That was one way of fighting back. "I think it's a lousy thing to do to s.e.x, to put a price tag on it. But people do, straight, gay, or in 'The Life' as you call it. I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't know a d.a.m.n thing about it."

The smile. Then she reached over and touched the ring on Julie's finger. "But you're married."

"Yeah. Maybe that's what I mean."

Julie could think of nothing to do but to go to the door with her. She was angry and frustrated. If there was one thing she wanted more than anything else, it was to know, just to know. "Why were you scared of coming in here?"

"I told you, I'm supposed to be on the street. I didn't want my pimp to see me. I didn't want him beating up on me in here."

"Jesus."

"I can't stand it in front of anybody."

"Look. If you want to come back sometime and talk, just talk, it's fine. Maybe I can find a way to help you. Who knows? There ought to be some way for somebody."

"There ought to be," the girl repeated. She darted out the door. Once on the street she slowed down.

Julie went outdoors and looked after her. As she neared Eighth Avenue her walk changed: a kind of sashay with the heels taking more weight than usual. Julie tried to imitate it: it brought her bust into sight. There would be a real message in Rita's. As the girl neared the corner she took off her green jacket and slung it over one shoulder. Julie got the feeling of having been put on. To h.e.l.l with her. About to go indoors again, she took one last glance-in time to see the girl fling her jacket in the face of a man. She ran immediately out of Julie's sight; the man plucked the jacket off him and took it to the nearest trash basket. Julie thought of trying to retrieve it for her, but before she had gone a half-dozen steps an old woman scavenger had s.n.a.t.c.hed it and buried it deep in her shopping bag.

Julie went back for a dime, locked up the shop, and went to the nearest public telephone. On the stroke of the hour she called Doctor Callahan to reach her between patients.

8.

"IT IS RIDICULOUS AND inappropriate that I should see her," Doctor said.

Julie, sitting in the chair opposite Doctor Callahan, kept imagining there was someone lying on the couch. "I'll bet she'd say the same thing. Aren't you even curious, Doctor? I mean, how many therapists get a chance to get an inside picture of The Life?"

That little movement around Doctor's mouth. G.o.d forbid, a smile.

"Why do you keep looking at the couch?"

"I keep feeling it's occupied."

"Why don't we use it?"

"Because I don't want to be at a disadvantage."

"Have you always felt that way?"

"No. But you said I had to do something for myself, and when I just lie there and make pictures, it's not like that."

"Do you make pictures? Or do they come up?"

"Well, Doctor, I don't exactly develop them on the premises..."

Doctor cut in, a touch of impatience. "What about this shop you've opened? Where is it?"

"Forty-fourth Street."

"What do you sell?"

Oh, boy. "I'd better try and tell it the way it happened, Doctor. It was a kind of stream of consciousness."

Doctor Callahan covered her eyes to rest them while she listened. Now and then she ma.s.saged her forehead, particularly the cleft between her brows, and every once in a while she shot Julie a dark, incredulous look. When she finished, Doctor said, "Why do you want to tell me about it at all? You can answer that to yourself. I don't require it of you. I suppose it has occurred to you that you might get into serious trouble? That it might even be dangerous? Wh.o.r.es and pimps. What are you trying to do?"

"Get even."

"With me. Why? Because I want you to grow up?"

"Because you want me to grow up straight. Square."

"I want you to grow up. Nothing more."

"But there is a lot more, Doctor. I just can't find it, but I know it's there."

"The only possible advice I can give you, that any doctor could give you, is to close that... bizarre... that obscenity and do something useful. You infuriate me."

"That means you care."

"Of course I care! What do you thing I am, a robot? I care about all my patients."

"I know you won't agree with me, but in a crazy way, I feel I am doing something useful."

"Explain it to me."

"I don't think I can, Doctor. It has to do with hope."

"Hope."

"Yeah. This girl is sixteen years old and she doesn't have any hope. She hates herself because she's her father's child, don't you see?"

"I don't see."

"Well, I do. I mean I feel that I do... there's something."

"Is that how you feel about yourself? Are you blaming your father?"

"For what?"

"What do you think?"

