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upper hand. Looking bored, she went through the
pockets of her coat. "I only have thirty-five cents," she
said coldly. "Is that enough?"
    "No.
I'm sorry, but you owe me a dollar sixty-five. I've been keeping
track of every--"
    "I'll
have to go upstairs and get it from my mother. Can't it wait till
Monday? I could bring it to gym with me if it'd make you happy."
    Selena's
attitude defied clemency.
    "No,"
Ginnie said. "I have to go to the movies tonight. I need it."
    In
hostile silence, the girls stared out of opposite windows until the
cab pulled up in front of Selena's apartment house. Then Selena, who
was seated nearest the curb, let herself out. Just barely leaving the
cab door open, she walked briskly and obliviously, like visiting
Hollywood royalty, into the building. Ginnie, her face burning, paid
the fare. She then collected her tennis things--racket, hand towel,
and sun hat--and followed Selena. At fifteen, Ginnie was about five
feet nine in her 9-B tennis shoes, and as she entered the lobby, her
self-conscious rubber-soled awkwardness lent her a dangerous amateur
quality. It made Selena prefer to watch the indicator dial over the
elevator.
    "That
makes a dollar ninety you owe me," Ginnie said, striding up to
the elevator.
    Selena
turned. "It may just interest you to know," she said, "that
my mother is very ill."
    "What's
the matter with her?"
    "She
virtually has pneumonia, and if you think I'm going to enjoy
disturbing her just for money . . ." Selena delivered the
incomplete sentence with all possible aplomb.
    Ginnie
was, in fact, slightly put off by this information, whatever its
degree of truth, but not to the point of sentimentality. "I
didn't give it to her," she said, and followed Selena into the
elevator.
    When
Selena had rung her apartment bell, the girls were admitted--or
rather, the door was drawn in and left ajar--by a colored maid with
whom Selena didn't seem to be on speaking terms. Ginnie dropped her
tennis things on a chair in the foyer and followed Selena. In the
living room, Selena turned and said, "Do you mind waiting here?
I may have to wake Mother up and everything."
    "O.K.,"
Ginnie said, and plopped down on the sofa.
    "I
never in my life would've thought you could be so small about
anything," said Selena, who was just angry enough to use the
word "small" but not quite brave enough to emphasize it.
    "Now
you know," said Ginnie, and opened a copy of Vogue in front of
her face. She kept it in this position till Selena had left the room,
then put it back on top of the radio. She looked around the room,
mentally rearranging furniture, throwing out table lamps, removing
artificial flowers. In her opinion, it was an altogether hideous
room--expensive but cheesy.
    Suddenly,
a male voice shouted from another part of the apartment, "Eric?
That you?"
    Ginnie
guessed it was Selena's brother, whom she had never seen. She crossed
her long legs, arranged the hem of her polo coat over her knees, and
waited.
    A
young man wearing glasses and pajamas and no slippers lunged into the
room with his mouth open. "Oh. I thought it was Eric, for
Chrissake," he said. Without stopping, and with extremely poor
posture, he continued across the room, cradling something close to
his narrow chest. He sat down on the vacant end of the sofa. "I
just cut my goddam finger," he said rather wildly. He looked at
Ginnie as if he had expected her to be sitting there. "Ever cut
your finger? Right down to the bone and all?" he asked. There
was a real appeal in his noisy voice, as if Ginnie, by her answer,
could save him from some particularly isolating form of pioneering.
    Ginnie
stared at him. "Well, not right down to the bone," she
said, "but I've cut myself." He was the funniest-looking
boy, or man--it was hard to tell which he was--she had ever seen. His
hair was bed-dishevelled. He had a couple of days' growth of sparse,
blond beard. And he looked-well, goofy. "How did you cut it?"
she asked.
    He
was staring down, with his slack mouth