Frog Music by Emma Donoghue Read Free Book Online Page B

“It’s funny that travesty’s all the rage onstage,” she says with a little laugh, “but if you step into the street, the same pants will get you locked up.”
    “It’s usually a fine,” Jenny tells her. “The cops been catching me and letting me go every month or two for a couple of years now, all very cat and mouse.”
    “How much of a fine?” Ernest wants to know, sitting down.
    “Ten bucks—and then there’s the lawyer’s fee on top,” complains Jenny. “Once I made mine tell the judge that I considered the whole thing an infringement on the rights of women, and the son of a bitch fined me twenty.”
    “How come you ended up in jail this time?” asks Arthur.
    Jenny makes a face as if she has a toothache. “Sacked my lawyer and demanded a jury instead of a judge. I told them the truth, that I don’t have any other clothes, and would they prefer me to walk around naked as a worm?”
    Hoots all round.
    “Turned out twelve good men and true didn’t look any kindlier on me than one. Now, spending forty days dry,” she adds ruefully, “that was the real kick in the pants—as it were!”
    “Speaking of which—some cognac?” proposes Arthur, getting up.
    “I can’t believe you sacked your lawyer,” Blanche tells Jenny. “When your Maman said not to touch the stove because it would burn you, I bet you went right ahead and touched it.”
    “How else was I supposed to know if she was lying?”
    “Why would somebody lie about a stove?” wonders Blanche.
    “Folks always lie to kids, don’t they?”
    “Tell me we’ve still got ice,” Arthur calls theatrically from the passage.
    “In the closet, under a blanket,” Blanche calls back. “It was the coolest place I could find.”
    “Alaskan or Nevadan?” Ernest demands.
    Blanche gives him a look. “Are you claiming you can taste the difference?”
    “Got both? We could test him blindfolded,” suggests Jenny.
    “Well,” says Ernest, conceding, “so long as it’s not that machine-made muck.”
    “Practically a puddle,” complains Arthur, coming back in with the bowl. He hands the ladies their cognacs with a few pebbles of ice in each glass.
    “Any luck at the game tonight, mon beau ?” Blanche asks him under her breath.
    Arthur winks.
    Well, that’s a pleasant surprise. She’s more used to hearing about “disappointments” or “mishaps,” as the fellows of the sporting set refer to losses.
    “Heureux au jeu, malheureux en amour,” Ernest intones lugubriously from the floor.
    “Oh, I think I’m lucky in both lines, gaming and love,” says Arthur, giving Blanche another long, spirituous kiss.
    She wishes they could go to bed, right this minute.
    “What’s your game, gentlemen?” Jenny’s asking.
    “Faro, of course,” says Ernest. “It gives the best odds, unless the bank’s rigged.”
    “You know a house in America where it’s not?”
    “My friend and I seem to make out all right,” he says sleekly.
    Jenny breaks into satirical song. “‘For work I’m too lazy,’” she trills, beating time on her thigh.
And beggin’s too low ,
Train-robbin’s too dang’rous ,
To gambling I’ll go .
    The men cackle at that. Blanche thought they’d have sent Jenny on her way by now, but they seem to be enjoying her no end. Clearly Blanche should bring strangers home more often.
    “Was your petite amie out with you two this evening?” Blanche asks Ernest.
    “Madeleine?”
    “As if you ain’t sure which I mean because you have so many lady friends and not just one loyal old blonde!”
    A rueful smirk from Ernest. Blanche has teased him about Madeleine’s age so often, it has no sting anymore. Madeleine’s placid as well as lovely, and she never seems to object to the fact that her young man spends at least as much time here, in the spare bedroom of his old intimates from Paris, as he does at her place.
    “No, we were a pair of lonely bachelors tonight,” says Arthur, striking a mournful pose. “Is that your bicycle