of June, she realized that she had paid his rent at Mrs. Boslicki's for six months, and she asked him how he felt about giving up his own room. Of the two, she liked hers better, though his was cheaper. But he didn't warm up to the suggestion.
“I think that would be embarrassing,” he said proudly. “Everyone would know you're supporting me. Besides, it's not good for your reputation.” But paying for his room every month was wreaking havoc with her budget. A salary that would have been adequate for her, though not overly generous, was vastly diminished by her having to pay his rent, his cab fare to appointments and interviews, and his daily food bills. She was ready to suggest he get a job waiting on tables, as she had. But when she tried to broach the subject with him after she'd paid his rent again, and couldn't afford to get her own clothes out of the dry cleaners, he got angry with her.
“Are you calling me a gigolo?” he accused her in a heated argument in her bedroom, and she was mortified that he would think so.
“I didn't say that. I'm just saying I can't afford to support you.” She had never covered this ground with anyone before, it was unfamiliar territory to her, and she didn't like it. It made her feel like a monster, and he seemed to feel she owed him something, and he was easily insulted.
“Is that what you think you're doing?” he shouted at her, wounded to the core. “Supporting me? How dare you!” But she was, no matter what he chose to call it. “All you're doing, Gabriella, is advancing me money.”
“I know, Steve… I'm sorry. It's just… I can't always manage it. My salary just isn't big enough. I think you have to get some kind of job now.”
“I didn't go to Yale and Stanford in order to learn how to wait on tables.”
“Neither did I, and I went to Columbia. That's a good school too, but I had to eat when I left the convent.” And he did too, but he had her to pay for it. And he made her feel guilty every time the subject came up, so eventually she stopped asking him, and decided to try to write some stories. But this time, when she did, every one of them got rejected. And the day the last rejection came in, she found Steve once again plundering her handbag. He had most of her salary in his hands when she came back from the bathroom.
“What are you doing with that?” she asked, looking panicked. “I haven't paid our rent yet.”
“She can wait. She trusts us. I owe someone some money.”
“For what? Who?” she asked, on the verge of tears. He was creating a situation she couldn't handle, and she had no other resources to draw on. It was rapidly becoming a nightmare, and when she tried to reason with him about it now, he got hostile, probably because he felt embarrassed, she explained to herself. But his answers had become vague, and this time he answered, “People.”
“What people?” she asked him. He didn't know anyone in New York. But then again, for a man who didn't know anyone, he sure got a lot of phone calls. For months, Mrs. Boslicki had complained that she felt like she was running a switchboard. There were a lot of things Gabriella realized she didn't know about him, and he wasn't anxious to share his secrets.
“I'm sick and tired of your questions,” he raged at her when she pressed him, and he had taken to slamming out of her room, banging the door behind him, and disappearing. Sometimes he vanished for hours, and she had no idea where he went to, but he always made her feel that his disappearances were her fault. He was good at that, and it was a role she had played for her entire lifetime. She was always willing to blame herself, and assume the innocence of others. And she knew he was under a lot of pressure. He had been in New York for eight months, and was mortified about not working, or so he told her.
And when she talked to Professor Thomas about it, she felt disloyal to Steve, and the professor always told her to be patient. He couldn't be out of work for much longer. “I'd hire him in a minute if he came to me for a job. Believe me, someone