Free Third Girl from the Left by Martha Southgate Page A

clear. And then it was over.
    Â 
    The next thing she knew, she was home in her own bed. She had no idea how she’d gotten there, where Sheila was, what had transpired after the events in Wilt’s playroom. Her mind turned gray at just that point, covering a harder-edged truth. She looked at her yellowing shade, could feel that her hair was totally flattened, her mascara smeared all over her eyes, lipstick a pathetic reddish memory. She was still wearing her jeans. She skinned her hand into her pocket, drew out a small piece of paper. “In case you want to get to know me better . . . 555–8976. You something else, girl. Rafe.” Rafe. Hmm. They usually didn’t give her a number. It might be worth calling.
    While she was considering this, Sheila came to the door and leaned in the doorway. Her hair was matted on one side and bushed out on the other. Her eyes were reddened and her mouth looked bruised. Angela looked at her, smiled slightly, and said, “Girl, you look a mess.”
    â€œWell, you ain’t exactly ready for your close-up either, girl.” She pulled absently on the flattened side of her hair, then came and lay down next to Angela. “Some night last night, huh?”
    â€œWho you telling?”
    They were silent. “Think Wilt’s gonna call you?”
    â€œNah.” She went quiet again, looking at the ceiling. “He was something, though. I never been with somebody so tall. Hadda keep scooting up and down. Felt like a damn fireman on a pole.” Angela laughed and took her hand. The sun suggested itself, warm and inviting, outside her window. Living in a way nobody in Tulsa could ever even have dreamed of, she felt not the least bit dirty. Not this morning. She didn’t even mind that Sheila had been with someone else. They were just two girls doing what a girl’s got to do. They’d always have each other. She ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth. It tasted as though a desert resided there, hot grit and sand and the rot of dead things. She sat up, told Sheila she was going for a shower, walked to the bathroom. Once she got there, she looked at herself for a long, long while, her face out of focus from time and sex and cigarette smoke. She had a sudden moment, just a moment, where everything fell away, where she knew that her mother was right, this was never going to work out. But she pushed that thought away, drew a deep breath, turned on the shower. Another day begun. Another day begun.

5
    H ERE WAS THE THING ABOUT LOS ANGELES THAT year: it was hot. Not just hot: the Santa Anas blowing 100 degrees so that you could barely breathe half the time. Not just hot: the air like sandpaper on the skin, the sun like a weapon. Not just hot: you had to spread newspaper on the seat of the fanciest car in order to have any hope of sitting there. But it wasn’t just hot with the weather. It was hot with change, with happening, with beautiful black girls pulling up from every little dogtown and holler and city and shouting, “We want to be in pictures.” Rafe Madigan could have any girl he wanted. He could have them any way he wanted: doggie-style, ass-backward, all happy to go down on him (black girls—happy to go down on him!), two at a time. No matter what he asked, he found some beautiful young woman willing to do it. Sometimes he’d try asking for the freakiest thing he could think of just to see if they’d refuse. But they never said no. Never. He was born and raised in Los Angeles and he’d been a good-looking, smooth-talking, heart-stealing black man all his life, yet he had never seen anything like it. Got kind of boring sometime. Just waiting to see if he could find somebody different. Somebody who might make him feel different. It was a great warm, wet sea of flesh after a while. Couldn’t tell one from the other. A few sweet words, a mention of the movie business, and he was in. One more fuck.
    That’s