I'm not a violent woman--who would have thought it would end in blood? It started with parties; or maybe it started on Helena Street. If you go back that far, maybe the blood makes sense. Helena Street was where I was born and raised: a thousand feet of narrow, broken, asphalt that we called Hell Alley; it ran from Market Street to the service entrance of 63 Andriot, a block of condominiums, overpriced for the upper class. Half a century into the New World Order--a quick flip through a history book showed a pretty familiar picture. The Haves did, do, and always have it; the Have-Nots didn't, don't, and never will. Helena Street was for Have-Nots.

      Our front doors opened onto the sidewalk; our back doors, onto plots of ground just big enough for a scrap of a garden or, if one could be had on easy payments, a swing set. We shared the Alley with rats and other assorted vermin. We dodged pimps, pushers, and gangs. When we got old enough, some of us joined one or more of these establishments.

     I never did. Just wasn't a joiner, I guess. It took a few enthusiastic exchanges of viewpoints, but I finally made my position clear. I consider it a triumph of unwavering pacifism that I left the Alley with all my own teeth, which is more than I can say for some of my debate opponents.

     Hell Alley consumed most of the kids I grew up with, but it was the making of me. Insult humor--Slapping, in our lingo--was very big in Hell Alley. I was good at it.

     Every school has its pecking order, and the Alley kids were at the bottom of ours. Every so often, one of us would get fed up and fight back, and it was usually me; I don't like being stepped on, and I don't like people stepping on my friends. For the purpose of argument, everybody who got stepped on was automatically, if temporarily, my friend.

     Like I said, I'm not a violent woman, and I wasn't a violent kid; I slapped with words, when the choice was left to me. Some people have no sense of humor: if it wasn't some upscale moron taking a swing at me when she couldn't think of a comeback, it was a teacher shaving points off my grade because I found a raw nerve and played cat's cradle with it. I got sent to the principal's office so often, they printed me up a permanent hall pass. I kept it in my wallet, in one of those plastic pockets you're supposed to use for pictures of your nearest and dearest.

     By the time I left fifth grade, the name Cornelia Phelan meant something: Troublemaker.

     Middle school was better. Playing hookey and pitching bull weren't listed in the curriculum but, like they tell me the Dewey Decimal guy always said, "We learn by doing."

     My mother--such as she was--had a sister. I called her Aunt Bootsie when I couldn't avoid her. She was a church-going, straight-talking, finger-shaking, do-good over-achiever. She had pulled herself out of the Alley with hard work and prayer, and she was bound and determined to haul somebody else out with her. She never could get a grip on Mama--Daddy, she let alone altogether--but she caught me one school-day on a busy midtown street corner, chattering out one-liners for the tag ends of credit books. I mean, being class clown is fun, but it doesn't pay anything. She snatched me home and threatened Mama and Daddy with the law if they didn't let her have me.

     The parting was more sweet than sorrow. Aunt Bootsie bored holes in my head with fossilized maxims and poured good sense in through them. She drove me to school and dragged me to Mass. She nodded when I told her I wasn't going on to college, she hugged me when I told her I had a regular job in a comedy club, and she cheered every career step I took.

     She never let me do a thing to pay her back; not a house, not a car, not a coat, not a thing.

     From the time Aunt Bootsie liberated me until so much ended on Marner, the blood was figurative. TerraNet signed me to play the wise-cracking waitress on that comedy about the space station diner, PIE IN THE SKY. I took that show away from the guy who was supposed to be the star; I ate him up alive. So TerraNet gave me my own show, and I buried anybody the other nets put against me, and I was In.

