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"Betty," she’d ers a quick shake

Henry tilted his chin and looked down at her, appraising "That’s an awfully dull naled to keep her eyes open

"Do you need a place to stay?" Henry had asked quietly

Theta’s eyes snapped open She pal funny, fella, and you’ll be sorry"

"Well, after everything, I would hate to meet ht be saying hello "I can assure you, Betty, I’entleman, and a man of my word"

Theta was so tired It was as if the hunger had been the plug holding back her e softly in her seat

"It’s copacetic, darlin’ Come on" Henry told her later that he’d never seen anyone so beautiful cry so ugly

Theta followed Henry home to his one-room apartment with the leaky roof on St Mark’s Place, where he offered her a pillow and a blanket While she cradled theed an old cane chair to a battered piano beside an airshaftHe hummed softly and made notes on those sas and blots of ink "You’re welco lady The pipes leak The bathroohbors It’s cold in the winter and hot as the devil in summer All in all, it’s not much better than the street But you’re welco in exchange, but he never tried a thing Theta slept through the night and well into the next day When she woke, she found a doughnut on a chipped plate, and beside that, a wobbly daisy stuck into an empty milk bottle, which propped up a note:

Hope you slept well I’d ask you not to steal anything, but there’s nothing to steal You’re welco as you like

Sincerely, Henry DuBois IV

She had nowhere else to go, so she ate the doughnut and washed the plate Then she washed the other dishes and put them away Henry came home to a room so clean he had to leave and coht apartment "Your name wouldn’t happen to be Snow White, would it?" he asked wryly They shared a bowl of noodles from a shop downstairs and talked until very late

It was Henry who had convinced her to bob her hair Arm in arm, they’d walked to the barbershop on Bleecker Street, Theta dressed in Henry’s clothes She sat perfectly still, eyes forward, as the shears bit through her thick ringlets Hair fell in feathery piles around the barber’s chair Theta felt her head growing lighter, as if she were being shorn of the weight of hosts of her past When the barber swiveled the chair around so she faced the mirror, Theta’s mouth opened in an astonished O Gently, she petted the sh up her nape, where her shingle cut forht of Henry biting his lip

"What are you gawking at, Piano Man? You never seen a flapper before?" she said with a wink

"You are the irl on this street," Henry said, and Theta waited for hie mix of disappointne at a boheal Street where, away froether, chest to chest, holding one another up, exchanging longing looks across tables decorated with decorative men Theta had heard that such places existed, and she’d known men who favored other men--"sissies," Mrs Bowers called them with a sneer, and Theta could feel the shame of the word coil around her heart--but she’d never actually been to such a nightclub She was afraid she wouldn’t be welcome there, but she found that she was

In the dark of the club, Henry leaned back in his chair and watched the scene, his gaze co man who looked back shyly from time to time In that moment, Theta understood at last "I’m on the trolley, kiddo," she’d said Then, with a perforto be the next George Gershwin You should ask hiets rich and famous"

Much later, they all sat in a heap on a velvet sofa, Theta on one side of Henry, the handsoe in New Jersey and a sailor originally fro on one another’s ties They tried to come up with a new name for Theta, who, Henry announced, sih all sorts of na, Natalia, Carlotta--to the silly--Mah Jong, Merry Christmas, Ruby Valentino, Mary Pickaxe