thump—Dave kicking something,
probably a wall.
“You’ll be back!” he shouted.
Janet didn’t answer.
“You’ll come back begging .”
The hall carpet felt stiff and cool under her bare feet. With each step she took, the floor seemed to give the way ice gives
on a thinly frozen pond.
She trotted down the apartment-house stairs and hurried across the foyer.
Outside, the sun felt good on her face. She climbed into her Ford, did a tight U-turn and headed for Grand Beach Boulevard.
Meg would be glad to see her. And glad that she’d split up with Dave. “That guy’s a creep,” Meg had said after meeting him.
“Beautiful, but a creep.”
“You hardly know him.”
“Oh, I know him. I’ve known plenty of guys like Dave. Hotshots. Think they’re God’s gift. What they are, they’re assholes
disguised as men.”
Meg wasn’t home.
Janet sat on the front stoop. The shaded concrete felt cool through her corduroys. She was too hot in the sweatshirt. With
nothing on underneath it, she couldn’t take it off. So she fluttered its front to get some air inside.
For a long time, she stared at her engagement ring. Then she pulled it off. It left a band of pale skin around her finger.
She put the ring in her purse and looked inside her billfold.
A twenty-dollar bill and six ones.
She opened her checkbook. Her bank account contained a grand total of one hundred and thirty dollars and twelve cents.
“What wealth,” she muttered.
It was all that remained of the stipend she’d received for her teaching assistantship at the university last spring.
At the bottom of her purse, she found a ballpoint pen. She couldn’t locate any scratch paper so she tore a deposit slip out
of her checkbook. On its back, she wrote, “Meg, I’ll be back this afternoon. Must see you. Janet.”
She left the note under the heavy brass door knocker and went back to her car.
THREE
THE SUPERMARKET
That morning, Albert looked at his reflection in the window of the North Glen Safeway.
Pretty as a girl.
Makes me wanta puke.
A mustache would probably help.
Good luck, he thought.
He didn’t even need to shave more than a couple of times a week. Growing a halfway decent mustache would probably take him
months. Maybe years.
I’ll just have to put up with it, he thought.
“You’re awfully cute,” Betty had said. The dumb bitch.
Twenty bucks!
When the automatic door sprang open, Albert stepped into the supermarket. He went directly to the cookie aisle, pulled a package
of Oreos off the shelf, and headed for a checkout line.
How’ll I get my hands on twenty bucks? he wondered.
Six, he reminded himself. I’ve already got fourteen, so…
It’ll be less than that after I buy the Oreos.
Screw it.
His cheapskate father only forked out two bucks per week in allowance. At that rate, it would take three damn weeks just to
save up six dollars.
And that’s if I don’t spend any.
He tore open the sack and ate a cookie. It made the emptiness in his stomach hurt less.
Maybe I oughta get a job.
Yeah, like doing what? Bagging groceries after school?
Babysitting?
He sort of liked the idea of babysitting. Maybe someone
would hire him to take care of a cute little gal, and he’d be alone with her…Maybe give her a bath…
He felt a hardness start to grow in his jeans.
Yeah, but who’s gonna hire me as a babysitter? Nobody, that’s who.
Albert stepped into line behind a woman with a shopping cart. “Would you like to go ahead of me?” she asked. She had a gentle
voice and an open, friendly smile.
Albert glanced into her shopping cart. There wasn’t much in it. No more than a dozen items, at most. “Naw,” he said. “Thanks
anyway. It’s all right.”
“You sure? I don’t mind at all.”
“Yeah. I’m in no big hurry. But thank you for the offer.” He ate another cookie and watched the woman start piling her groceries
onto the conveyor belt.
The clerk rang up each item on the cash