“Why don’t you try and sleep some more?” Jerry was saying, after a keen scrutiny of her. “You look dead, and you’ve got nothing on hand this A.M.—it’s just as well to hang off when you can.”
Joy fell back into bed, and Jerry pulled down the black and white-striped shades before tiptoeing out. From the first moment that she had known Jerry, she had liked her. Jerry had never been anything to Joy but an unselfish, true friend. If it had not been for Jerry, the glory of music that Pa was unfolding to her would never have been hers. If it had not been for Jerry, she would never have met Grant—never have known. . . . But now—now, what did she owe Jerry? Grant had said, he had to—think. How long—how long would he—think?
She had had only a few hours of fitful slumber—something that Jerry had divined with one solicitous glance. Jerry had gone out and left her without trying to talk, which might fully have awakened her. What had Packy meant? She sank into a comatose state from which, contrary to the will of her weary brain, she fell into a heavy sleep.
About four o’clock, she woke with a raging headache. Jerry had closed the windows, as the room faced on a court and was noisy in the daytime, and the air was envelopingly turgid. She dressed slowly, realizing as she became more awake that she had not really eaten for more than twenty-four hours. To ransack the kitchen at this time of the day was hopeless, she knew. There was no solution but to walk down to the nearest dairy lunch, which was quite a distance.
Hatted for the street, she passed through the hall, giving a fleeting look to the living-room before leaving the apartment. Sarah and Jerry were “rolling the bones” on the floor, with Wigs and Davy and several other youths in full cry.
“Honey, what am them?”
“Oh, babe—what will the harvest be?”
“Shine out, little seven!”
“Root, hog, or die!”
Wigs caught sight of Joy as she was about to leave, and sang out: “Oh, Jo-oy! What d’you mean, going to dinner at the Copley with Boston’s Best? We saw you getting gay in there with Whosis—sitting up just like you were at a funeral and all that!”