     At least, I thought I was In. Then I went to my twenty-year class reunion. I was the only one of the Alley rats who showed up; maybe I was the only one who made good. That was okay with me; it wasn't the Alley rats I wanted to crow over, it was the classier-than-thou cliquesters. I mean, I was pulling down major credits, dictating contract terms to one of the Big Three nets; I figured I had some ego-strokes coming from the knew-me-when kids. No. They weren't going to give me that. They were doctors, lawyers, professors, CEO's, entrepreneurs, and other such high- powered types. "Still clowning around... Rough life, ha ha," pretty much sums up the attitude. I didn't know them well enough anymore to make them sweat, so they had open season on me for a while. I stayed long enough to collect some new ammunition, and got a little of my own back before we called it a wrap, but I'd been given the old school set-down, and we all knew it. I needed to tell Aunt Bootsie about it, and get some down- home, hard-nosed advice. I called her house, and a neighbor answered.

     Aunt Bootsie was dead. She had sent away the workers I had hired to clean out her gutters, and done it herself. She had fallen off the ladder, picked herself up, gone inside, called 911, sat down, and died.

     She left me what little she had. I donated it all to the church. By the time the media got through sanctifying me, I wished I had torched it.

     TerraNet threw a party for my second 29th birthday. Everybody had been invited, and everybody brought somebody. Lester Mayrick, the studio functionary assigned to ride herd on me, kept busy reminding me of names I hadn't forgotten. Some names, I didn't know, though.

     "Socialites," Lester whispered. "You know, with a capital S. The Good Society."

     "The which?"

     "The Good Society. Very exclusive..."

     "Oh, yes... They go to nightclubs and the management lets them say who gets in and who doesn't. This is that bunch?"

     "Yesssss."

     "So what's so 'Good' about them? They sponsor a charity or something?"

     Lester snorted. "The Good Society is what the press calls them, dearest. They don't call themselves anything, that I ever heard; they don't have to."

     "Money, money, money?"

     "Some of them, yes."

     "Socially prominent?"

     "Some. One of them's a countess. They don't have to be rich, though, or important, or anything else. If they're in with that group, they're Something, just because they're in with that group."

     "And how does one get in?"

     "...They let 'one' in, I guess."

      "Well, did you ever," I said. "How too, too utterly."

     Lester shook his head. "Are you just trying to be different, or do you mean to tell me you aren't impressed, being in the same room with these people?"

     "Can these people get me canned?"

     "...No."

     "Then I'm not impressed."

     Lester sidled up and breathed the names of these lofty beings to me as he discovered them, himself. It seems they weren't all there, fortunately for Lester; so much social brilliance might have been too much for him.

     "And who's that with the bones?" I asked. "Her face looks familiar, but I haven't seen a skeletal structure like that outside of the Smithsonian."

     "Shhhhhhh! That's Marissa."

      "Who?"

     "Marissa! Marissa del Hueso. 'The Face.'"

     "Ohhh, no wonder..." I'd seen that face done in everything from enameled copper to mashed potatoes, and on everything but the sides of milk cartons. It was a well-built face--over-built, I might even say--olive-colored, heart-shaped, strong cheekbones, big amber eyes, full lips. But it was small and closed--a face like a fist, if you want to know what I think of it. It was worth a million credits--since her press agent had insured it for that amount.

      Notice he didn't insure her body. Marissa had the frame of a rhinoceros. She kept herself thin, but that hardly helped: everywhere she took off a pad of fat, she exposed a lump of bone. She was Marissa, so it really didn't matter.

     "She's supposed to be some kind of classic beauty, right?"

     "Not 'supposed to be.' She is. The world's foremost artists, photographers, and what-have-yous line up to model her."

     "I wonder if I could get her on coasters."

     "Stop it, Connie. This is great! Studio's getting fabulous pictures for the prospectus--Marcus Vadny's here, too." Even I'd heard of him. "An actual, certified, card-carrying zillionaire playboy? At my party? What is he, slumming?"

     "Well, yes. They all are. They don't mix much with ordinary people."

     "Geez, I'm surprised they didn't come in sterile bubbles." Something was cooking inside me. It was just on the boil, and the sound it made was, "This is MY party," and it smelled like, "In with that group."

     "So," I said to Lester. "You know who they are; you know who I am." I batted my eyelashes. "Introduce me."

      "Oh, no. Not I. You just snicker at them from afar, like a good little peasant, and don't make your Uncle Lester blush."

