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“Well, at least she knows what come right home after work means now,” Cory quipped.

“How did you do?” Mother darling asked.

“I gotta go to the bathroom,” I said, and hurried on. When I got in there, I saw my tampons were gone, removed from the area under the sink where I had placed them. I opened the door and screamed, “Mother, where are my tampons?”

“You don’t keep things like that in the bathroom,” Cory replied for her. “I don’t like looking at them.”

“They were under the sink.”

“Next to my stuff,” he shouted back.

“Where are they?”

“They’re in your room,” Mother darling said. “Calm down, Robin.”

She brought them to me. I took them from her and slammed the door. I could hear Cory’s laughter.

“He’s a sick person,” I yelled.

“Yeah, right. I’m not the one stealin‘ and sleepin’ around. I wouldn’t be so quick to call anyone else a sick person. Besides,” he said when I came out of the bathroom, “we just wanted to be sure you weren’t pregnant, right, Kay?” He grinned at me.

I looked at Mother darling.

“That’s all I’d need now,” she said.

He kept grinning at me.

“Maybe you’re not sick,” I said. “Maybe you’re just ignorant.”

Before he could reply, I went into the bedroom and closed the door. I hate it here, I told myself. I hate it!

“That’s a fine way for her to behave after I go and beg Al to give her this job. And you’re eatin‘ and sleepin’ in my home!” he shouted.

“Not for long,” I said in a loud whisper. “Not for long.”

After they had left, I called Keefer, but no one answered at the shop. There was an answering machine, so I left my name and told him I would be home. I didn’t think he was going to call. It was nearly midnight and he hadn’t. I fell asleep curled up on the sofa watching television on that small set of Cory’s. Every once in a while, something would interfere with the reception. It sounded like someone on a two-way radio. Finally, the phone rang and I jumped up.

“Can you talk?” he began.

“Yes. They’re at work,” I said.

“I was with my cousin Charlie. He called to tell me my father had gotten dead drunk and he dropped him off at the house. I told him I wished he had dropped him off a bridge, and then he decided to come downt

own and meet me at the Giddup Saloon. We sat and talked for hours about my mother. He’s ten years older than me and remembers her as a young woman. He said she was quite a dancer. Imagine that,” Keefer said. “I don’t think I ever saw her dance.”

“Are you all right?”

“Me? Yeah. So, how was your first day on the job?”

“Hard,” I said. “They had me do everything but sweep the sidewalk outside, but I think that’s coming.”

“Don’t you work with a cashier?” he asked quickly.

“Oh, yes, most of the time. But if it gets slow and they have enough packers, they put me on stacking goods or cleaning.”

“When the cashiers are through with their shifts, they have to prove—check out—their registers, right?”

“Yes, why?”