People in Trouble by Sarah Schulman Page A

cents.
     
    Where do they go when it gets so cold?
     
    "You don't ever go with men, do you?"   Kate had asked that first night.
     
    "I'm just not that interested in men."
     
    Of course, Kate thought, Molly was quite politic to answer so hesitantly.
     
    "They usually don't have anything to say about the things I'm interested in, so we end up talking about what they're interested in and I get bored."
     
    They had been on a mattress on a floor surrounded by candles and dried flowers.   There was that sweet smell of sex and the taste of the same on each of their faces.
     
    "I'm going to take you to Ibiza," Kate said.   Then she said, "Someone should dress you in red silk with one of those long slashes to show off your girlish back."
     
    Five months later she had watched Molly wish on a star.
     
    "What did you wish for?"
     
    "A trip to Ibiza."
     
    That's when Kate realized that Molly was waiting for her to make it come true.
     
    "I remember words," Molly told her.   "So be careful what you say to me.
     
    I waited for months for you to produce a red dress, or at least suggest going to the stores and trying one on.   I tried on some myself but I never knew if it was the right one."
     
    What could I possibly have said to that?   Kate thought, feeling annoyed.   Feeling slightly sorry and a bit put-upon.   Molly was describing someone that Kate would never become.   She would never pay that much attention, and that was fine.   Peter didn't want that kind of attention.
     
    Some day she's going to get so angry, she's going to slap me across the face.
     
    Kate felt slightly guilty then, a bit uncomfortable.   Her underarms hurt.
     
    "You're easy to be with," Molly had said that first time, lifting Kate's body to hers so that their brown and red pubic hair met like an advertisement for National Brotherhood Week.
     
    "What time is it?"
     
    "One o'clock.   I guess it's time for you to go."
     
    "This was more comfortable than I expected," Kate had told her.   "I wish I could stay the whole night.   I really do.   But I can't.
     
    Peter would be too hurt.   Are you angry?"   the "No."   silk,'' know what else to She got dressed while The light was out.   Peter was asleep.
     
    She felt filled with energy then.   She wanted to run everywhere.   She didn't want to go up--stairs and lie still in a black house.   On impulse she turned sharply bolted toward her studio.   Then she regretted the decision.   Then she accepted it and started walking.
     
    Now he'll think I've finally stayed out all night with her and won't believe me when I say I've been working.   But it will be completely true.
     
    This was such a complicated game of truth or dare.   Peter forced her to lie to him in some ways and made her tell the truth in others.   There were ways he wanted to be lied to, like about how much the two women saw each other and how important it had all become.   But he wanted the truth when it came to the fact of Molly's existence.   He wanted to hear about a meaningless affair with an unknown woman.   Funny at first, the fact that it was a woman threw them both off guard.   She didn't panic and neither did he, because they didn't expect that to mean anything.
     
    It just snuck up on both of them.   If it had been a man it never would have gotten this far.   Neither Pete nor Kate would have let it happen.
     
    Now Peter wanted to know everything and never see any of it.   Kate was left with the responsibility of finding some acrobatic technique for accomplishing this unspoken request.
     
    The first night Kate and Molly spent together, she'd walked home wondering, seriously, how Peter could have possibly committed himself to a lifetime of making love to a woman with such small breasts.   The next time she and Pete had sex she was bursting with curiosity about this and many other questions pertaining to a man's view.   She had rubbed her nipples in his face, like Molly had done for her.   She