Innocence. Kathleen Tessaro

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СКАЧАТЬ £70 a week, I was expecting something more. Something much more.

      ‘Isn’t it heaven? Everything you’ve ever dreamed of? Don’t worry, my room’s just as bad. She wraps an arm round my shoulder. ‘Come on. Let’s get drunk.’

      I put my handbag down on the bed and follow her into the kitchen.

      ‘Fancy a sidecar?’

      ‘What’s a sidecar?’

      ‘Oh, Evie! Well, it’s just heaven on a stick! Or in a glass. Or in our case’—she rummages around in the cupboard—‘in two slightly chipped service station promotional coffee mugs.’ I watch as she blends together generous doses of brandy, triple sec and then crushes a wrinkly old lemon with her fingers. ‘Ice?’

      ‘Sure.’ Her face mask, gone all crusty, is beginning to flake off.

      ‘Cheers!’ She hands me a mug. ‘Come with me while I wash this mess off.’

      I follow her into the bathroom and sit on the toilet seat, sipping my cocktail while she splashes cold water on her face. The bathroom is long and narrow, with deep-pile navy-blue shag carpet. Every conceivable surface is covered in beauty products—cold cream, astringents, shampoos—used razors are heaped into the corners of the tub, along with an overflowing ashtray and several abandoned coffee cups. The air is heavy and damp, a sweetly scented fug of perfumed bath oil and rose petal soap.

      I take another sip of my drink and watch as Robbie rubs off the mask. Her face is pale, lightly freckled, with no discernible eyebrows. Bending over, she unwraps the towel from her head and a pile of white-blonde curls tumble onto her shoulders. She lights two cigarettes from the pack in her robe pocket and hands me one, leaning back on the sink and taking a long, deep drag. I’ve never really smoked before, never quite got the hang of it. But now, with the thick, sweet mixture of brandy and triple sec smoothing its way through my veins, it’s easy to inhale without coughing. I roll the smoke round my palate and exhale slowly, just like Lauren Bacall in The Big Sleep.

      Suddenly things don’t seem so bad after all.

      I’m free. Sophisticated; drinking in the middle of the day and hanging out in a bathroom with a girl I’ve only just met.

      ‘Let’s go sit somewhere where we can pass out in comfort,’ Robbie suggests and I follow her into the living room. Dark and draughty, it faces onto a busy through road. The greying net curtains flutter every time a truck or bus whips by. She puts on a Van Morrison tape and throws herself onto the faded black leatherette sofa, dangling her long legs over the side. She isn’t wearing any underwear. I sit across from her in one of the ugly matching chairs.

      ‘So, what are we going to do about this name of yours?’ She blows smoke rings into the air; they float, like fading haloes above her head.

      ‘Do we have to do anything about it? I mean, it’s not that bad, is it?’

      She raises an eyebrow. ‘You want to be an actress with a name like Evie Garlick? I can see it now: Romeo and Juliet staring Tom Cruise and Evie Garlick. Evie Garlick is Anna Karenina. The winner of the Best Newcomer award is Evie Garlick!’

      She giggles.

      ‘OK. Fine.’ I’ve lived with this all my life. ‘What would you suggest?’

      ‘Humm…’ She narrows her eyes. ‘Raven, I think. Yes. I like Raven for you. On account of your hair.’

      ‘My hair’s brown.’

      ‘Oh, but we can change that, no problem. What do you think?’

      ‘Evie Raven?’

      ‘No, sweetie! Raven for your first name! Now let’s see…Raven Black, Raven Dark, Raven Night, Raven Nightly! It’s perfect! Raven Nightly. Now you’re bound to be famous!’

      I never thought of dyeing my hair. Then again, I haven’t come all the way to London just to be the way I was back home. Still, it’s a pretty big leap. ‘Raven Nightly. I don’t know. It sounds like a porn star.’

      ‘And Tom Cruise doesn’t? I think it’s fantastic. And listen, I’m good at this; I’ve made up all my friends’ names back home. My girlfriend Blue; she was the first person to start that whole colour-naming thing.’

      ‘Really?’ I’ve never heard of the colour-naming thing.

      ‘Absolutely! You don’t think my real name’s Robbie, do you?’

      Suddenly I don’t feel so sophisticated any more.

      ‘My parents named me Alice.’ She grimaces. ‘Can you believe it? I had to do something and androgyny is so much more now, don’t you think?’

      ‘How old are you?’ Maybe she’s older and that’s how she knows all this stuff.

      ‘Nineteen. And you?’

      ‘Eighteen. And you’re from…?’

      ‘The Village.’

      I stare at her.

      ‘New York City’ she explains. ‘The Big Apple. Born and raised.’

      ‘Wow’

      She’s a New Yorker. And not imported; she’s always lived there. I’ve never met anyone who actually lived in New York all their lives. It seems inconceivable that children would be allowed in New York; somehow profane and dangerous, like having toddlers at a nightclub. Surely the entire population consists of ambitious grown-ups from Iowa and Maine all clawing their way to the top of their professions in between gallery openings, Broadway shows and foreign film festivals.

      ‘Wow,’ I say again.

      She grins, basking in the glow of my small-town admiration.

      ‘I…I may be living in New York soon,’ I venture.

      ‘Oh yeah?’

      ‘I have an audition for Juilliard next month.’

      ‘I see.’ Her face is hard and unyielding, like a door slammed shut. ‘Those auditions are fuckers. Bunch of self-satisfied cunts, if you ask me.’

      ‘Oh.’

      A bus careers past, forcing a rush of cold air into the room. Robbie turns away. I follow her gaze but all I can see is an empty bookcase and the glossy black surface of the television screen.

      ‘I mean, it’s not like I’ll get in or anything. It’s just, it’s Juilliard, isn’t it? Everyone auditions for Juilliard!’ I laugh, or rather, I make the kind of wheezing sound that could be a laugh if levity were involved.

      We listen to the music and sip our drinks.

      Suddenly she smiles and the door swings open again. ‘Hey, don’t mind me! You’re going to find it out sooner or later so I might as well tell you now: I’m a shit actress.’

      I’m stunned. ‘Oh, I’m sure that’s not true, Robbie!’

      She СКАЧАТЬ