I'll Sing for my Dinner by BR Kingsolver Read Free Book Online Page B

me a Christmas present. But he’s not with me enough, and every time I turn around, he’s screwing someone else. I’m just tired of it.”
    “Well, I guess that’s something you have to decide,” I said. “For me, I’d rather have a man who treats me well and makes me feel loved one day a week, than one who abuses me seven days a week.”
    I wasn’t sure what I said wrong, but both Karen and Kathy looked a bit shocked.
    “You wouldn’t mind being part of a harem?” she asked. “How would you feel if Jake had a harem of women?”
    “I wouldn’t care,” I said, “as long as I was part of the harem.”
    I got up to go back to the stage and play my next set.
    “Well, you don’t have to worry about that with Jake,” Karen said. “He’s the kind of man who doesn’t screw around. All he wants is one special girl.”
    My breath hitched in my throat. Maybe that was the problem. I just wasn’t that girl. “You think so?”
    There must have been something in my voice, because Karen shot me a look. “Of course,” she said. “Everyone knows he’s head over heels about you.”
    It was suddenly hard to breathe, and my eyes filled to where I couldn’t see very well. “Everyone except me,” I managed to say, and then fled to the restroom.
    I leaned against the wall next to the sink, holding my stomach and sobbing. I thought I had it so well together, but I couldn’t deny how much it hurt.
    Kathy came in and stood in front of me. “Are you okay?” she asked. “What did Karen say?”
    “She didn’t say anything. She was just complaining about Jared,” I said, trying to get myself together. I pushed off from the wall and started drying my eyes with a paper towel.
    “I told her that I would rather have a man who treated me like a queen one day a week than a man who was around all the time and treated me badly.”
    “Has Jake been treating you badly?” Kathy asked, and I could hear the incredulity in her voice.
    The question shocked me. “Jake? Of course not. He doesn’t treat me any way at all. He treats me like a little sister. I think I’m sort of a substitute for Mary.”
    “Ahh,” was all Kathy said.
    I washed my face, dried it, and went back out to play my set. But I started thinking that I should change my situation. It had been a very long time since I wanted a man to touch me, and now that I did, he wouldn’t.
    Jake was preparing the bar for Fourth of July, and had been running ragged all week. I needed to go to the store for tampons before going to work, and Jake picked me up late. Since then, I had been thinking about talking to him.
    A month before, I finally pulled the money together to set up an appointment with a gynecologist. Everything checked out okay, and the results of all the tests were negative, for which I heaved a huge sigh of relief.
    We were eating breakfast one morning when I decided I had to say something. When I got up that morning, I felt a bit depressed. I couldn’t talk to him, or tell him anything about myself. Usually I didn’t think about that too much, but that morning it hit me hard. He obviously didn’t feel what I did.
    “Jake, I’ve saved enough to get an apartment in town,” I started, watching his face closely. “Don’t you think it would be better for me to look now, before all the university students come back to town?”
    “You don’t need to move out,” he said. “Save your money.”
    “Well, I think it would be best.”
    He finally looked at me. “Why?”
    “I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me. Honestly, I believe you saved my life. I’ve been low before, but I was never as close to giving up as I was that day. I really wondered if I would lie down in a ditch some night and never wake up. But it’s not fair to you. You have your life, and instead of being able to live it the way you want, it all revolves around me. Pick me up from here to go to work. Bring me back. Take me to the doctor or the store. I think I should let