Everybody Loves Somebody Read Online Free Page B

Woolworth girl, Mary Beth, about the virtue of tattoos, though really she
     was arguing with herself, trying to persuade her more practical side that she might benefit from a tattoo and with it attract
     the kind of man who, for every
why not?
that can’t be answered, goes ahead and takes a risk. She settled upon her right buttock as a prime location and was idly
     considering the possibility of a pink rose when she heard Mr. Freddie’s voice.
    “Pour me a cup of coffee,” he ordered, adding, “pumpkin,” not out of affection but because after a full month he still didn’t
     know Ruth’s name, though they’d had plenty of brief exchanges, mostly concerning the topic of the cash register and Ruth’s
     tendency to come out a few pennies short at the end of the day.
    So that was the first time Mr. Freddie showed up where he wasn’t supposed to be. Ruth waited for him to fire her for sitting
     on the counter. But he simply eased himself onto a stool and spun to the left while he waited for his coffee. Coffee? Mr.
     Freddie had asked for coffee—and how about a piece of pie? Mary Beth crept off to finish restocking shelves, and Ruth cut
     a piece of pie for her boss, stale cherry pie stiff with tapioca, the crust streaked with hard-baked lard. She stepped back
     from the counter and watched him eat.
    What a remarkable transformation Mr. Freddie accomplished in those few minutes. Up until then he’d cut a ridiculous figure;
     all the girls thought so—he fancied himself a bantam cock in the henhouse when in fact he was too scrawny to be of interest
     and too much of the dandy to be trusted. Everything about him was made up, and the girls enjoyed mocking this amateur trouper
     behind his back.
    Ruth, however, didn’t laugh at Mr. Freddie that day. She couldn’t believe he hadn’t fired her, and she stared at him from
     beneath the smoky blue of her eyelids. Unexpectedly, she found herself growing interested in him. Maybe it was because she
     suspected that there was more to him than she’d thought. Or maybe she was just ready to believe that she’d finally met a man
     who would treat her fairly. Whatever the cause, Ruth was no longer simply one of the girls in Mr. Freddie’s eyes by the time
     he finished his pie.
    “Call it favoritism, sweetheart, but I’m going to do something special for you,” he said with a wink, brushing crumbs from
     his mustache with his knuckles. “I can tell you’re deserving.”
    How did Mr. Freddie know she was deserving? Ruth must have had neediness written all over her—a whole set of tattoos that
     only the manager could see. Clever man. The draw by the end of their conversation was his implied knowledge of her. As she
     watched him walk away from the counter she became aware of a new curiosity, the kind that once in a while would take her by
     surprise—when she was deep inside a tedious novel, say, and the plot abruptly thickened. She didn’t trust Mr. Freddie and
     because of this she wanted to be intimate with him, to circumvent his evasions and find out who he really was.
    Life went on after that conversation, routine continued to dominate the days, and Ruth worked the register for an extra five
     cents an hour. But within the routine the challenge of Mr. Freddie grew. He learned her name. He’d wander out from the back
     office to chat with her about the weather. He’d join her at the counter during her lunch break. He’d tell his war stories,
     which all seemed contradictory versions of a single story about a U boat sunk off the coast of Ireland. Ruth would hardly
     listen, having long since concluded that all his testimonials were lies, or at least exaggerations. What she liked better
     than his puffery were those promises, those delicious representations of the future, about how she would get her promotion,
     and Mr. Freddie’s mysterious investment in an outfit on Long Island would begin to pay off. The accumulation of profit seemed
     a much more certain thing