Chapter 4 | 43
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So do I, I'll come back with you.” We slipped out of our seats and said Excuse me Excuse me Excuseme down the length of our row, while the people grumbled andhissed and shifted their rain boots and umbrellas to let us pass, andI stepped on as many feet as I could because it took my mind off thisenormous desire to puke that was ballooning up in front of me sofast I couldn’t see round it. The remains of a tepid rain were still sifting down when westepped out into the street. Betsy looked a fright. The bloom was gone from her cheeks andher drained face floated in front of me, green and sweating. We fellinto one of those yellow checkered cabs that are always waiting atthe kerb when you are trying to decide whether or not you wanta taxi, and by the time we reached the hotel I had puked once andBetsy had puked twice. The cab driver took the corners with such momentum that wewere thrown together first on one side of the back seat and then onthe other. Each time one of us felt sick, she would lean over quietlyas if she had dropped something and was picking it up off the floor,and the other one would hum a little and pretend to be looking outthe window. The cab driver seemed to know what we were doing, even so. “Hey,” he protested, driving through a light that had just turnedred, “you can’t do that in my cab, you better get out and do it in thestreet.” But we didn’t say anything, and I guess he figured we were almostat the hotel so he didn’t make us get out until we pulled up in frontof the main entrance. We didn’t dare wait to add up the fare. We stuffed a pile of silverinto the cabby’s hand and dropped a couple of kleenexes to coverthe mess on the floor, and ran in through the lobby and on to theempty elevator. Luckily for us, it was a quiet time of day. Betsy wassick again in the elevator and | held her head, and then I was sickand she held mine. Usually after a good puke you feel better right away. We hugged 44 | The Bell Jar each other and then said good-bye and went off to opposite ends ofthe hall to lie down in our own rooms. There is nothing like pukingwith somebody to make you into old friends. But the minute I’d shut the door behind me and undressed anddragged myself on to the bed, I felt worse than ever. I felt I just hadto go to the toilet. I struggled into my white bathrobe with the bluecornflowers on it and staggered down to the bathroom. Betsy was already there. I could hear her groaning behind thedoor, so I hurried on around the corner to the bathroom in the nextwing. I thought I would die, it was so far. I sat on the toilet and leaned my head over the edge of thewashbowl and I thought I was losing my guts and my dinner both.The sickness rolled through me in great waves. After each wave itwould fade away and leave me limp as a wet leaf and shivering allover and then I would feel it rising up in me again, and the glitteringwhite torture-chamber tiles under my feet and over my head and onall four sides closed in and squeezed me to pieces. I don’t know how long I kept at it. I let the cold water in thebowl go on running loudly with the stopper out, so anybody whocame by would think I was washing my clothes, and then when I feltreasonably safe I stretched out on the floor and lay quite still. It didn’t seem to be summer any more. | could feel the wintershaking my bones and banging my teeth together, and the big whitehotel towel I had dragged down with me lay under my head numb asa snowdrift. I thought it very bad manners for anybody to pound on abathroom door the way some person was pounding. They could justgo around the corner and find another bathroom the way I had doneand leave me in peace. But the person kept banging and pleadingwith me to let them in and I thought I dimly recognized the voice. Itsounded a bit like Emily Ann Offenbach. “Just a minute.” I said then. My words bungled out thick asmolasses. I pulled myself together and slowly rose and flushed the toilet forthe tenth time and slopped the bowl clean and rolled up the towel
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