     "Sure. Okay."

     I waited until Lester detached himself from me for a minute and drifted over to Marissa del Hueso. Something was going to give, here; even in Hell Alley, we had enough manners to come say hello to the guest of honor, and none of these people had even looked at me. They were going to look at me, now.

     "Hiya Face," I said. "Having a good time?"

     "Lovely," she said, her "classically beautiful" face immobile. "I'm so sorry I can't stay longer." The dear little fairy--I'd frightened her away with my rough, peasant manner.

     "Just dropped in on your way to somewhere else?"

     "Yes."

     "Well, great, I'm glad you did. This party needs some class. Say, have a beer before you go. --Hey, Lester! Let's have a beer over here for The Face!"

      Marissa turned red, and then... She started to giggle. It surprised me, but I'm not a pro for nothing. "Come on, Lester," I said, "get the lead out!"

     Lester brought a splash of beer in a sherry glass, and avoided my eye as he handed it over.

      Marissa took her beer and tossed it off. Everyone applauded. She loved it.

     And I found myself invited for a weekend cruise aboard Marcus Vadny's yacht. Not invited by Marcus Vadny, worse luck, but by the group in general.

     I accepted.

     This was after my Aunt Bootsie died, of course. Aunt Bootsie would have said, "Put it in tin, or put it in gold with diamonds on it--look at it close. If it's trash, it's trash." But Aunt Bootsie was dead, so I went on the yacht. I didn't kid myself; I knew I was there as a novelty, and because I had made Marissa laugh. I made 'em laugh on the yacht, too. I was invited to two weeks in Hanna Hobbs' island villa off the coast of Uruguay, then for a month of skiing in the Altai Mountains. It was a kick, at first. Then it was a goal. I was with them, but I wasn't one of them, any more than a poodle is a pet owner just because he's at a dog show. And I wanted to be one of them. I deserved it. I wasn't a "good little peasant"--I wasn't any kind of a peasant at all. I was Cornelia Phelan, and I was as good as anybody. That nagging little voice telling me that "trash is trash" got a pat on the head and a patronizing smile. I learned the Inner Circle's names and relative status quos, and the hooks that held them in place. Jocelyn Demmarie: she composed and sang intimate little songs, accompanied herself on her Yamaha Lasernova, and never performed publicly, only for friends. Hurst Sandbourne: He had written one book ten years earlier that was so...I believe the word is "dense"...that several careers and a small industry were based on trying to figure out what the book had meant. He was always "working on" another, but it had never materialized. Ivor DePere, who made obscene amounts of money ruining good paint and canvas. Zizi Takana, CEO of GreenSink, Inc. Hannah Hobbs, ex-wife of three entertainment moguls. Rula Urka, Lester's countess. Marissa, The Face, the Queen Bee of them all.

     And Darryl. Darryl Moran. Darryl was one of the Inner Circle; the one I thought we could all do best without. He'd been a poor boy on a token scholarship when he'd started selling free-lance art criticism to small presses and local papers. He'd known his business, and he'd become a Power in the art world. That was when he'd started using his reviews as sticks and carrots. He had never said anything good about Ivor, which was a point in his favor. Of course, Ivor was bullet-proof--he could sell a nosebleed if he signed it--so it hardly mattered.

     I despised Darryl for the way he trashed something precious: the respect of people who trusted his judgement. And then there was the way he treated his so-called "lover," Honey Clayton. True, she begged for abuse, as long as it came from him, but that didn't excuse him for obliging her.

     He was 5'8", wiry, with fine glossy hair and skin the color of bitter chocolate. His eyes were as black as the Pit, his lips were thin and wine-colored, his nose was long and narrow. He thought he was hypnotically handsome. So did Honey. I thought he was a low-down, sadistic, rat-faced, overrated, self-important lump of digestive waste.

     I took against him the minute I saw the round-headed weasel. The first words he'd said to me were, "I don't watch much holovision, but I saw your show last week. Then I remembered why I don't watch much holovision."

