Well, waiting for it I might as well amuse mvself. Try and.

"Did you ever hear about how I worked my way around the world?" she asked all of them, turning on charm like an electric light. No!" they cried, all goggle-eyed.

Well, I was on a freighter and in Indo-

China we loaded teak and I got tropical fever and they fed me up with rum and quinine and I kept on working. I dressed like a man end fooled them, you see I have no hips," she said all this in a rapid monotone. She had told the story times before and it failed to amuse her to see the men stare. She must make up a new story soon.

Really? Darling

Reallv? Tasia really?

Really? (All four of them).

44

Not, not really," she said very very slow.

She got up.

Where you going where you going where you going where you going.

"I," she said slower still," am going over to the bar and buy myself a drink and I do not want anyone to go with me."

The bar was long and scrubbed so clean and the glasses looked so clear and quiet set up along the shelves behind. The bar-tender was such a nice quiet tough-looking man that made her a drink without talking. Tasia put an elbow on the scrubbed top and a foot on the rail and almost relaxed. She sipped the top of the drink, all rough with ice scrapings, and scrunched them with her teeth and looked at her reflection in the bar mirror. A pretty nice face. But it ached. It felt as if

perhaps the outside were going to crack, like a crust. It was nicer to look at than to be inside.

Such a nice long quiet bar. One other person and he was long and quiet, too, and had not once looked at her. Maybe he was drunk. Or maybe be thought it was nice, too, to be standing at a long empty bar with nobody talking.

"Isn't it nice," she observed, not conversationally, not even looking at him.

"Isn't ivhat nice?" the long quiet sloppy young man said. He said it irritably.

"Nice quiet bar."

"It's not quiet if you talk," he pointed out.

She couldn't take that easily. What, a man be irritable? It was too magnificent. She didn't believe it.

W hat did you say?"

Oh shut up," he said. She put down her

drink and stared at him with fascination. "Don't you like me?" she asked.

Don't know you.

"I'm a girl," she said. "One that is thinking of going crazy."

"Well, why don't you?"

She didn't feel like being quiet any more.

"I'm Tasia Merriam,• she said. Like I am

the Czar of Russia.

"Oh, you are Tasia Merriam. You are supposed to be hot stuff. I don't think you are hot stuff."

He had put his drink down too. It was almost like a fight. She thought, he thinks lie's as good as I think I am good. This is

"I am hot stuff sometimes, but just now I am very extremely sick of everybody I ever saw before."

"Only very stupid people or very vain people get bored with life. You are a vain person. You are a vain woman. It is vain women that are ruining civilization."

"I didn't say I was bored with life, said, thinking, for Heaven's sake, as a matter of fact, I'm not, now.

Oh, shut up," he said. "I don't want to

talk to you.

She could not believe it. She was almost

happy.

"Are you drunk?"

"No, I am not drunk and it's none of your business anyway. Will you please stop talking and if possible go away. I was having a perfectly good time until you began talking."

How could she stop now? He was a dark young man in general, and his clothes were very sloppy and he wore the sloppiest of plain white shirts with the collar-tab buttons off and a striped necktie. He looked at her with purest hate in his eyes. He had hardly moved except to put down his drink, and he still had his hand around that. His hair looked as if he had been running his hands through it. It was very dark.

"I won't go away," she said. "I like this bar. I'm with a lot of men and I hate them. I am very sick of men."

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(Continued from page 64)

"I am very sick of you. Women look terribly at a bar anyway. You look terribly at this bar."

"Well," she said, "I will sit down at a table if you will buy me a ham sandwich."

"For God's sake," he said. "Why should I buy you a ham sandwich? I don't know you and I don't want to."

"All right. Then I'll stay at the bar. I don't look terrible, either. I am damn good looking."

"That may be. I think you are terrible-looking. As a matter of fact I will buy you a ham sandwich just so that I can tell you how much I dislike women like you."

At the table she said, "I suppose you like horrible little fat women with long hair that cook and wear blue dresses."

"You don't know anything at all," he said. He sat hunched up over the table smoking a cigarette and not looking at her. She was looking at him. She thought, I am crazy about this man. He is rotten to me. I do wonder what he would be like. If he weren't rotten to me. Could I make him be nice. Could I.

