"Do you have an empty beer can?" she panicked. She began to gag. Gabriele moved the trashcan near Lily and bent her face. She spit it out but didn't vomit.
"Maybe you should wash out your mouth and then drink your coke."
Rita/Lily ran to the bathroom, turned on the tap water, and then began gargling with water and then with mouthwash.
"That minty stuff sure has a good taste, Rita," yelled Gabriele toward the bathroom. "Make sure you don't swallow the damned stuff or we'll be doing this again."
Lily gargled, spat, repeated the process, and then yelled back toward
Gabriele,"Do you miss Nathaniel, your Adagio?"
"Lily, you ask the same old questions again and again forcing me to come up with new answers to everything from why I don't have a boyfriend to if I take a crap when I get up in the mornings."
Rita laughed awkwardly for both were subjects she often asked about. "I want…" She gargled again and spat the mouthwash out. "I like to find out if people's ideas change."
"This people doesn't change. I'm glad the little—" She was going to say "little fucker" but she censored it out. "…guy is in school as I've said for the umpteenth time."
Gabriele chortled when Rita/Lily came back looking battered and weakened from her experience with tobacco. "Rita," she said, "It will take practice but before long you'll get the hang of it. You'll be chewing tobacco just like one of the boys. Then after more years of experience…if you practice…you'll be a pro' like me. You might even begin to condition American Barbie dames in the proper ways to spit it out like a cannon."
Lily laughed diffidently since she was in a depressed state and words were running about nonsensibly in her head like the yelping cries of wild savages. She sat down stiff as lead and Gabriele could see the terror of visceral loneliness in her face. She was afraid that the girl would be anchored like that during the rest of the day as a hindrance of her painting. "Oh," said Rita/Lily suddenly out of her saturnine depths, "I nearly forgot. The call. In my room."