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 zum Bett nehmen."
"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 worse comes to worse, I'll be late on my mortgage payment. I doubt they'll repossess my house if I'm a month 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."
Jack was able to give up two cards by adding to her meld. He stared at the rest of the cards in his hand and said, "I can't count that high."
"Do you want me to count them for you?" Bev asked.
"It is more than two," Jack said.
"Match and game for Bev!" Bev called out raising her hands in the air.
With her knitting needles clicking, Claire said, "I warned you not to play gin rummy with her."
"I suggested poker, but she wanted it to be strip poker," Jack said giving Bev a dirty look.
"You should have taken her up on that. Bev is a lousy poker player," Liz said.
"That's only because I like losing strip poker," Bev said smiling at Liz.
Claire laughed and said, "That's our Bev."
"Right," Jack said. He tossed the cards into the center of the table and said, "That's it for me tonight."
"Did you play for money?" Liz asked looking up from her knitting. Her knitting needles never even slowed down.
"I might be crazy for playing with her, but I'm not stupid," Jack answered.
"Good," Liz said.
"Where are Dave and Laura?" Jack asked. He had noticed that they hadn't come over to eat dinner that evening.
"They are having a date night. Dave took her to the early bird special at the diner," Claire answered.
"Date night? At their age?" Jack asked. He figured they were using a little of the money from fixing the townhouse to enjoy an evening together.
Bev looked over at Jack and said, "Dave is a good looking man. I'd offer him a tumble if Laura wasn't so jealous."
"Same here," Sally said.
"You're kidding?" Jack said. The idea of geriatric swingers was a little beyond him.
"Nope. How about you, Ella?" Bev asked.
"I think he would be fun," Ella answered with a shrug of her shoulders.
Uncomfortable with the subject, Jack said, "I'm going in the house."
Claire laughed and said, "We didn't mean to chase you off."
"Don't worry about it. I need to talk a little with Abby," Jack said.
Bev said, "That's a woman you should consider taking to bed."
"I'm out of here," Jack said beating a strategic retreat to the front door. He could hear the women laughing as the door closed behind him. He walked over to his house and entered through the front door. Abby was seated in the living room listening to music and reading a book.
"Hello, Jack."
"Hello, Abby."
Abby closed her book after having decided to address her problems straight on. She looked over at Jack and said, "I got my car insurance bill today. I can't pay the rent."
"Oh," Jack said. He wasn't entirely surprised. He had noticed the insurance bill after she had left earlier that evening.
"I thought I could make the money by giving happy endings at the massage parlor, but I discovered that I can't do it," Abby said.
"I don't know whether to say I'm glad or sorry," Jack said wondering how one discovered that particular fact about oneself. He assumed that was where she had been that evening.
"It doesn't matter. I can't pay my bills," Abby said.
"Well, we'll work something out," Jack said shrugging his shoulders. He could be late with the mortgage. His next few paychecks would help clear out a lot of problems.
Afraid of what she felt would be the answer, Abby asked, "Do you want me to move out?"
"No," Jack said. He was kind of used to having her around the house.
"I'm sorry Jack," Abby said looking down at the floor of the living room. Her whole body felt a little numb.
"Nothing to be sorry about. Life has hauled off and kicked you. It has happened to me more than once. I figure that life has quite a few more kicks in it for both of us," Jack said.
"I'll pay you some time in the future," Abby said. She figured that she would be a burden to him for a long time to come.
"Whatever you want to do is fine with me. We'll work something out," Jack said. He could see that she was depressed. There was no sense making her feel worse.
Abby asked, "What are your plans for tomorrow?"
"In the morning, Dave and I are pulling the carpet out of Mary's town house. I'll install new carpet that afternoon," Jack answered. He also had to call the college to find out when he had to fill out papers and when he would start his job.
"It sounds like you'll be busy," Abby said.
"Maybe you might want to come by and help with the final cleaning," Jack said. The last thing to do after installing the carpet was to vacuum it and dust every surface of the room. It helped give the house a new house look and feel.
"I'll do that," Abby said.
"We'll add your hours to the bill," Jack said.
Sounding bitter, Abby said, "I'll be there in my Taco Emporium uniform."
"I guess you had a rough day," Jack said.
"You might say that," Abby said. She had discovered some things about herself that she didn't like. She stared at the cover on the book she had been reading.
"Did you eat?"
"I had a couple slices of toast."
"That's not much."
"It is all I felt like eating," Abby answered. She didn't think she'd ever have a good appetite again. Either that or she would binge on some ice cream later that night. They had two five quart packages of ice cream in the freezer. That would make quite a binge.