     I had answered, "Write it down, so you won't forget again. If you ever developed an artistic sense, it could ruin your career as a critic."

     But, he was one of Them, and I put up with him; and bided my time, intent on getting above him on Status Mountain, and rolling a few rocks his way.

     In the meantime, I was holding my own; not one of the Inner Circle, but not a flunkey, either. That took strategy and diplomacy, both of which I was used to using in contract negotiations. It took a little soft soap, and a sure hand at targeting my Slaps where they'd do me the most good.

     The last thing I was looking for was a "bes' frien'" to give me big-eyed disappointed looks while I worked. That's what I got, though, and a more unlikely pal I could not have imagined. It was Lester's countess, Rula Urka, who introduced me to Jackie. I had won a couple of performance awards, and the Good Society had granted me something like Most Favored Orphan status. The countess was particularly adept at dealing out treats like the Herringmaster at SeaWorld.

     "I hope you take no offense, Connie," the countess said one day, "but--who dresses you?"

     "Who dresses me? Well, Nanny used to do it, but she was hitting the bottle, and we had to let her go. What do you mean, who dresses me?"

     "Who has the dressing of you? Or are you buying your wardrobe...in the stores?"

     The way she said it made it sound like, "Do you pick your clothes out of the garbage?"

     "Well, in the stores, yeah," I said. "Golly, you can get some really neat stuff at the Goodwill."

     Understand, I dressed nice. I dressed very nice. I paid plenty, and I was considered a fashion plate in most of the company I kept.

     The countess nodded, as if my joke had confirmed a suspicion and said, "I am on my way to see Jackie. I will take you with me. Jackie Eastman. You will have heard of him, of course--of his public businesses--but this is something quite different. We do not go to the Jackie Eastman Fashion Outlet." Rula smiled at the thought. "We do not go to Eastman's in New York City. He is here, in this city, now, at the Tarlton Hotel, in the Lindauer

     Suite on the twentieth floor. Someone has phoned me, to let me know, and I have phoned Jackie. My measurements, Jackie has by heart. He will take yours, ask you questions, and he will undertake the dressing of you."

     A young woman of twenty or so let us into the suite. She greeted both of us by name. Both of us. I must have looked startled, because she smiled and said, "The countess is a dear and valued customer, and everyone knows Cornelia Phelan."

     I pointed at her. "You," I said, "get a tip."

     "Jackie's in the other room," she said. "Through there." I expected Jackie Eastman to be a slim and sensitive gentleman with artificial waves in his hair. When I saw the real Jackie, sitting on the couch, scribbling on a 26 X 30 pad of newsprint, I thought he was the cutter. He was fat, forty-ish, and funny-looking; about 5'7", white as a beached fish, with a fringe of dark hair around a flat and freckled top. His eyes were brown and warm, but too close together. His nose was small but blobby. His tongue was too large for his mouth; it made his jaw look loose and his lips look soft and, I learned when he spoke to the countess, it gave him the slightest lisp. He had one of those 80mm "good tobacco" cigarettes burning in an ashtray on the coffee table. The ashtray was full of stubs.

     He threw down his pad and came over to us. "Countess! Who've you brought me?"

     I run into a lot of people who like to pretend they're so out of the mainstream they don't even know the year, much less who I am. When they turn that phoney blank look on me, I have this urge to paint graffiti on it with my nails. Jackie's look wasn't blank, though; it was brassy.

     The girl who'd answered the door said, "It's Cornelia Phelan, Jackie. She's been on HV for years. She's very funny."

     "Thanks," I said.

     "Jackie," said Rula, with heavy impishness, "these girls, they get younger all the time. You should be ashamed."

     "Why? --Oh, I get it. Countess, shame on you. You should have your mind washed out with soap. Mina, do I make passes?" The young woman laughed and patted Jackie's arm.

     "I'm a saint," Jackie said. He retrieved his pad and pencil. "Now, let's do business."

     Rula chose some fabric and some designs for herself, and left. I was instructed to stay, to be measured by Mina and questioned by Jackie about my tastes and needs and so on. It was like being interviewed and groped simultaneously. The attempt had been made before, so I recognized the similarity.

