Two green flies buzzed in a bothered way against the screen. Getting up, she thrust further open a torn place and freed them to the city. Cautious eyes on Tony, she dressed, not wanting to be seen. She particularly could not imagine being revealed naked in this strong morning sunlight. One of his hands lay limply on his stomach, with a look as useless as a single glove. At the window, clad in her slip, Amy imagined herself as the cover of a cheap true-confessions magazine. Midday in her rumpled underclothes, her hair mussed, she felt slatternly. Today, even Tony’s gigantic colorful canvases added nothing to the plainness of his other room. Dressed and coming into it, she felt disgust at ants, Indian-file along the table going toward dabs of peanut butter and jelly. No longer did it seem to add up to experience to live in squalor. It was not even worth relating to anyone that the plates off which they ate always had to be washed in the bathtub at the end of the hall. Tony’s sink was too small to hold them, though it held cups.
