Page 292 - What They Did to the Kid

280 Jack Fritscher

“Make sure you have twenty bucks a week.” She kept the rent
money powerful between us. She grinned when I found a job.
“Doing what?” She hooted with laughter. “Demonstrating Hoover
vacuum cleaners?”
“Shut up!”
She was a comedian.
“In department stores?”
“Really, shut up.”
She was a lounge act at the local bar...
“In Marshall Field?”
...appearing nightly in the Plywood Room.
“So?” I said.
“Throwing baking powder on the carpet?”
“It’s a job.”
“Vacuuming it up?”
She had us both doubled up with laughter.
“Yes.”
“Blowing the beach ball in the air...”
“I make $3.25 an hour.”
“...on a wand?”
“Yes.”
We were screaming with laughter. She was the funniest woman
in the world. I fell into her arms.
“Hey!” she said. “Hey! Hey! Hey! I ain’t your girlfriend.”
“Sorry. You kill me.”
By the next afternoon, opening a beer, she said, “Joey found you
a better job.”
“Part-time?”
“Yeah. You can’t spend all your time studying and working
blowing beach balls.” She toasted herself. “You’ve got to date too.”
She trailed off into the living room. “You’ve wasted too much time.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Thanks so much.”
“Think nothing of it.”
“What’s the job?”
“I don’t know. Joey will tell you.”
Any revelation Joe had I trusted.
Louisa plopped down on the couch. Her thighs scooting back

©Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved
HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOK