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mother about this?’ Jordache began to shape the dough into rolls, with quick little flips of his hand, like a magician.
    ‘No,’ Gretchen said. ‘She’s not feeling so well and I didn’t want to disturb her.’
    ‘Everyone’s so damn thoughtful in this family,’ Jordache aid. Warms the cockles.’
    ‘Pa,’ Gretchen said, ‘be serious.’
    ‘No,’ he said.
    ‘Why not’
    “Because I said so. Be careful, you’re going to get flour all over that fancy gown.’
    ‘Pa, I’ll be able to send back a lot more money… ‘
    ‘No,’ Jordache said. When you’re twenty-one, you can fly off anyplace you want. But you’re not twenty-one. You’re nineteen. You have to bear up under the hospitality of the ancestral home for two years. Grin and bear it.’ He took the cork out of the bottle and took a long swig of whiskey. With deliberate coarsness, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, leaving a smudge of flour across his face.
    ‘I’ve got to get out of this town,’ Gretchen said.
    There are worse towns,’ Jordache said. ‘Ill see you in two years.’
    Five minutes past twelve, the clock read. She put the neatly typed papers in the drawer of her desk. All the other clerks were gone. She put the cover on her typewriter and went into the washroom and stared at herself in the mirror. She looked feverish. She dabbled some cold water on her forehead, then took out a vial of perfume from her bag and put a little on under each ear.
    She went out of the building and through the main gate, under the big sign, ‘Boylan’s Brick and Tile Works’. The riant and the sign, with its ornate lettering that looked as though it advertised something splendid and amusing, had been there since 1890.
    She looked around to see if Rudy was by any chance waiting for her. Sometimes he came by the Works and walked her home. He was the only one in the family she could talk to. If Rudy had been there they could have had lunch in a restaurant and then perhaps splurged on a movie. But then she remembered that Rudy had gone with the highschool track team to a neighbouring town for a meet.
    She found herself walking toward the bus terminal. She walked slowly, stopping often to look into shop windows. Of course, she told herself, she was not going to take the bus. It was daytime now and the fantasies of the night were safely behind her. Although it would be refreshing to drive along the river and get out somewhere and breathe a little country air. The weather had changed and spring was announcing itself. The air was warm and there were little white clouds high in the blue sky.
    Before leaving the house in the morning, she had told her mother she was going to work in the hospital that afternoon to make up for the time she had lost. She didn’t know why she had suddenly invented the story. She rarely lied to her parents. There was no need. But by saying she had to be on duty at the hospital, she avoided being asked to come and work in the store to help her mother handle the Saturday afternoon rush. It had been a sunny morning and the idea of long hours in the stuffy store had been distasteful to her.
    A block from the terminal she saw her brother Thomas. He Was pitching pennies in front of a drug store with a gang of rowdyish looking boys. A girl who worked in the office had been at the Casino Wednesday night and had seen the fight and told Gretchen about it. ‘Your brother,’ the girl said. ‘He’s scary. A little kid like that. He’s like a snake. I sure wouldn’t like to have a kid like that in my family.’
    Gretchen told Tom that she knew about the fight. She had heard similar stories before. ‘You’re a hideous boy,’ she said to Tom. He had just grinned, enjoying himself.
    If Tom had seen her she would have turned back. She wouldn’t have dared to go into the bus terminal with him watching. But he didn’t see her. He was too busy pitching a penny at a crack in the sidewalk.
    She drifted into the terminal. She looked at