"For abandoning me? Maybe. I do wish I'd known him. He was very handsome. And I identify with the Irish because of him. Mr. Ryan and Pete Mallory. I guess Pete's Irish somewhere. He studied to be a priest. I do like Pete..."

"Like?"

"I'm not in love with him if that's what you mean. But I'm not in love with anybody. I wish I were. Or maybe I'm in love with everybody. Hey!"

"How about this Goldie?"

"No. He's something else. Doctor, suppose somebody called you and said, I need help. My name is Rita Morgan. Could I come and see you? What would you say?"

"I would ask who referred her to me."

"And she says Julie Hayes."

"I suppose I would give her the first opening in my book for a consultation. Then I would be likely to suggest a doctor I thought might be able to help her."

"Even if she said she was a prost.i.tute?"

"This is quite ridiculous."

"I know, but it's real. If she commits suicide, how would you feel?"

"I would certainly not feel responsible. That is a sentimental luxury I cannot afford. I can only concern myself with my patients."

"But you work in a clinic."

"Also with patients. I see as many as I can. There are hundreds whom I cannot see. Furthermore, my seeing a patient-as you certainly ought to know-doesn't necessarily mean I can help them."

"They have to want to help themselves."

"There's a great deal more to it than that. But yes, that is the first thing."

"She does want to help herself."

"Then she has hope. She can take the next step and go to any psychiatric inst.i.tution-Bellevue, for example-and get help. There are places for women in her situation."

"I guess. But it's an awful big step for as little hope as she's got left."

"Are you going to try to play therapist?"

"I don't know. I've got an ear if that's any help to her."

"And if this procurer of hers decides to beat up both of you?"

"I don't know. I just don't feel a human being can say no to another human being who asks them for help."

Doctor sighed heavily. "Give her my phone number."

Something began to nag at Julie on her way downtown: Had she made this enormous effort for the sake of a child-wh.o.r.e named Rita, or had she done it to involve Doctor Callahan? It was not until after she left the doctor's office that she remembered the doubts she had had while the girl was at the table with her. No, she decided, it was primarily for Rita's sake that she had gone to see the doctor; it was seeing that gesture of defiance, the flinging of the jacket, that brought her down firmly on Rita's side. Besides, if Rita was a phony, it wouldn't take Doctor Callahan ten minutes to find it out. It did not occur to Julie until then that Rita might put up an even stronger protest to the consultation than Doctor had.

That afternoon Rita pa.s.sed the shop arm in arm with a John, a middle-aged man wearing a Texas hat, pa.s.sed right by the window, smiling up into his face. To h.e.l.l with her.

But less than an hour later, the girl came into the shop.

"Hi," Julie said without enthusiasm.

"Did you see me go by?"

"With the cowboy, yeah."

"Do you still want to help me?"

"What did you have to bring him this way for?"

"So you'd see." She was wearing the green slacks and a gold sweater. No bra.

"I didn't need the demonstration."

"He wants me again tonight."

"Congratulations."

"He thinks he's in love with me."

"After forty-five minutes?"

"I saw him yesterday. I'll bet I could even get him to marry me."

"Okay."

"If I ever marry anybody it isn't going to be a trick."

"Besides, he probably has a wife and ten kids back in Abilene," Julie said.

"Laramie. He's here with the rodeo. He invited me to see the show tonight. If I thought he'd get trampled on I'd go."

"Great."

Rita walked boldly into the back room and threw herself down in the chair. She didn't wait for Julie to invite her. Nor did she seem to care whether or not she had been seen coming into the shop this time.

"Do you really mean that?" Julie stood in the doorway and looked down at her.

"I don't know. I'm telling you the G.o.d's truth, ma'am, I don't know. But I feel better when I say it."

"Have you got enough money to go home, Rita?"

"I've got some. I mean if I was going home, I'd want to buy presents for everyone, my grandmother, my mother, my kid brother." For a few seconds she seemed to be seeing herself on the way. "Sometimes I go to F.A.O. Schwarz and pretend I'm picking out a present for my brother. He's got a birthday coming up."

"All you've got to do is get there. Don't you see? They'll come running to meet you."