Car Pool Read Free Page A

good girl like you shouldn’t have to work so hard.”
    “I’m young.” Shay appreciated Mrs. Giordano’s sympathy more than she could show — without crying — but she didn’t want Mrs. Giordano to worry about her. “I have good bones.” Mrs. Giordano put great faith in good bones.
    The older woman laughed. “If you keep working in the pizza parlor, you’re never going to meet a nice boy who will take all this worry off your shoulders.”
    “Mrs. Giordano,” Shay said slowly, her voice
    fading away. She took a deep breath. “It doesn’t work that way anymore. It takes two people working hard to live as well as their parents did on one income. Chances are, anyone I might meet would be just as tight for cash as I am.”
    “You should have a chance to meet a nice fellow.” Mrs. Giordano shook her head. She tested the heat of the chocolate with the tip of her thumb, then poured the hot mixture into mugs without a single spilled drop. “Someone to share your troubles. It makes a good marriage, sharing troubles the way I did with my Harry, may he rest in peace. Now drink up, there’s more where that came from.”
    “Mrs. Giordano,” Shay began. She really liked the old lady, but she had promised herself that as soon as Mrs. Giordano brought anything of this sort up, she would say her piece. Her heart rate tripled and she set her mug down to make her shaking hands less obvious. Saying what she had to say didn’t get any easier with practice. “It would be nice to share my troubles with someone I loved. But it wouldn’t be with a fellow. It would be with a woman.”
    Mrs. Giordano blinked at her, her mug of chocolate poised halfway to her mouth. “Are you one of those lesbians?” Her thinning eyebrows, carefully and tastefully penciled to a darker brown, disappeared under her elegantly coifed brunette wig.
    “That’s me,” Shay said. She smiled, but anxiously searched Mrs. Giordano’s expression for her true feelings.
    “Goodness gracious. To think of the trouble I’ve been having to get materials for the old gay people at the center and I could have just asked you, don’t you know. I called the Area Agency on Aging and
    you would have thought I’d asked for pornography. All I wanted was someone to speak at one of our meetings about groups that are available and such.” Mrs. Giordano pursed her lips and shook her head sagely. “This state is being run into the ground,” she pronounced. She set her mug down with an emphatic thunk.
    Shay blinked rapidly and then stared into her hot chocolate to hide how close to tears she was. “There’s a group called Gay and Lesbian Outreach to Elders. They’ll be in the Yellow Pages under Gay and Lesbian Organizations.”
    Mrs. Giordano threw up her hands. “The phone book! Why didn’t I think of the phone book?”
    Shay tried her best to look nonchalant. “We’re pretty respectable these days.”
    “My dear, you are a godsend. Have some more chocolate,” Mrs. Giordano said. “Mrs. Stein and Mrs. Kroeger are going to be thrilled. I just don’t see how the Lord would begrudge them comfort in their old age — they’ve only got each other, don’t you know.” She made a noise that was something between a snort and a cough. “But try telling Father Donohue that. I’ve given up.” She patted Shay’s hand.
    “You have an unusual faith.” Shay returned the pat. She sipped her chocolate and continued to fight tears. For the first time since her father’s death she felt warm inside, in places all the hot chocolate in the world couldn’t reach.
    She changed the topic to Mrs. Giordano’s favorite soap opera and sat down to watch it with her. She didn’t follow the plot. Instead, she tried to work out her schedule. And how on earth was she going to get to work? She had to drive almost to San Jose. It
    had been a forty-five-minute drive during non-rush times for the interview. During rush hour… she mentally added up the cost of bridge tolls and gas.