Innocence. Kathleen Tessaro

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      ‘It’s bullshit.’ She wraps an arm round me. ‘Take me, for example. You could have a real go at me and I’d probably just think it was funny’

      ‘You’re not like normal people,’ I assure her. ‘I mean, don’t get me wrong—I think it’s great. I wish I could be as free as you and not give a shit. But I do!’

      She gives me a squeeze. ‘You’re too soft, darling. We have to toughen you up. Are people really that fragile in Ohio?’

      I think of my parents. Silence at the dinner table; my mother sitting across from my father, pushing her food round and round on her plate…my father cutting his meat into hunks, forcing it between his lips, glaring at his water glass…

      ‘No. People don’t really get angry where I come from.’

      ‘Then New York will be good for you. The whole joint is seething!’

      I sink my head against her shoulder. ‘I may not be going to New York.’

      ‘Oh, yes, you will! If I have anything to do with it! Besides, I need a chum I can torment day and night. Hey!’ She turns to face me, suddenly excited. ‘What would Raven do?’

      ‘Nothing.’ I roll my eyes. ‘She doesn’t exist, Robbie.’

      She pokes me in the arm. ‘Yes, she does! That’s the whole point of alter egos. Come on, what would she do?’

      I wish she’d just let this whole Raven thing go…just because I used the name one night…I rub my running nose on the back of my hand. ‘I don’t know…tell you to fuck off, I suppose.’

      ‘Great!’ Standing up, she pulls me to my feet. ‘So tell me to fuck off!’

      ‘But I don’t feel it.’

      ‘So act it! Be Raven!’

      This isn’t going to work. ‘Fuck off,’ I mumble.

      She’s staring at me, hands on hips. ‘No, you’re not going to New York. Come on, Evie, try harder!’

      ‘Fuck off, Robbie!’ I start to giggle. ‘I can’t do it!’

      She shakes her head, dragging me into the hallway. ‘Well, it’s a start I suppose. Come on!’

      ‘Why? Where are we going?’ I follow her into her room.

      She flings her handbag over her shoulder, chucking a rapidly shedding fur jacket at me. ‘Catch! To Soho, my love! Let’s get you this biggest, most obscene dildo we can find! And then we’re going to stop at the all-night chemists and get some hair dye. It’s time you started taking Raven Nightly seriously!’

      I’ve never had a friend like this—someone so sophisticated, exciting and urbane that they don’t even mind if I shout at them. I slip on the jacket, surveying myself in the mirror. Already I look different—cooler; much more grown up. None of my old friends would ever even dare to say the word dildo out loud, let alone buy one.

      Robbie hammers on Imo’s door. ‘We’re going dildo shopping in Soho, darling! Can we get you anything?’

      Silence.

      This is the time that Im can normally be found talking to her mother long distance or leafing her way through the New Testament.

      The door opens a crack. A twenty-pound note appears. ‘Something pink. And not too obvious,’ she instructs.

      And then it shuts again.

      ‘This place is a dive.’ Imo brushes her hand over the dirty tablecloth with disdain. ‘I don’t know why we have to do this,’ she says for the ninth time in five minutes.

      ‘Because’—Robbie’s eyes flit around the room—‘this is where I’m going to teach you how to seduce a man. And we don’t have much time. Sit up, Evie. And push your breasts out.’

      ‘I am,’ I say, irritated.

      ‘Oh.’ She looks me over. ‘Yeah.’

      We’re sitting in the basement room of a wine bar called Bubbles, located just round the corner from our flat in Baker Street. Everything’s pink: the walls, the tablecloths, the chairs—a kind of bubblegum, Pink Panther pink, which only heightens the sense that we’re extras in a low-budget early 1960s film. However, instead of Rock Hudson and Doris Day bursting into song, we have small clusters of Arabs and balding businessmen enjoying the late-night talents of Rocco Rizzi and his vibraphone stylings. Rocco sits in his black tuxedo and white ruffled shirt on a small circular stage covered in pink shag pile carpet, a disco ball and strobe light dangling above his head. He’s just launched into a particularly slow and heart-felt version of ‘Summertime’. With extra vibrato.

      ‘I love this song.’ Imo sighs. And she hums along, in her slender, slightly operatic soprano voice.

      My wrap keeps falling off. I pull it up again. Tonight, we’re all wearing treasures gleaned from Robbie’s amazing wardrobe, which consists mostly of 1950s evening gowns, vintage cardigans and quite a lot of dead animals. The wrap is one of her prized pieces. It’s made from two rather moudly foxes which attach to one another by biting each other’s tails; a trick accomplished with the aid of little clips glued underneath their tiny chins. One of them has had a beady glass eye replaced with a small black button. He looks particularly deranged. We call him Dave and the other Derek. Dave and Derek accompany us on most nights out, coming into their own after we’ve had too much to drink. Then they chat up strangers and perform lewd dance routines. But the chances of that happening tonight look rather slim.

      We’ve already been here twenty minutes and nothing’s happened.

      The barman’s back again. ‘Are you ladies ready to order yet?’

      Robbie picks up the little cardboard menu of drinks with exaggerated enthusiasm. ‘We just can’t decide between all these amazing cocktails!’ she gushes. ‘Look, Evie! “Sex on the Beach,” “A Slow Comfortable Screw”…so many choices and so little time!’ She laughs, a gay Scarlett O’Hara trill.

      He’s unimpressed. ‘Well, sooner rather than later, girls,’ he warns us, sloping back to polish glasses in the curve of the pink bar.

      ‘We don’t have any money’ I remind Robbie. (Every time I turn round, the barman glares at me.)

      ‘Money is cheating.’ She tugs at her white mink bolero, scanning the room again.

      Two men with hair walk in and saunter up to the bar. They’re reasonably young (below fifty), reasonably dressed (suits and ties) and laughing loudly as if they might be reasonably fun too. Robbie’s eyes light up.

      ‘Bingo!’ She leans forward the way you strain over the edge of the platform for a long-awaited train. ‘Smile, Evie! Imo! Stop howling and smile!’

      The three of us sit there beaming. Eventually their drinks are served. They turn round and find us grinning at them.

      ‘Now look away!’ Robbie hisses. ‘Imo, avert your eyes! That’s right! Toy with them!’

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