The Ladies' Room by Carolyn Brown Page A

pickles every day, would the fat disappear
off my thighs? Or if I rubbed mustard on my thighs and let it set until it was dried up like an old creek bed, would I wash
away all the pesky little cellulite critters?

    "What?" I belatedly asked.
    "Varnish comes in flat finish, semigloss, and high gloss," he
answered.
    "I guess high gloss is the shiniest?"
    He nodded.
    "Then that's what I want. Does it look like a basketball
court when they've just waxed it?"
    He grinned. "That's about right."
    When I finished chewing and swallowed the last bite of the
sandwich, I brought out the cheesecake.
    He groaned. "I forgot we had dessert. I shouldn't have eaten
the third sandwich."
    "Want to save it until midafternoon for our coffee break?"
    "Yes, I do. But you go ahead. You only ate one sandwich."
    "I think I'll wait too. It'll taste good with a cup of coffee in
a couple of hours."
    The window guys returned, and we all went back to work.
    Put on stripper. Take off blistered paint. Do it again and
again.
    "Do you remember Mrs. Dorry in the first grade?" I asked.
He'd remembered that I colored hair purple and the sky green.
What else was hiding in that brilliant mind of his?
    He nodded.
    "I was terrified of her," I said.
    "I know. When she called on you, I always wanted to answer
for you. You looked so scared that I felt sorry for you"
    "You were shy too."
    "More like bored. My grandmother taught me to read before
I went to school. I was reading the newspaper when I was five.
And Grandpa taught me to do math and figure. They believed
in living simply. Grandpa grew a garden, and Grandma canned
food for the winter. They taught me to work and to love to
learn new things. I wasn't really afraid or shy. I was just bored
and different."
    Suddenly it mattered to me very much that Billy Lee was
my friend. He'd said I looked nice on Sunday; that he liked my hair; that I wasn't a whiner. He'd brought supper the day after
Gert died. Not one of my old friends or acquaintances had
even called or come by my house to see how I was faring with
the loss and the divorce, much less brought barbecued ribs.

    I tried to remember if I'd said anything nice to him since
the funeral. Other than standing up for him with Drew-and
I'd have done that for the real village idiot out of anger-I
hadn't. Some friend I was!
    That night I ran a warm bath and only whimpered a few
times when I sank down into the water. The old claw-foot tub
had a nice, sloped back made to lean against. I promptly fell
asleep and awoke an hour later sitting in a tub of cold water.
    After I'd toweled off and slipped into underpants and a
comfortable old cotton gown, I stepped into the bedroom and
actually shivered. God bless the woman who'd invented airconditioning. Okay, it might have been a man, but I'll bet you
dollars to earthworms that a woman nagged him into it.
    I held the bottom of the nightgown over the front of the air
conditioner for a few minutes, not caring if it produced chill
bumps. Then I crossed the hallway to the room that would
eventually be my bedroom and switched on the light to look at
the progress one more time.
    My bedroom. Mine. Not mine and Drew's but mine. I was as
possessive as a little girl on Christmas with a brand-new doll. I
turned the light off and noticed a yellow glow coming from
across the yard, so I ventured to the window and looked out
toward Billy Lee's place. His small house was dark, but light
flowed from big open garage doors at both ends of his enormous
shop building out in the backyard. Did the man ever sleep? As I
watched, the lights went out, and the doors rolled down. Billy
Lee made his way across the yard and into the house.
    Alone isn't a bad place to be, especially when it's the alternative to distrust and unhappiness, but alone brought loneliness as the darkness surrounded me. I wished for the nerve to
go downstairs and call Billy Lee. Just to hear his voice. Just to
talk about the day. Just to be a nosy