Page 12

“I’m going out with a friend,” I told her.

“What? You have a friend already? How could you do that? You just walked in and out of the apartment.”

“She lives here, too. She was just downstairs.”

“Great. Where are you goin‘ ?”

“Riverfront Park. They have a carousel.”

“That’s it?”

“I’ll just learn about the city and then I’ll know where to go myself,” I told her, and went to pick out something to wear from my meager wardrobe. In the end I decided to borrow one of her western blouses and do what she did, tie it at the bottom and show some midriff. Cory was still in the bathroom.

“I want to fix my hair and put on some makeup, but I don’t have a mirror. What’s he doing in there?” I asked loud enough for him to hear. Just then there was a knock on the door and Mother darling let in Del Thomas and the third musician, a man named Ernie Farwell, who was way over six feet tall, with long arms and a long neck. He had dirty blond hair as messy as Cory’s and dull brown eyes with lids that looked poised to shut. Del was the neatest of the three, with well-trimmed dark brown hair and a trim beard. I thought he had an intelligent look, and I would soon see that he was the most serious of the three when it came to their music.

Mother darling introduced herself and then me. Cory finally emerged from the bathroom. While they talked, I fixed my hair and put on some makeup.

“Where’s she goin‘?” Cory asked Mother darling.

She told him. “Who’d you meet?” he demanded as if he had become my legal guardian.

“Her name’s Kathy Ann Potter.”

“That fat girl? Didn’t know she did anything but listen on her earphones and eat and smoke dope, I bet. Mother’s a looker,” he told Del.

“Thanks for the rundown on the neighborhood. Let’s get busy. We’ve got a lot to do,” Del said dryly.

“Sure.” Cory turned to Mother darling. “You gonna let her go out lookin‘ like that?”

She looked at me hard, turning her eyes into two steel balls of cold threat.

“Don’t you get into any trouble here, Robin. We don’t know a soul, except Cory.”

“Who says he has a soul?” I quipped, and the three men laughed. “I need some money,” I added.

She got up, went to her purse, and gave me a twenty-dollar bill.

“We have to watch our budget, you know,” she said. “Be home by eleven, and I better not hear about you smokin‘ no dope, Robin.”

“Right,” I said.

“Robin Lyn,” she called after me. She always added my middle name when she wanted to emphasize something.

“Robin Lyn,” Cory chorused. “Don’t you sin.”

I shut the door on the laughter behind me and hurried down to Kathy Ann’s apartment. She was already out and waiting.

“Don’t you look killer,” she remarked. She herself wore a silk ruffled sleeveless blouse with a collar deep enough to show the cavernous promise of her cleavage. I thought she had gone hog-wild with makeup, too heavy on the eye shadow and thick on the lipstick. Her skirt was nearly a mini, and she didn’t have the legs for it. They were short and stubby, with bony knees. She reminded me of a young girl who had snuck into her mother’s bedroom to play grown-up.

“C’mon,” she said, grabbing my hand and tugging me toward the street. “I told Charlotte Lily about you, and she’s anxious to meet you.”

We started toward the bus stop and then broke

into a run when a bus pulled up. Kathy Ann didn’t seem to notice the way other passengers looked at her.

“Here,” she said, handing me a college ID. “Tonight, you’re Parker Carson and you’re twenty-one.”

“Why do we need this? I thought you said we could get in.”