     The truth is, although Mina tried to put me at ease, and Jackie was as common as an old shoe, service this personal seemed unnatural to me, and it was obvious, and it put my back up.

      When we were finished, I said, "Now I have a question: How much is this bag of rags going to cost me?"

     Jackie lit a cigarette. "That depends on what you're willing to pay."

     "I'm willing to pay something, I'm no cheapskate, but a dress is a dress, no offense."

     "I'm not offended." Jackie picked up a pencil and began sketching something with swift, light strokes. "Nobody is going to send you a bill."

     "What is it, a free will offering?"

     "The countess is taking care of it."

     "She is?"

     "Enjoy it while it lasts."

     "You think it won't?"

     "Like I said, that depends on what you're willing to pay for it. They pick you up, they put you down."

     "Maybe," I said, "and maybe not."

     "That's right. And you know what it is that you can't put down once you pick it up?"

     "Yeah, I know. That's not what I mean. I'm no parasite. You send me a bill. I only asked what it would be, that's all. You send me a bill for all of this, you hear?"

     He didn't. When I came in for my first fitting, he told me everything had been taken care of. I asked how much; he wagged a finger at me and said it was rude to ask the price of a gift. I told him I wanted to buy an exact copy of everything for my evil twin; he laughed. I wrote him out a check for more than I thought the stuff could possibly be worth; he donated it to UNICEF in my name.

     Finally, he said, "The Fashion Outlet has prices. The salon in New York has prices. For my private clients, clothes cost what I say they cost. What I charged the countess has nothing to do with you. For you, call this one on the house."

     "Why?"

     "I like you."

     "Why?"

     "God knows. Maybe you remind me of a real person." He lit one of the cigarettes he smoked like smoking was a second career and winked.

     So it started with parties, and Darryl Moran, and Honey Clayton, and Marissa the Face, and Jackie Eastman. If I had to put a finger on the top of the long slide, I guess it would be that party just after I closed production on SYBIL WRITES, a dramedy about a psychic mystery writer who finds the solutions to unsolved cases as she turns them into short stories. Jackie rarely came to Good Society parties, but he came to that one. Darryl attached himself to me, all provocative smiles and smoldering looks. He knew he made my skin crawl, which is what made it fun; that, and because it killed Honey Clayton's soul. When he was sure Honey had maneuvered close enough to hear, he leaned over to me and murmured, "That dress is ravishing."

     "I'll ask Jackie to make you up one. It couldn't look any worse on you than what you're wearing."

     He took his arm from my shoulders. "My tailoring is impeccable."

     "Unlike your morals. You're right, it isn't the fault of your clothes. You can't put a suit on a jackass and expect it to do either of them credit."

     Honey moved to his side and put a hand on his arm. He drew her closer and kissed her forehead, his open eyes on me.

     "Lucky girl," I said, moving off in a parody of desolation. "Lucky, lucky girl."

     Now, this Honey Clayton had been one of the most beautiful women in the Terran Union--once upon a time. She was close to six feet tall, and had been slender and curvaceous. Her complexion had been translucent, the color of coffee with lots of cream; her hair had been like honey mixed with butter, and long, and silky-looking. Her eyes had been a soft, clear green. I had seen the pictures. By the time I met her in person, Darryl had begun his work, and she had begun to fade. Now she was overblown; not obese, but puffy, like a rose about to start dropping petals. Her complexion was unhealthy red from the nose across the cheekbones--most of the day; in the mornings, it was greenish-gray. Her eyes always had a dull glaze. She'd cut her hair, curled it, streaked it, done anything to it Darryl had admired in anyone else's hair, until it looked fried lifeless under its expensive dressing. All this for love.

      Honey was one of Jackie's models; a live model, though she worked with holographers, too. Darryl Moran had seen her at Eastman's in New York and had charmed her stupid. When he had whistled, she had come. When he hadn't whistled, she had worried. He had played mindgames with her until her head was inside out.

