The Jewel Box Read Free Page B

mood swings. And before you could say two-neurotics-in-transit, Wesley hooked a tow bar to his convertible for dragging my car to El Paso, his assigned city to establish a company branch. Mother accepted my lie about us living in separate housing. She was too damn virtuous to fathom her daughter shacking up with the second guy who came along.

    Traveling to El Paso included a stop in Houston. Wesley had a business meeting. Nikki was begging to spend time with Cousin Jimmy. And yours truly had to see my gynecologist about an overwhelming pain that parked in my grassy knoll and refused to leave. I also squeezed in a visit with my best friend from high school. Katie entered my life during sophomore year when her family transferred to Texas from Michigan. Her tales of life outside southern boundaries captivated me, but her uninhibited persona drew me to her. She mimicked my odd habit of walking on my tip toes. I mockedher excessive eyelash fluttering. By the summer of ‘63 we were inseparable. Although we kept in touch by phone after high school, I hadn’t seen Kat since Nikki’s birth. She insisted I bring my bikini to sunbathe at her pool and catch up on lost time.
    The girl hadn’t changed a bit. Thin, leggy Katie, whose thick, curly, auburn hair almost overshadowed her oval face and ski shaped nose, possessed huge hazel eyes and a fetching way of looking at people that made her seem prettier than she was. Incredibly stylish (she could pin a dead cockroach in her hair and start a trend), Kat possessed such effervescence I worried she might internally combust. Flattery was her forte. She was rattling on about my recent short hair cut enhancing my green eyes when I noticed rumpled twenty dollar bills scattered around her living room. Kat took two pink cans of Tab from the fridge, placed them on folded twenties to use as coasters, sat beside me, and insisted I brief her on my sex life seeing as how we both left high school as virgins. “Start talking,” she commanded with gusto.
    I leaned against the luxurious cushions of her sofa and elaborated on my two vastly different sexual experiences. Then she told me about her sex-capades. Gulp. During her demonstration of Kama Sutra positions, I noticed a giant bowl filled with about a zillion quarters sitting beside a Tiffany lamp on top of her expensive TV. “For the laundromat,” she said, following my gaze.
    “Pleeease.” I stood for a closer look at her coin mountain. “There’s at least two hundred bucks in this bowl. And more twenty dollar bills in this room than I’ve ever seen. What’s up?”
    Kat motioned me to her bedroom, pranced over to the closet, pulled out a small duffel bag, threw it across her bed, and opened it. Small sequined underwear and other glittery items tumbled out, along with greenbacks of all denominations. “I’m making the money, cutie.” She winked. “I’m working as a waitress and part-time dancer in a darling little club near downtown called the Jewel Box.”
    “God, Katie!”
    “It’s not so bad, Jill. I mainly wait tables and only dance a couple times a night when the club’s short on dancers.” She shook her bountiful booty. “It’s really kinda groovy. My family thinks I work in a restaurant, and I go by the name Laura, so they’ll never find out.”
    “You always had a wild streak, but God.” I slipped into my blue crochet bikini wondering how my friend got involved in such a job, and trying to stop reiterating “God.”
    “So, Jill. What did doc say about those spasms in your tulip garden?”
    “Some kind of cyst. It’s shrinking, but he prescribed Phenaphen for my pain. He also said my twisted uterus makes my chances of getting pregnant about one in a million.”
    “Weird diagnosis.” Kat pulled her bouncy red curls into a loose ponytail.
    “Makes me relieved I have Nikki, but you gotta love those pregnancy odds, eh?”
    When we got to the pool she spilled more details about her job. “On rare times that I