Patterns of Swallows Read Free Page A

Marjorie
Trapwell's wedding.
    It was a huge event. Nearly the
whole town turned out for the dance, even those who hadn't been
invited.
    Ruth didn't want to go. She
didn't know Marjorie at all well, but Wynnie Starke wouldn't take no
for an answer. Wynn didn't have a date, and she refused to go solo.
    Ruth and Wynnie (who now
insisted on being called Wynn) were standing together near the bowl
of punch. Wynn feigned thirst every dance she wasn't asked to dance
rather than looking on from the row of chairs along the wall. Ruth
didn't care about being a wallflower, but she was there to keep Wynn
company, however strange they had become to each other. So Ruth and
Wynn spent a lot of time by the punch bowl at that dance. Wynn
didn't dance much because, as usual, there were more girls than boys,
and the boys found other things to do out behind the hall where an
atmosphere of cigarette smoke and boisterous maleness drifted in
through the open back door.
    Ruth hadn't been asked to dance
at all, so she watched Wynn drink more punch than she really wanted
and eyed the dancers half-wistfully. Her feet tapped and her fingers
kept time on the skirt of her new-but-cheap-and-deeply-discounted,
full-skirted taffeta.
    How desperate she'd felt for
something to wear besides her old, much-worn blue jeans and
second-hand cotton dresses! How much she'd wanted something at least
a little bit pretty! She'd bought the dress for herself from her
first-ever pay cheque. She'd live on nothing but potatoes for a
week, but it was worth it.
    Her first-ever pay cheque came
to her courtesy of Jim and Morning Glory Metzke of the Morning Glory
Cafe.
    *
    * *
    They were Americans – a
Texan couple. And Glo (no one had ever called her Morning Glory)
lived up to every inch of what the townspeople expected of a Texan.
As flamboyant as her name with hair a fiery shade of orange, heavy,
blue eyeshadow, and skin that suspiciously changed colour at the
jawline, Glo's drawl increased perceptibly every year she lived in
Arrowhead. She was as large and loud as Jim was small and spare and
silent. Glo never worried about remembering names. Everyone was
either a "hon" or a "darlin'." Except Ruth who
quickly became "Ruthie" or "Ruthie Darlin'."
    Glo liked Ruth's looks right off
(and she was never wrong about her first impressions she was quick to
inform people). They had an opening, so Glo hired her on the spot,
even with no experience.
    "You'll learn fast,"
she told Ruth confidently. "I can just tell. My first
impressions are never wrong. Now, Darlin', here's a uniform for ya.
Come in tomorrow mornin' for training. We open at six, but be here
by five thirty so I can show you the mornin' routine."
    And just like that, Ruth had her
first job.
    She did learn fast. She was a
quick worker and had a good memory which made her a natural for
waitressing. She could have made more of an effort at friendliness,
but Ruth wasn't one to chit-chat. Even for pay.
    The regulars who ate at the
Morning Glory appreciated getting their orders hot and soon and
without reminding their waitress about their little idiosyncrasies –
like, that Ray Schultz wouldn't eat onions and that Mrs. Schultz
always wanted extra crackers for her soup – more than they
would have appreciated chit-chat from their waitress. So Ruth did
very well as a waitress, and her tips showed it.
    Jim offered to train her in the
kitchen. It would have been a higher wage for Ruth, but she would
have lost her tips, so she stayed waitressing, and Eva Dempstra, the
new girl, was moved from waitressing to cooking. Jim couldn't handle
it all himself, and Glo wasn't the cooking type. She ran the front
end. She provided all the chit-chat any customer could ask for.
    The Morning Glory soon became
Ruth's other home. She spent most of her spare time there when she
wasn't working. Most of her meals were eaten perched on a tall stool
at the counter, sampling one of Jim's latest culinary inventions and
listening to Glo tell stories on the