In Her Day Read Online Free Page A

few coins on the optimism of the flesh? Besides, people don’t court anymore so I thought maybe that young lady just pulled you right into bed, honey.”
    “She did ask.”
    “Maybe I can win half the bet.”
    “That’ll be a first. Not with LaVerne you won’t.”
    “Ain’t that the beautiful truth! That woman pinches a nickel until the Indian rides the buffalo.”
    “I’d be willing to bet people are more emotional about money than they are about sex.”
    “Amen. They tell you more about themselves when they spend a dollar than when they spend the night with you.”
    “Which reminds me, you might be able to recoup some of your losses if you bet on tonight.”
    “Carole, you amaze me.”
    “Darlin’, I amaze myself.”
    “When in Rome, etc.”
    “Something like that. Since I’ve never done anything like this, at least not in such a short time span, I figured I ought to try it. Aren’t you the one who always says, ‘Progress lies in the direction you haven’t been?’ ”
    “Yes, but I never said the direction was horizontal.”
    “You devil, talk to you later. Give Verne a kiss and damn don’t you be telling BonBon Yvonne andCreampuff Louise what I’m about. Those two will have it all over town.”
    “I told Bon yesterday that with all the information she has, she could get rich overnight.”
    “Blackmail?”
    “Hell no, she can start a special service for lonely women, Dial-a-Dyke.”
    “Mary, Mother of God.” Carole howled.
    “She can use it too. Bon and Creampuff aren’t prejudiced.”
    “Adele, you are one of a kind. Now I am hanging up this phone or I won’t be able to get a thing done the rest of the day. Bye, love.”
    Carole showed up around ten-twenty but Ilse was convinced fifteen minutes after ten that she’d never see her again. When Carole did walk in, the place was so packed Ilse couldn’t get over to her so she waved and tried to not look too excited.
    Listening to the singer, Maxine Feldman, Carole surveyed the room. The crowd with few exceptions was under thirty and downwardly mobile. It was wall-to-wall workshirts with embroidery to relieve the monotonous blue. Little, enameled, five-pointed, purple stars stood out on caps and shirts. Carole noticed Ilse wore one on her left sleeve, over her bicep. Maxine displayed one on the bib of her overalls. They were pretty but Carole had no idea what they meant.
    So many of these people tried to look unattractive and that disturbed Carole. A few of them even looked dirty. Poor as she and her family were in the Depression, they were always clean. If her mother came back from the grave and saw some of these people it’d kill her all over again. Perhaps it wasn’t that thewomen tried to look ugly. Maybe they just didn’t care. Carole checked them out again.
    A few look like you could plant seeds on them, she noted, but the group isn’t all that bad. Maybe it’s a fad like bobby sox and Dad’s shirt was in the forties. And saddle shoes. I remember I had a pair with black saddles and then brown ones came in. Gawd. Still these people do look in uniform. I guess we did too but you can’t see yourself at that age. I wonder if wearing a purple star and patched pants is like being a Franciscan and taking a vow of poverty?
    Women in the room cheered the singer—“more, more”—after she finished a driving song about Marilyn Monroe. Carole wasn’t much interested in Marilyn when she was alive much less dead. But a chill swept down her spine. The lyrics reached her. Color rose to her face when she realized she had made some tenuous connection with woman as a group. She hadn’t realized that, until now, she had believed there were men, women, and herself.
    No, she thought, not quite that cut and dried. I guess I’ve always thought there was an intellectual elite and people like myself and Adele are part of it. Brains transcend genitals.
    Ilse made her way through the crowd as Maxine took a much deserved break.
    “Do you have