     She still worked for Jackie. When she had started to... shall we say "flesh out"?...from moving too fast and drinking too hard, Jackie had put in a line for the full-figured woman and kept her on at top pay.

     But she still came when Darryl called, like a rat in an approach/avoidance experiment. There was a glint in her eye tonight, and all of us who knew her could see this was going to be one of her more flamboyant toots.

     Jackie joined me at the buffet. "I can't stand to see him touch her. Or, worse, her touch him." He grimaced. "It is kind of like seeing a snail in the petunias, isn't it?"

     Jackie laughed. "That was funny, what you said about the suit."

     "That's what I'm here for."

     He lit another "good" tobacco cigarette, frowning again. "That's nothing to be proud of: being some kind of Society pet."

     I didn't like his tone. "You aren't?" I said.

     "I'm a vendor," he said. "And that's as close as I want to get to them. If you're smart, you'll keep your distance, too."

      "Who said I was smart?"

     "Maybe you're right. Maybe you aren't."

     "No, no, no; you weren't supposed to agree with that one. How about if I make a signal..."

     He wasn't in a joking mood. These even-tempered, good- natured types are grim when they get broody. "You're not the only one I've seen it happen to," he said. "You're trapped in the old neighborhood. You think the only way you can get out is to climb out over everybody you see, but that won't work, because you'll always see somebody else you think you have to climb over. I'm here to tell you, the only way out of it is just to turn your back on it and walk away."

     Instead, I turned my back on him and walked away. Started to, anyway.

     "Honey won't listen, either," he said.

     I turned back. "Listen, Bub, don't put me in a box with Honey. You won't see me making like a sheep, letting a pack of dogs drive me over a cliff. That's one thing you never have to be afraid of."

     "I'm not. I'm afraid I'll see you making like a dog."

      Well, that didn't even deserve an answer. Trapped in the old neighborhood? I wasn't trapped in the old neighborhood; I carried it with me, like a custard pie looking for a face. I was on the other side of the room, talking to Marissa and Hurst, when two arms slithered around me from behind. One went around my waist; the other tried to go higher, but I blocked it. Darryl chuckled in my ear and moved so close I could feel his body from his shoulders to his knees.

     "Doctor," I said, "I have this wart on my back."

      Darryl pressed his pelvis closer and said, "A sizable wart."

     "A corset would hold that in for you."

     "I meant this," he said, pressing even closer.

     "I know," I said, "but I never speak ill of the dead." He was about to let me go when Honey swayed up to us. He kept his hold when he saw her.

     Honey's flush covered her face and neck down to her shoulders. Even her ears were red. She was clutching her drink so tightly her fingers were white and her veins stood out through the puffy flesh. I could almost hear her teeth grind. We stood there, frozen and silent, for an hour's worth of thirty seconds. Then Honey pulled back her glass and flung the contents at my face. The glass was empty.

     Darryl stepped back and roared with laughter. He threw his arms around himself and all but doubled over. Everybody wanted to know what was so funny, and he was just tickled to death to tell them.

     Some of the other Socialites laughed, and some of the toadys. Not everybody. Certainly not Jackie. Certainly not me. Honey's unhealthy flush drained away. She looked defenseless without it.

      Much as I despised her, I wished sincerely that she'd had something in that glass. I'd have poured my own drink over my head if it would have done any good.

     I went over to her and spoke so only she could hear me. "Laugh, you idiot," I said. "Laugh with them, so they can't laugh at us. And let's move on, fast."

     She didn't laugh, but she focused on my face.

     "At least smile," I said, pretending to share a private joke with her. "And let's start walking."

     The model in her responded, and she smiled charmingly. I put an arm around her waist, and guided her to the bar.

     I left that party, then. As I went out the door, I turned and scanned the room for Jackie. Instead, I saw Honey clinging to her drink with one hand and Darryl's arm with the other. She whispered something; Darryl looked at me with eyes that glinted malice, and mouthed a kiss.

      That was really the beginning, I think.

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