Walter said.
The room was swimming and pulsing. “I can’t believe you enjoy this,” Patty said to Richard.
“And yet I do.”
“Are you all right?” Walter asked her again.
“I’m fine. Just need to sit very still.”
She in fact felt quite sick. There was nothing to be done but stay on the sofa and listen to Walter and Richard banter and joust about politics and music. Walter, with great enthusiasm, showed her the Traumatics’ seven-inch single and compelled Richard to play both sides of it on the stereo. The first song was “I Hate Sunshine,” which she’d heard at the club in the fall, and which now seemed to her the sonic equivalent of absorbing too much nicotine. Even at low volume (Walter, needless to say, was pathologically considerate of his neighbors), it gave her a sick, dready sensation. She could feel Richard’s eyes on her while she listened to his dire baritone singing voice, and she knew she hadn’t been mistaken about the way he’d looked at her the other times she’d seen him.
Around eleven o’clock, Walter began to yawn uncontrollably.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I have to take you home now.”
“I’m fine walking by myself. I’ve got my crutches for self-defense.”
“No,” he said. “We’ll take Richard’s car.”
“No, you need to go to sleep, you poor thing. Maybe Richard can drive me. Can you do that for me?” she asked him.
Walter closed his eyes and sighed miserably, as if he’d been pushed past his limits.
“Sure,” Richard said. “I’ll drive you.”
“She needs to see your room first,” Walter said, his eyes still closed.
“Be my guest,” Richard said. “Its condition speaks for itself.”
“No, I want the guided tour,” Patty said, giving him a pointed look.
The walls and ceiling of his room were painted black, and the punk disorder that Walter’s influence had suppressed in the living room here vented itself with a vengeance. There were LPs and LP sleeves everywhere, along with several cans of spit, another guitar, overloaded bookshelves, a mayhem of socks and underwear, and tangled dark bedsheets that it was interesting and somehow not unpleasant to think that Eliza had been vigorously erased in.
“Nice cheerful color!” Patty said.
Walter yawned again. “Obviously I’ll be repainting it.”
“Unless Patty prefers black,” Richard said from the doorway.
“I’d never thought of black,” she said. “Black is interesting.”
“Very restful color, I find,” Richard said.
“So you’re moving to New York,” she said.
“I am.”
“That’s exciting. When?”
“Two weeks.”
“Oh, that’s when I’m going out there, too. It’s my parents’ twenty-fifth anniversary. Some sort of horrible Event is planned.”
“You’re from New York?”
“Westchester County.”
“Same as me. Though presumably a different part of Westchester.”
“Well, the suburbs.”
“Definitely a different part than Yonkers.”
“I’ve seen Yonkers from the train a bunch of times.”
“Exactly my point.”
“So are you driving to New York?” Patty said.
“Why?” Richard said. “You need a ride?”
“Well, maybe! Are you offering one?”
He shook his head. “Have to think about it.”
Poor Walter’s eyes were falling shut, he literally was not seeing this negotiation. Patty herself was breathless with the guilt and confusion of it and crutched herself speedily toward the front door, where, at a distance, she called out a thank-you to him for the evening.
“I’m sorry I got so tired,” he said. “Are you sure I can’t drive you home?”
“I’ll do it,” Richard said. “You go to bed.”
Walter definitely looked miserable, but it might only have been his exhaustion. Out on the street, in the conducive air, Patty and Richard walked in silence until they got to his rusty Impala. Richard seemed to take care not to touch her while she got herself seated and handed him her crutches.
“I would have thought you’d have a van,” she said when he was sitting beside her. “I thought all bands had vans.”
“Herrera has the van. This is my personal conveyance.”
“This is what I’d be riding to New York in.”
“Yeah, listen.” He put the key in the ignition. “You need to fish or cut bait here. Do you understand me? It’s not fair to Walter otherwise.”
She looked straight ahead through the windshield. “What isn’t fair?”
“Giving him hope. Leading him on.”
“That’s what you think I’m doing?”
“He’s an extraordinary person. He’s very, very serious. You need to take some care with him.”
“I know that,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me that.”
“Well, so, what did you come over here for? It seemed to me—”
“What? What did it seem to you?”
“It seemed to me like I was interrupting something. But then, when I tried to get away …”
“God, you really are a jerk.”
Richard nodded as if he couldn’t care less what she thought of him, or as if he were tired of stupid women saying stupid things to him. “When I tried to get away,” he said, “you seemed not to want to take the hint. Which is fine, that’s your choice. I just want to make sure you know you’re kind of tearing Walter apart.”
“I really don’t want to talk about this with you.”
“Fine. We won’t talk about it. But you’ve been seeing a lot of him, right? Practically every day, right? For weeks and weeks.”
“We’re friends. We hang out.”
“Nice.
