Chapter 19

Bev looked across the table at Ella and Frau Shultz. The elderly woman looked upset about something. Bev asked, “What’s the matter with Frau Shultz?”

“She’s upset because Abby won’t take care of Jack,” Ella answered.

Frau Shultz said, “Sie sollte ihn ins Bett holen.”

“What does that mean?” Bev asked.

“She says that she should take him to bed with her,” Ella answered.

“Why?” Bev asked wondering what had caused this sudden concern for Jack.

“He got a job at the college,” Ella answered thinking that explained everything.

Bev said, “If I was forty years younger, I would definitely give him a little wild time in bed. Jack and Abby don’t have that kind of relationship. She’s kind of old fashioned and won’t settle for a little romp without it meaning something. Jack isn’t all that interested in her. I don’t know why he isn’t interested in her.”

“She could interest him in her if she figured out how to advertise,” Ella said.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Bev said smiling over at Frau Shultz.

After changing out of her work uniform, Abby sat down at the kitchen table with Jack. When he looked up from his papers, she said, “I heard that you got a job.”

“Where did you hear that?” Jack asked surprised that Abby knew about the letter that had arrived. He hadn’t showed anyone the letter.

“Ella and Frau Shultz told me,” Abby said.

“Frau Shultz must have seen the letter when she came over here to clean up,” Jack said. With her cleaning the house, there weren’t many secrets.

“They wanted me to come in here and have sex with you,” Abby said with a smile.

“Those two,” Jack said shaking his head.

Abby laughed and said, “She’s probably out canvassing all of the old ladies trying to find one that will take care of you.”

“She’s driving me crazy,” Jack said getting tired of all of the attempts to get them together.

“She doesn’t think it is healthy for a young man to go without sex for so long,” Abby said. “She doesn’t think it is healthy that I’m not chasing you around the house. She’s sure that I’m not pursuing my future with sufficient energy.”

“She just wants the best for us,” Jack said with a weak smile.

“I know,” Abby said. It was kind of nice knowing that someone was worried about her. She just wished that they found a different means to see to her future.

Jack gestured to the pile of papers and said, “It looks like we’ll be doing better financially. I’ll be able to cover all of the bills once I start working.”

“That’s good,” Abby said. She was just barely making enough to cover her portion of the rent and the commune fees. Her take-home pay was about eight hundred a month. She was getting three massage jobs at the YWCA a week and that added another two hundred a month. It wasn’t much. Over time, her income had dropped from nearly twenty-seven thousand a year to fourteen thousand. Stopping to get a Starbuck’s coffee on the way to work was a dim memory of days gone by.

“We can reduce your rent a little until you get back on your feet,” Jack said thinking that she had come through for him when his back was up against the wall. After all, she had paid to have the electricity turned back on. He had noticed that her clothes were starting to look a little thread-bare.

“I’d appreciate that,” Abby said feeling guilty. There was no way that she was going to accept his charity, but she was not in a position to argue. She decided that she needed to start earning more money.

Jack said, “I’ve been going through my bills trying to figure out how much longer I can hold out before I absolutely have to start working. I figure I can go about a week or two more. Hopefully I’ll start my job on Monday.”

“That’s cutting it pretty close,” Abby said. She was already in debt to Jack for a hundred dollars.

“Yeah,” Jack said rubbing his face. His initial happiness had faded a little when he had gone over his bills. He said, “If worst comes to worst, I’ll be late on my mortgage payment. I doubt they’ll repossess my house if I’m a few weeks late. There’s no sense in repossessing a house that isn’t worth as much as the money owed on it, when there’s a chance that I’ll continue to pay the mortgage.”

“You’re probably right,” Abby said. She picked up the mail addressed to her and flipped through it. Her mouth went dry when she saw the bill from her insurance company. She paid it twice a year and had forgotten that it was due. She opened the envelope and pulled out the bill tucked inside it. Looking at the amount, she felt sick.

She stared at the bill for a good ten minutes wondering how she was going to pay it, the rent, and the commune fees. No matter how she looked at it, she was four hundred dollars short. That was half a month’s pay and she’d never catch up once she fell that far behind.

Seeing that she had turned pale, Jack asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Abby answered licking her lips. She decided that desperate times required desperate measures. She looked around the kitchen for a minute and then said, “I need to go out for a while.”

“Okay,” Jack said. He smiled up at her and said, “Have fun.”

Thirty minutes later Abby walked into the massage parlor on the outskirts of town. The Asian woman that ran the place was a tiny little thing and looked a little older than Abby had expected.

The woman asked, “What you want?”

“A job,” Abby said.

“Only hire girls from Korea,” the woman said while trying to push Abby out the door.

“Your customers might appreciate a little different experience,” Abby said finding it impossible to believe that she was trying to talk the woman into hiring her.