"Listen," he said, "I like women that I like. That's all."

"Are you drunk?" It was her terror.

"I hate women that ask me if I'm drunk. I'm not drunk. If you had the slightest intelligence you would know that I meant I like women that I know and I hate fresh women and you are a fresh woman."

"I like you," she said. She wondered how that would work. She had not even looked back at her own table. She was looking at this dark man with all her concentration.

"What of it?" he said. "Can't you hurry up with that sandwich? Eat it up and I'll take you back to your own table where you belong."

"I don't want to go back there," she said. "What do you do?"

"I will not tell another woman what I do."

"Well, what's your name?"

"My name is Bill Ross, and I wish to God I hadn't told you, because now you will remember it. Listen, don't try calling me up. I won't talk to you."

"Well. Listen, I never had a man in the world talk to me that way. Listen, men are crazy about me."

"All right. I'm not. I hate women who say they never had any man talk to them that way before." He mimicked a falsetto voice.

"I have a very deep voice," she said.

"I don't know what kind of a voice you have, but I wish you'd shut up. Go back to your table, will you?"

She took hold of his wrist. "I like you," she said. She felt intoxicated and too strange for analysis.

With his other hand he pulled her hand away from his wrist. He kept hold of her hand and twisted it. It hurt badly. She stared at him.

"Listen," he said, "if you don't shut up and go away I might hurt you. Can you understand anything at all? Because I hate the hell out of you."

Suddenly the four men descended upon them.

Tasia where did you go Darling how could you Sweet what's the matter.

And:

Hello Bill, How are you Bill, What do you mean stealing Tasia, Hello Bill.

The young man seemed quite glad to see the four. They did a lot of hand-shaking. How I would love to have him that nice to me.

"I want to go home," she said for them all, but for Bill.

Albert and Paul and the other two. May I take you may I take you may I.

"Bill, you take me," she said.

He looked at her, a rotten look.

"We'll all take you," he said.

So they got up and went and took a taxi, all six into it, Bill in the furthest little seat and he did not speak one word all the way home.

"Will you all come in and have a drink," she said. She had not managed to get him to take her home alone, hoping that getting him up to her apartment she might have made him like her. She was willing to have the four up if she could get him.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

"I've got to go," Bill said, and got out of the taxi and walked up the street without looking back.

"I don't want you to come upstairs after all," she said to Paul and Albert and the other two. Could I run after him, oh which way did he turn? She had missed where he went.

When can I see you when can I see you when when—

She went upstairs and let herself into her apartment. It was all dark and hidden and she went to the window and looked out. Up above was a square patch of sky with three stars in it.

Tasia felt tall and lost and strange and looked at the stars and thought about that man. I must get that man. What has happened to me? Something has come back. What's come back? I wish I had him here. I wish I had him. Those stars are high and far off. I must find that man.

She woke up late in the morning and thought about that man. I must have that man. She got out of bed and went and sat in front of her mirror and wondered a new thing, whether she was beautiful enough. Oh, for Heaven's sake, she saved herself, and got back in bed. I must get that man.

The maid brought her her breakfast and said some flowers had come.

As usual.

"Put them in some water."

"Here's the note with them," the maid said.

She only read it because she did not know the handwriting.

Dear Miss Merriam,

I hardly dare write to you after my performance last night. I can't apologize enough for the things I may have said. I can only tell you that when I am drunk I am apt to say the most frightful things. Can you ever forgive me? It is especially hard for me to realize that I behaved badly as I have heard so much of you and have wanted to meet you for so long. Would It be too impertinent if I were to call you on the telephone this afternoon? I do want to see you, and only hope you don't hate me too much. I —"

There was a lot more. Tasia did not even bother to look to see Bill Ross signed to the letter.

Well, I hate men that say can you ever forgive me, she said out loud, mimicking a deep impassioned voice. She lay still in bed for a few moments, looking coldly at the ceiling. Then she lifted the tray to the nearby table, pushed the letter off the bed, on to the floor, and went back to sleep again.