The Checkout Girl Read Free Page A

remember to tell Rachel he did wear them. Then again, maybe it would be better not to tell Rachel anything.)
    Daffy Duck grew bigger and bigger, and moved closer and closer, until he was almost touching Kathy’s nose. When Barry dropped his drawers, the edge of his pyjama top lifted and fell with the gentle bobbing of his little swelling. Kathy sat on the edge of the bed and gripped the mattress. She tried not to laugh. And her eyeballs crossed, she was trying so hard not to look. Barry looked down at her naked breasts.
    â€œOh, Kathy,” he said.
    His penis reminded her of an aging Pinocchio, a slowly growing nose-like woody making its way from between two wee wrinkled whiskered puppet ball cheeks. Barry sat down beside her on the bed and his little penis poked up between his legs. Kathy had to look away.
    â€œKathy,” he said again.
    Kathy felt so sorry for him she let him into her bed. I’m freezing , she told herself as she slid back under the covers. Barry came in after her. Kathy was being nice to Barry. Trying to make him feel better about his tiny penis, that’s what she told herself.
    Kathy’s breasts are small and firm. She tells herself that’s why she felt sorry for Barry that first time. She had a sense of what he must go through worrying all the time about the size of his appendage.
    â€œMore than a handful’s a waste,” Doug used to say about her breasts every time they made love. Or in front of friends, or at a restaurant, always loud enough for strangers to hear. It never made her feel better. Partly because she had never thought much about her breasts until Doug started commenting on them, never worried about their size until he reassured her they were adequate. She felt this was Doug’s way of making fun of her, of saying they were very, very small and he didn’t like them. Doug excelled at the backhanded compliment. That’s partly why she left him in Vancouver.
    Once with Barry was enough, Kathy had told herself. After she found out his little penis actually did what it was supposed to do, Kathy felt they didn’t need to test it again. Barry did, though. He wanted to marry Rachel, The Virgin Goddess, and he wanted Kathy too. Just not to marry.
    â€œDon’t you believe in free love? You’re a women’s libber, aren’t you?” Barry asked her one night when she was putting him off.
    â€œLove’s never free,” Kathy told him solemnly. She’d heard that in some movie. Lovers discussing their future. It had sounded so profound. Now it sounded like the sorry excuse it was.
    Barry lets Kathy take the Corvette for spins, its powerful motor thrumming under the hood (Rachel isn’t allowed to drive it so Kathy is supposed to stay away from her neighbourhood in Westmount), and he buys a little hashish from Pete for her. He brings home dope munchies and cigarettes and beer, all in the hopes that she’ll once again have pity on him and take him into her bed.
    Kathy can walk to work from the Lehmans’, walk to the library, walk to Regent Park, walk to market to get winter apples or maple syrup or schnitz pie, then have a beer at the Eby Hotel or a club sandwich in the Grill Room at Ahrens Department Store or just hang around downtown, see if some friends show up. When she lies in her bed at night she can hear the trains stop at the station going to, or coming from, Toronto. Soothing hopeful sounds, hisses and clanks, slow groaning starts.
    Kathy would like to hold out on Barry. She likes to think she’s superior to him. So it makes her sick. Not the sex, because Barry’s so gentle and timid, so anxious to please that she can’t feel bad about the actual sex. It’s how sorry-ass and weak she is. That’s what she can’t understand right now: The way she didn’t stand up to Doug, and left Vancouver without telling him. The way she doesn’t say no to Barry. The way she likes Barry’s warm