down in Fuquay-Varina,” and I can’thave that. Now people just say things like “That’s Maureen Dummer, who works down there at the First Union Bank; she’s the teller with the strawberry-blond hair that looks a tiny bit like Krystle Carrington off Dynasty. She has a cute little girl by the name of Larrette. No, she’s a single parent.”
If my daddy wasn’t already dead, I’d want to kill him for not changing our name legal to something else. “She’s Dummer!” That’s what children said to me at school, and I know they’ll do it to Larrette if I don’t get married and have whoever adopt her first. Some things never change—children teasing other children and people taking a little information and turning it all around and sticking it to you like a wad of Juicy Fruit. We can’t chew gum while on the window or smoke cigarettes. “It looks bad,” my boss, Mr. Crown, says, and I could bust his crown. I work right here and yet when I decided to get me a Visa card, I had one hell of a time. To get a card you have to show that you charge up a blue streak, that you owe money here and there. “I have always paid what I owe,” I told him, only to be told that I have no credit. I went and got me a microwave and a washer and dryer on time so I could owe some money and get a card so I’d be able to write a check in the grocery store. I probably couldn’t have done that if Earl Taylor hadn’t been working there in Sears and hadn’t been taken with me. He asked me to go for dinner and I asked him to let me charge and pay on time and we shook onit, ate Chinese food, and the next day my things were delivered. Larrette had a fit over those big pasteboard boxes. I’ve been going out with Earl ever since.
I figure Larry Cross has himself one of those sticks that’ll beep if he’s walking there on the strand and happens upon some change. That’s what he does all day long, that and take pills and sell pills and do sex stuff. I’d be stupid to tell all of that and I am not stupid. “Why did you take a check that wasn’t endorsed?” Mr. Crown asked me first thing this morning, those other girls studying their papers like they were still in school, thankful to death, I know, that I had done it and not them. “You’re not stupid, Maureen,” he said and I said, “No, sir, I am not.” I can admit to a mistake; it’s easy if you’ve got the right perspective on it all; such as, Mr. Crown sits in a leather chair all day long and never once has to touch a nasty old piece of money that has been God only knows where and might have some disease on it. If Mr. Crown sat here at the window and saw what’s going in and out of this place, who’s bouncing and who’s scrimping, then he’d be likely to mess up occasionally, too. “You’ve got to concentrate, Maureen.”
And I’m certainly not stupid. Stupid would be if I told all I know about Larry Cross. Sex stuff, that’s the only reason I got hooked up with Larry Cross to begin with and that ties right in with that Spanish tan and hairy chest because he was right good-looking in an apelike way. He looked likethose little he-men dolls, except his hair was black and he had a real full beard like that man on “Little House on the Prairie” not Little Joe Cartwright but that other man that lived all alone most of the shows and dated that schoolteacher a time or two. Larry Cross was all right but I’m not stupid. I mean, why would I marry trash? Especially trash with a last name that isn’t much better than my own. Taylor—that’s Earl’s last name and one I’m thinking I could probably live with.
Sometimes my mouth gets all worked up with saliva handling all this money. I am not good with money. That’s my biggest fault. It’s a fault I’ve always had; if it’s in my wallet then I just naturally think it’s for spending and that outlet mall can get me in a whip-snap. Larry Cross had the fault of spending worse than me. If I was still with him he’d
If my daddy wasn’t already dead, I’d want to kill him for not changing our name legal to something else. “She’s Dummer!” That’s what children said to me at school, and I know they’ll do it to Larrette if I don’t get married and have whoever adopt her first. Some things never change—children teasing other children and people taking a little information and turning it all around and sticking it to you like a wad of Juicy Fruit. We can’t chew gum while on the window or smoke cigarettes. “It looks bad,” my boss, Mr. Crown, says, and I could bust his crown. I work right here and yet when I decided to get me a Visa card, I had one hell of a time. To get a card you have to show that you charge up a blue streak, that you owe money here and there. “I have always paid what I owe,” I told him, only to be told that I have no credit. I went and got me a microwave and a washer and dryer on time so I could owe some money and get a card so I’d be able to write a check in the grocery store. I probably couldn’t have done that if Earl Taylor hadn’t been working there in Sears and hadn’t been taken with me. He asked me to go for dinner and I asked him to let me charge and pay on time and we shook onit, ate Chinese food, and the next day my things were delivered. Larrette had a fit over those big pasteboard boxes. I’ve been going out with Earl ever since.
I figure Larry Cross has himself one of those sticks that’ll beep if he’s walking there on the strand and happens upon some change. That’s what he does all day long, that and take pills and sell pills and do sex stuff. I’d be stupid to tell all of that and I am not stupid. “Why did you take a check that wasn’t endorsed?” Mr. Crown asked me first thing this morning, those other girls studying their papers like they were still in school, thankful to death, I know, that I had done it and not them. “You’re not stupid, Maureen,” he said and I said, “No, sir, I am not.” I can admit to a mistake; it’s easy if you’ve got the right perspective on it all; such as, Mr. Crown sits in a leather chair all day long and never once has to touch a nasty old piece of money that has been God only knows where and might have some disease on it. If Mr. Crown sat here at the window and saw what’s going in and out of this place, who’s bouncing and who’s scrimping, then he’d be likely to mess up occasionally, too. “You’ve got to concentrate, Maureen.”
And I’m certainly not stupid. Stupid would be if I told all I know about Larry Cross. Sex stuff, that’s the only reason I got hooked up with Larry Cross to begin with and that ties right in with that Spanish tan and hairy chest because he was right good-looking in an apelike way. He looked likethose little he-men dolls, except his hair was black and he had a real full beard like that man on “Little House on the Prairie” not Little Joe Cartwright but that other man that lived all alone most of the shows and dated that schoolteacher a time or two. Larry Cross was all right but I’m not stupid. I mean, why would I marry trash? Especially trash with a last name that isn’t much better than my own. Taylor—that’s Earl’s last name and one I’m thinking I could probably live with.
Sometimes my mouth gets all worked up with saliva handling all this money. I am not good with money. That’s my biggest fault. It’s a fault I’ve always had; if it’s in my wallet then I just naturally think it’s for spending and that outlet mall can get me in a whip-snap. Larry Cross had the fault of spending worse than me. If I was still with him he’d
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