Short Cuts Read Free Page B

sprouted up her thigh.
    “What are you doing?” she asked.
    “Nothing,” he said.
    He looked at the scale and wrote the figure down on a piece of paper.
    “All right,” Earl said. “All right.”
    The next day he was gone for most of the afternoon on an interview. The employer, a heavyset man who limped as he showed Earl around the plumbing fixtures in the warehouse, asked if Earl were free to travel.
    “You bet I’m free,” Earl said.
    The man nodded.
    Earl smiled.
    He could hear the television before he opened the door to the house. The children did not look up as he walked throughthe living room. In the kitchen, Doreen, dressed for work, was eating scrambled eggs and bacon.
    “What are you doing?” Earl said.
    She continued to chew the food, cheeks puffed. But then she spit everything into a napkin.
    “I couldn’t help myself,” she said.
    “Slob,” Earl said. “
Go ahead, eat! Go on!
” He went to the bedroom, closed the door, and lay on the covers. He could still hear the television. He put his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling.
    She opened the door.
    “I’m going to try again,” Doreen said.
    “Okay,” he said.
    Two mornings later she called him into the bathroom. “Look,” she said.
    He read the scale. He opened a drawer and took out the paper and read the scale again while she grinned.
    “Three-quarters of a pound,” she said.
    “It’s something,” he said and patted her hip.
    He read the classifieds. He went to the state employment office. Every three or four days he drove someplace for an interview, and at night he counted her tips. He smoothed out the dollar bills on the table and stacked the nickels, dimes, and quarters in piles of one dollar each. Each morning he put her on the scale.
    In two weeks she had lost three and a half pounds.
    “I pick,” she said. “I starve myself all day, and then I pick at work. It adds up.”
    But a week later she had lost five pounds. The week after that, nine and a half pounds. Her clothes were loose on her. She had to cut into the rent money to buy a new uniform.
    “People are saying things at work,” she said.
    “What kind of things?” Earl said.
    “That I’m too pale, for one thing,” she said. “That I don’t look like myself. They’re afraid I’m losing too much weight.”
    “What is wrong with losing?” he said. “Don’t you pay any attention to them. Tell them to mind their own business. They’re not your husband. You don’t have to live with them.”
    “I have to work with them,” Doreen said.
    “That’s right,” Earl said. “But they’re not your husband.”
    Each morning he followed her into the bathroom and waited while she stepped onto the scale. He got down on his knees with a pencil and the piece of paper. The paper was covered with dates, days of the week, numbers. He read the number on the scale, consulted the paper, and either nodded his head or pursed his lips.
    Doreen spent more time in bed now. She went back to bed after the children had left for school, and she napped in the afternoons before going to work. Earl helped around the house, watched television, and let her sleep. He did all the shopping, and once in a while he went on an interview.
    One night he put the children to bed, turned off the television, and decided to go for a few drinks. When the bar closed, he drove to the coffee shop.
    He sat at the counter and waited. When she saw him, she said, “Kids okay?”
    Earl nodded.
    He took his time ordering. He kept looking at her as she moved up and down behind the counter. He finally ordered a cheeseburger. She gave the order to the cook and went to wait on someone else.
    Another waitress came by with a coffeepot and filled Earl’s cup.
    “Who’s your friend?” he said and nodded at his wife.
    “Her name’s Doreen,” the waitress said.
    “She looks a lot different than the last time I was in here,” he said.
    “I wouldn’t know,” the waitress said.
    He ate the