I deliberately stood up, wiggling my toes to bring my reluctant legs back to life. There was Mercurochrome in the cabinet over the sink. I carefully dabbed it on the slices and pulled my long sleeves down. I rinsed the razor and put it on a shelf. The faint pink smears in the sink rinsed away with one gush of water from the tap. I finally looked into the mirror: A boiled potato. Basic tuber. A swipe of the cold cloth. A quick sketch of coal-black pencil all around my peeled eyes. I opened the door. There was no one there. The voices from the living room chuckled on. A vicious stench crept up from my feet. The pink vomit was thick under my shoes; chunks of the minced salami from the buffet I had assembled were discernible in the fluid. I carefully stepped out of my shoes, stranding them in the muck, and padded away from the bad smell. All through that night I did not speak to Carush, but there were so many people around that he didn’t notice.

It was soon after that, when I got my first paycheck from the shirt factory, that I threw him out, before supper, after he had done his daily exercise and run around the block twenty times to excuse his appetite, because with that much money in my hand I was ashamed to go on living with him. His mother had sent checks every month before that, sufficient to feed us both. He liked me then. He wouldn’t like me now.

The second time, years later, was similar. Joe had been living with me for nearly a year, but at least I had my own money. Then, one night he stayed out late with Leda Van Hoerderbroeck, that regal blonde. He had walked to the library and hadn’t returned. It was midnight when I heard a motor in the street. I looked out the bedroom window. Leda’s car was parked directly below my window. One sliver of the light of the streetlamp cut through the windshield so that I could see the peculiar plaid of his jacket inside her car, a white Jaguar, the only one I had ever seen at the time. No question about it. He had raved about her guttural, toneless singing at the local intellectuals’ bar. She always came onstage dressed for secretarial school, with white gloves, pearl button earrings, and a small round collar. Of course, she was the color of clover honey from stem to stern and carried herself like a yacht. But I didn’t find those qualities endearing at the time.