Free A Season in Purgatory by Dominick Dunne

at the club? You heard about that? With Weegie?”
    “Yes, I heard about that. But more. I have been married to two alcoholics. I recognize the signs. It’s the way he drinks. Notice it. He never sips. He gulps. One night at the club, he was always tapping his glass for the waiter to bring him another. Couldn’t wait. Couldn’t keep focused on the conversation until he had another full glass in front of him.”
    “He was just having a good time.”
    She took no notice of my defense of him. “One day he will be a drunk. You mark my words. Too much is expected of him. And all Gerald’s careful planning will go up in smoke.”
    The train came into the Fairfield station. Her mind reverted to the career part of her life. She gathered her things. She put on her dark glasses. She waved out the window to a chauffeur standing on the platform. “That’s the Hardwicks’ chauffeur,” she said. We said good-bye. She got off.
    Kitt was at the station to meet me, not Constant. I almost didn’t recognize her. The braces on her teeth had been replaced by a retainer. She no longer dressed like a child. She was becoming pretty. I noticed for the first time how much she resembled Constant. As always, she talked nonstop.
    “I hope you’re not disappointed it’s me here to meet you and not Constant. He’s in one of his moods,” explained Kitt. She took off her glasses and placed them on top of herhead. It was a gesture she had copied from Maureen. “Friday night’s Weegie Somerset’s coming-out party, and he wasn’t invited. None of us were. Not that I would have been anyway, I’m too young. If you could have heard my father on the subject! That’s why they went to Florida, to get out of town. They’re at the Breakers. You’ve probably heard that. I’m so glad you could come. Constant couldn’t bear to be alone. There was only Fatty and Sis Malloy for company, and that wouldn’t do at all for Constant. At least he can bring you to the club. He brought Fatty to the club once, and he knew all the bartenders and waitresses from Bog Meadow, and shook hands with them. You can imagine how that went over.”
    “What about you?”
    “I’m off to Florida tomorrow. I’ve been to a sweet sixteen party in Spring Lake. One of the girls at the convent had it.”
    We walked outside. Constant’s Porsche was double-parked. There was a ticket on the window.
    “Oh, hell,” she said. She took the ticket off the windshield and tore it in half.
    “You shouldn’t do that,” I said.
    “My father has a man, Mr. Fuselli, Johnny Fuselli—you met him in Watch Hill, the one Maureen thought was handsome in a cheap sort of way? He takes care of tickets and things like that for us.”
    “A gangster type in a red car?”
    “The very one.”
    “Won’t he need the pieces?”
    “Not Johnny. That’s what he gets paid for. Hop in.”
    “Are you old enough to drive?”
    “No, but I will be soon.”
    “Shouldn’t I drive?”
    “Not on your life. This is Constant’s new Porsche, andit’s my only chance to drive it. Now, where the hell are my glasses?” She looked in her bag.
    “They’re on top of your head,” I said.
    She roared with laughter. “I’d love a cigarette,” she said.
    For a novice Kitt handled the car very well. “Look at that creep, will you?” she said, honking the horn at a slow driver. She cleared the busy section by the railroad station and we headed west out Asylum Avenue for the drive toward Scarborough Hill. Kitt never stopped talking.
    “Doesn’t your family ever want you?” she asked.
    “My family is one maiden aunt who talks about missionaries all the time,” I replied.
    “Are you Constant’s ott?” asked Kitt.
    “I don’t know what an ott is,” I answered.
    “Someone who’s always available.”
    I blushed. I was always available.
    “My mother has otts. They’re people who are useful and do convenient things. Mother has otts who write the place cards for her but who aren’t asked to the