"I think there is some tuna casserole over at the community house," Jack said knowing that wasn't much of an enticement to eat.
"I'm not hungry," Abby said. The idea of eating tuna casserole at the moment turned her stomach.
Smiling at the look of disgust on Abby's face, Jack said, "I guess I can understand that. Tuna casserole isn't exactly a big draw meal."
"I shouldn't have bought so much canned tuna," Abby said with a sigh. It had been on sale at the discount warehouse and she had bought two boxes of it. Everyone had joked about eating tuna casserole for the next three weeks when she had showed up with it at the house.
"I think Cheryl really wanted it. She said it was one of her comfort foods," Jack said. Cheryl had cooked supper that night and it was her choice to make it.
"Odd choice," Abby said. Her comfort food was canned ravioli. Having run out of small talk, she asked, "Why are you home so early tonight?"
"The old women were talking about having sex with Dave. I figured that wasn't a conversation for male ears," Jack answered.
"I imagine that you ran out of there with your hands over your ears," Abby said. She had never seen a man who was as easily embarrassed as Jack.
"I didn't run. I walked out in a dignified manner," Jack said indignantly.
"You turned and ran like a dog," Abby said challenging him to deny it.
"Yeah."
The conversation fell flat. Jack had considered asking Abby to trade living quarters with Johnny thinking that would settle some of the talk about them hooking up. In light of her inability to pay her rent, he decided that was a suggestion that would have to wait for another time. He asked, "What are you reading?"
"Another murder mystery," Abby said picking up the book and showing him the cover.
"You like those kinds of stories," Jack said.
"That and spy stories," Abby said. She had a couple of authors whose works she read every chance she got. She was a frequent visitor to the library since she couldn't afford to buy books any more.
"I noticed," Jack said feeling a little foolish just standing around in the living room. He wandered over to his chair and took a seat.
"You don't seem to read much," Abby said. She had never seen him sit down and read a book. He did read the newspaper at the library and he would spend time looking up things on the computer.
Jack shrugged his shoulders and replied, "I don't enjoy reading fiction all that much. I guess I like history, but I kind of prefer practical stuff."
"You should read more," Abby said.
Thinking about how much time she had been spending in the house lately, Jack said, "You should socialize more."
"I'm usually a pretty sociable person, but I just can't face too many people at the moment. This has not been one of my stellar days," Abby said. She wondered what the little old ladies would think of her going into a massage parlor and giving a guy a hand-job. She was convinced that they would probably kick her out of the commune.
"Do you want me to leave you alone with your book?" Jack asked thinking that he might be bothering her.
"No," Abby said.
"Okay," Jack said watching her.
"Would you like some coffee?"
Jack nodded his head and answered, "Sure that would be good. Cheryl made some chocolate cake. How about I run over and get us a couple of slices?"
"That would be good," Abby answered. Thinking about her earlier idea of binging on ice cream, she added, "Maybe you could add a little scoop of ice cream next to mine."
"Alright. I'll be right back," Jack said getting out of his chair. In hind sight, he thought it was kind of stupid to have taken a seat just to leave after five minutes.
Jack returned to the house five minutes later with two plates; each with a slice of chocolate cake and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. His choice had set off a flurry of activity over at the community house. He handed a plate to Abby and then took a seat in his chair. His coffee and a fork were on the little table by his chair. Abby took a bite and said, "Homemade cake. The stuff you buy at the store does not taste the same."
"You can say that again," Jack said. He took a sip of coffee.
Abby took a sip of her coffee and gave a sigh of contentment. She said, "This is nice."
"It is nice," Jack said. He took a little bit of ice cream feeling the sudden cold that attacked the warmth left by the sip of coffee.
Abby asked, "What are your plans for the future?"
"I don't know. This full time job at the university is a major change for me. I've been living from crisis to crisis for so long that I've stopped planning much of anything except where my next dollar is coming from," Jack answered. He decided that the first thing he would do when he had a little extra money was to buy a cell phone. It was one of those symbols of modern living.
"I can imagine," Abby said. She couldn't say that she knew what if felt like to have secure long- term employment. That seemed to be something that didn't exist anymore.
"I'll even have health insurance," Jack said.
Thinking about the lack of benefits at the Taco Emporium, Abby said, "The President promised that we would all have health insurance."
"I know," Jack said. He had a feeling that despite all of the promises that Abby wouldn't be able to afford it. If she could afford it, he doubted that it would be of much use in the event of a serious medical problem. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "He's been in office for less than a year. I doubt we'll see any progress on that in the near future."
"I can't even afford birth control pills," Abby said shaking her head.