Then the door opened. The girl in the watermelon red dress entered, wheeling a tray crowded with white sandwiches, green pickles and steaming black coffee.
I scowled at the dream from heaven pushing the service cart, a friendly smile on her red lips, feeling a sense of defeat, of being crowded into a corner.
"No thanks," I said harshly. "My stomach couldn't hold even the coffee right now." I jerked my eyes away from hers, past Dr. Leopold Moriss, to the curtains on the windows.
"Get him a big glass of half tomato juice half grapefruit juice," the doctor said. "He can hold that down. It'll make him feel better."
I continued to hold my eyes on the curtains, but I knew that I was licked. Whipped. Beaten into submission. When I heard the pert footsteps return and felt the cold roundness of the glass against my hand, I turned and looked up into her smiling, sympathetic eyes.
"Thanks," I said gruffly.
The cold liquid stayed down, soothing the raw walls of my stomach. I half closed my eyes, experiencing the first pleasant body sensation since the warm glow of that first drink three or four days before.
I watched shapely legs below the swishing dress as they went across the room to a desk. When they returned I looked up to see a cigarette between fingernails the same shade of red as the dress. I followed the slender fingers to the slim wrist, up the graceful, slightly tanned arm to the short sleeve, and from there my eyes jumped to her smiling red lips.
"I'm Paula, January," she said.