Making a gesture like she was giving a handjob, the woman asked, “You give happy ending?”

“Yes, I’ll give happy ending,” Abby said feeling sick to her stomach.

“No suck or fuck. You suck or fuck, we get closed,” the woman said shaking a finger at Abby.

“No suck or fuck,” Abby said thanking God for small favors.

“Man feel breast okay,” the woman said. She reached out and squeezed Abby’s breast. She said, “Men like big titties. Your titties small for American woman.”

“They’re fine,” Abby growled tempted to slap the woman’s hand away.

“Man in room five. You give happy ending now. He like, you stay,” the woman said pulling Abby to a door. For such a small woman her grip was very strong. The woman stuck her head in the door and jabbered at the other woman in the room. After a second, a much younger Asian woman stepped out. The older woman pushed Abby in the room and said, “You work five minutes.”

Minutes later Abby stumbled out of the room feeling sick to her stomach. She raced to the restroom to get sick. She spent five minutes scrubbing her hands clean and she still felt dirty. The old woman was standing there waiting for her to get out of the bathroom with her arms crossed and a frown on her face. Shaking a finger at Abby, she said, “Man say you boring. Stare at wall while giving happy ending. You no good. You go now.”

Abby left the massage parlor feeling like dirt. She got to the car and sat behind the steering wheel numb. She said, “I fucking couldn’t even keep a job at a rub and tug shop. Fuck this.”

Driving home, Abby wondered what she could do to make four hundred dollars in the next two weeks. She didn’t see any chance of improving her financial situation in any substantive way. She was forced to accept that a massage therapist was basically unskilled labor for any other kind of job. There just weren’t jobs out there for unskilled labor except in the fast food industry and that didn’t pay enough to cover all of the bills. She couldn’t even leave the commune and live in her car since she didn’t even own the car that she was driving.

Abby arrived at home and took a long hot shower attempting to wash the experience away. When she ran out of hot water, she climbed out of the shower and dried her body with a towel. Disgusted at what she had done, she sat on the toilet seat and covered her eyes. She couldn’t believe that she had so glibly considered that she could make a living doing that. The reality was that she hated the thought of it and hated herself for having tried it.

She had been wrong in thinking that giving a hand job was not as degrading as wiping an ass of an incontinent person. No one was judging her. No was treating her like a piece of meat. No one at the massage parlor had actually treated her like that except for her. She had always disdained women who did that feeling like they were ruining a profession that helped people. She put on her bathrobe and left the bathroom.

Seated at the table of the community house, Jack threw down his cards and said, “I’ll never beat you in gin.”

“How many points are in your hand?” Bev asked. It had been ages since she had played Gin, but it didn’t take her more than one hand to remember how to play the game.

“Eighty,” Jack answered. He had seven face cards, a two, a three, and a five. None of them matched her meld.

“With the twenty five point bonus for gin, that hand alone takes me over a hundred points,” Bev said with a grin.

“How many points do I have for this match?” Jack asked wondering how he lost that bad.

“Fifty eight,” Bev answered.

“How many game points do you have?” Jack asked.

“Four hundred and twelve after two match wins,” Bev said. She looked at the score and said, “You have a hundred and twenty eight game points.”

“This is ridiculous,” Jack said.

“How about another match?” Bev said with a smile.

“Deal the cards,” Jack said thinking that at least he wasn’t playing for money.

Two draws later, Bev declared Gin. Jack said, “This is insane. How can you have gin after drawing two cards?”

“I’m just lucky,” Bev said with a smile. She asked, “How many points are in your hand?”

Jack was able to drop two cards by adding to her meld. He counted the deadwood in his hand and answered, “Sixty eight.”

“Sixty eight plus twenty five for the gin gives me ninety three points,” Bev said.

Disgusted, Jack picked up the cards and shuffled them. He said, “Let me call wild cards after I look in my hand.”

“There aren’t any wild cards in gin,” Bev said laughing at the suggestion.

“There should be. I need them,” Jack said. He dealt out ten cards to each of them and flipped over an ace. He looked at his hand and shook his head. His cards were all over the place. There weren’t any pairs or even a pair of adjacent cards of a common suit. He growled, “Junk.”

Bev picked up the ace and discarded a ten. Jack drew a card from the stock and looked at it. He tossed the ten down on the discard pile. Bev picked up the ten of hearts and threw down an eight. Jack picked up a card from the stock. It was a Jack of hearts. He didn’t have a Jack in his hand and the nearest card of that suit was a six. He threw the Jack on the discard pile. Bev picked it up and put her discard face down. She knocked and then said, “Gin.”

“You’re killing me,” Jack said.

Bev said, “You should have kept that Jack of hearts. You saw that I picked up the ten of hearts.”